Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
Generic

CRAIG OLSON

West Des Moines,IA

Summary

High-achieving Marketing Director offering fifteen years of progressive experience in tech, business and nonprofit. Strategic decision maker and operational problem solver. Exceptional ability to develop successful programs that drive company growth.

Overview

18
18
years of professional experience

Work History

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Orchard Place
Des Moines, IA
12.2013 - 07.2020
  • Communications:.
  • Corporate Communications: PR and media relations, executive communications, crisis management, communications to business partners, and employee engagement.
  • Managed and completed routine data and reporting requests from internal stakeholders across organization.
  • Developed and implements comprehensive marketing plan with objectives, timelines, and evaluation of strategic goals.
  • Actively participated with senior management team, including attendance at senior management team meetings and board meetings.
  • Responsible for reporting progress, results, budget, etc.
  • Created and managed communications, marketing, and outreach pan, including website, newsletters, blogs, news releases, and social media platforms.
  • Redefined corporate digital content, strategy, including Website redesign, social media integration, analysis, and measurement.
  • Worked collaboratively with others to identify and understand business problems, question(s), and data needs.
  • Used knowledge of data and marketing processes to make recommendations to stakeholders.
  • Brand Strategy:.
  • Developed brand marketing plan to bring four divisions aligned with corporate messaging; building more robust competent identity.
  • Increased community and State awareness of mental health issues and solutions with strong traditional and digital content marketing programming.
  • Attained Google Ad Grant of more than $180K per year to enhance online impressions and awareness of Orchard Place programs, events, and knowledge for parents of children with mental health issues.
  • Execute, interpret, and update existing reports.
  • Document project work and findings and present to necessary teams.
  • Worked with internal stakeholders to understand various data sources and ensure quality and accuracy of data and alignment with project needs.
  • Identified and recommended process improvement opportunities in areas such as data collection and validation.
  • Worked with stakeholders to define data requirements and build, edit, and update reports and dashboards via Google Analytics.
  • Used knowledge of data and business processes to make recommendations to stakeholders.
  • Content Marketing:.
  • Earned Media: Developed strategies to expand reach and distribute content more widely, such as syndication and partner marketing.
  • Owned Media: Deployed SEO tactics to increase eyeballs and outcomes.
  • Established goals and tracked KPIs to ensure content and communications programs achieved success.
  • Strategically partnered with C-level staff and program Vice Presidents providing marketing, messaging and, digital content.
  • Increased Web visitors by 797% Customer / Client Marketing:.
  • Established Web platform for potential parent clients to receive crisis assistance in hours versus days.
  • Worked closely to produce success story interviews, videos, and case studies used in targeted campaigns for donors and supporters.
  • Produced images and video to highlight facilities during COVID-19 restrictions.
  • Oversaw entire online presence, including website copy and all social media platforms.
  • Acted as point of contact for inbound media related calls.

STAFFING MANAGER

Midwest Professional Staffing
Clive, IA
07.2012 - 10.2013
  • Sales, business development, recruiting, tracking candidates, and building business relationships that result in temp and temp to hire business.
  • Built book of business from $0 per week to $1500 in temporary placements.
  • Started as commission-only manager with no existing accounts and limited training, competing for business with team of experienced recruiters.
  • Developed marketing strategies to generate leads.

INSURANCE PRODUCER

Bankers Life & Casualty
West Des Moines, IA
04.2011 - 10.2012
  • Attained Iowa Health, Life, and Accident license.
  • Self-employed sales agent focused on Medicare supplements, long term care, and annuity products.
  • Received 2011 Q4 bonus for achieving revenue goals landing in top 10 of new agents.
  • Adhered to all regulations for insurance sales.
  • Utilized direct marketing strategies such as mailings and phone contracts to approach potential clients and increase sales.

