Brand strategy and customer marketing
that actually moves numbers.
Senior marketing leader with 15+ years driving measurable revenue growth in B2B SaaS. Track record of generating $4M+ in pipeline through lifecycle marketing, multi-channel campaigns, and cross-functional GTM strategy. Specializing in brand & content strategy and customer lifecycle marketing, with a bias toward documentation, attribution, and programs that scale.
I'm a marketing generalist with a specialist's depth in two areas: brand and content strategy and customer and lifecycle marketing. Over the past several years I've worked across B2B SaaS, edtech, and early-stage startups — building marketing functions from near-zero, managing paid creative programs, and running community and customer programs end-to-end.
I'm comfortable being the only marketer in the room — equally at home writing a newsletter brief, designing a campaign attribution framework, running a webinar, or presenting strategy to a founding team. I move fast and document everything, because both matter.
My sweet spot is the early-to-growth-stage company that needs senior marketing leadership without the overhead of a full department. I embed, I own, and I build systems that outlast the engagement.
Grouptrail is a work-based learning (WBL) platform serving K-12 districts and career coordinators. When I came on board, there was no structured marketing operation — no documented processes, no content calendar, no campaign briefs, and no consistent outbound presence. I built it.
I mapped the full marketing tech stack, built the documentation layer (brief templates, UTM trackers, content pipeline), and developed a channel strategy anchored in the WBL practitioner audience. I ran the monthly newsletter, led competitive research against YouScience, Transeo, and MajorClarity, and produced a multi-conference ACTE campaign series end-to-end. The ACTE VISION conference program alone generated 20 SQLs and $300K in pipeline — with post-show email nurture tracing 7 of 8 subsequent demo webinar attendees directly back to that campaign.
The launch issue established Grouptrail's newsletter voice — warm, practitioner-first, and packed with actionable content rather than product promotion. The featured section introduced the newsletter directly to WBL coordinators and