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

GeoLearning Inc
West Des Moines, IA
07.2009 - 01.2011
  • Communications:.
  • Corporate Communications: PR and media relations, executive communications, crisis management, communications to business partners, and employee engagement.
  • Speaking Engagements: Oversee company calendar, provide support for the leadership team, including preparation for conferences, panels, and speaking engagements.
  • Industry Relations: Managed memberships have a pulse on industry news, announcements, and initiatives, and source and encourage communications around charitable events and partnerships.
  • Employee Engagement: Partnered with HR and Culture teams to develop and execute internal communications and employee engagement activities, including employer awards submissions and promotions.
  • Brand Strategy:.
  • Strategy Development: Worked cross-functionally to build the narrative around what makes the organization unique –leveraged purpose, positioning, value props, and differentiators.
  • Design: Drove brand refresh, including logo development, updates to creative guidelines, and development of corporate branded resources and templates.
  • Messaging: Evolved voice, tone, and market-facing personality updated messaging pillars, tagline, boilerplate, bios, etc., and lead the education of internal teams on new materials.
  • Product Branding: Partnered cross-functionally to develop a strong marketing strategy to support unique services such as Extended Enterprize, proprietary tools, and innovative product launches.
  • Campaigns: In charge of the planning, implementation, development of campaigns to support a subset of offerings.
  • Delivered on KPIs and communicating results.
  • Content Marketing:.
  • Copywriting: Developed written content that supports and drove corporate marketing goals.
  • Social Media: Define and executed a corporate social strategy that blended brand content, product features, marketing initiatives, and employer outreach.
  • Earned Media: Developed strategies to expand the reach and distribute content more widely, such as syndication and partner marketing.
  • Owned Media: Deployed SEO tactics to increase eyeballs and outcomes.
  • Established goals and tracked KPIs to ensure content and communications programs achieved success.
  • B2B / Customer Marketing:.
  • Corporate Support Materials: Designed and prepare a B2B pitch deck to highlight the value props and differentiators across the business.
  • Was an internal resource for corporate client-facing teams.
  • Customer Marketing: Supported in the development and deployment of client messaging, email marketing campaigns, and general efforts to communicate the value the company created for customers.
  • Product Marketing: Developed a marketing strategy to support existing and to-be-launched products and services, focusing on differentiation, education, and adoption.
  • Managed team of 8 marketing professionals, including content writers, campaign manager, event coordinator, graphic designers, and senior marketing managers.
  • Utilized new technology and processes to save more than $500K while improving return on investment with content tactics measuring marketing campaigns, reducing lead cost by 45%.
  • Improved allocation for marketing projects by implementing an effective content vertical marketing plan that was reviewed and refined monthly.
  • Aligned and defined messaging for a new Extended Enterprise offering, providing a real positional advantage over competitors trying to gain traction in a new vertical market.
  • Rebuilt and managed analyst relations program resulting in 25 briefings.
  • Managed the most successful two-day customer user conference in company history, resulting in 150+ customers and partners, generating more than $101K in conference fees.
  • Created and edited copy for materials ranging from direct mail, news releases, newsletter content, blog materials, 14 podcasts, and three major video productions, all for various vertical segments.
  • Drove SEO tactics and strategies to spread knowledge among the marketing team, improving online search results for keywords and content, resulting in a measurable increase in the number of prospects registered and downloaded materials.
  • Improved search traffic by 43%.

DIRECTOR oF MARKETING

TeamQuest Corporation
Clear Lake, IA
05.2002 - 07.2009
  • Communications:.
  • Corporate Communications: PR and media relations, executive communications, crisis management, communications to business partners, and employee engagement.
  • Speaking Engagements: Oversee company calendar, provide support for leadership team, including preparation for conferences, panels, and speaking engagements.
  • Industry Relations: Managed memberships, industry news, announcements, and initiatives, and source and encourage communications around charitable events and partnerships.
  • Employee Engagement: Partnered with HR and Culture teams to develop and execute internal communications and employee engagement activities, including employer awards submissions and promotions.
  • Brand Strategy:.
  • Strategy Development: Worked cross-functionally to build narrative around what makes organization and solutions unique –leveraged purpose, positioning, value props, and differentiators.
  • Design: Drove brand refresh, including logo development, updates to creative guidelines, and development of corporate branded resources and templates.
  • Messaging: Evolved voice, tone, and market-facing personality updated messaging pillars, tagline, boilerplate, bios, etc., and lead education of internal teams on new materials.
  • Product Branding: Partnered cross-functionally to develop strong marketing strategy to support unique services such as Extended Enterprize, proprietary tools, and innovative product launches.
  • Campaigns: In charge of planning, implementation, development of campaigns to support subset of offerings.
  • Delivered on KPIs and communicating results.
  • Content Marketing:.
  • Copywriting: Developed written content that supports and drove corporate marketing goals.
  • Social Media: Define and executed corporate social strategy that blended brand content, product features, marketing initiatives, and employer outreach.
  • Earned Media: Developed strategies to expand reach and distribute content more widely, such as syndication and partner marketing.
  • Owned Media: Deployed SEO tactics to increase eyeballs and outcomes.
  • Established goals and tracked KPIs to ensure content and communications programs achieved success.
  • B2B / Customer Marketing:.
  • Corporate Support Materials: Designed and prepare B2B pitch deck to highlight value props and differentiators across business.
  • Was internal resource for corporate client-facing teams.
  • Customer Marketing: Supported development and deployment of client communications, email marketing campaigns, and general efforts to communicate values company created for customers.
  • Product Marketing: Developed marketing strategy to support existing and to-be-launched products and services, focusing on differentiation, education, and adoption.
  • Managed team of 8 marketing professionals, including content writers, campaign manager, event coordinator, graphic designers, and senior marketing managers.
  • Utilized new technology and processes to save more than $500K while improving return on investment with content tactics measuring marketing campaigns, reducing lead cost by 45%.
  • Improved allocation for marketing projects by implementing effective content vertical marketing plan that was reviewed and refined monthly.
  • Aligned and defined messaging for new Extended Enterprise offering, providing real positional advantage over competitors trying to gain traction in new vertical market.
  • Rebuilt and managed analyst relations program resulting in 25 briefings.
  • Managed successful two-day customer user conference in company history, resulting in 150+ customers and partners, generating more than $101K in conference fees.
  • Created and edited copy for materials ranging from direct mail, news releases, newsletter content, blog materials, 14 podcasts, and three major video productions, all for various vertical segments.
  • Drove SEO tactics and strategies to spread knowledge among marketing team, improving online search results for keywords and content, resulting in measurable increase in number of prospects registered and downloaded materials.
  • Improved search traffic by 43%.

Education

Bachelor of Arts - Journalism

Iowa State University
05.1987

Skills

  • Customer Message Management
  • Content Creation
  • Public Relations
  • Media Relations
  • Analytics and Reporting
  • Branding
  • Budget Management
  • Presentation Skills
  • Vertical Marketing
  • Trade Shows & Product Demos
  • Team Building & Training
  • Prospect Identification
  • Market Forecasting
  • Video & Audio
  • Social Media Strategies
  • Thought leadership
  • Business Development
  • Strategic Planning
  • Audio, Email, Positioning
  • B2B, Features, Presentation Skills
  • Brand Strategy, Graphic, Process improvement
  • Budget Management, Insurance, Programming
  • Business Development, Team Building, Public Relations
  • Business processes, Leadership, Speaking
  • Conferences, Marketing strategies, Recruiting
  • Content, Marketing plan, Reporting
  • Content Creation, Marketing strategy, Sales
  • Contracts, Product Marketing, Strategy
  • Copywriting, Marketing, Strategy Development
  • Corporate Communications, Market, Strategic Planning
  • Crisis management
  • Clients, Media Relations, Trade Shows
  • Data collection, Messaging, Validation
  • Strategy development

Timeline

COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR

Orchard Place
12.2013 - 07.2020

STAFFING MANAGER

Midwest Professional Staffing
07.2012 - 10.2013

INSURANCE PRODUCER

Bankers Life & Casualty
04.2011 - 10.2012

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

GeoLearning Inc
07.2009 - 01.2011

DIRECTOR oF MARKETING

TeamQuest Corporation
05.2002 - 07.2009

Bachelor of Arts - Journalism

Iowa State University

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CRAIG OLSON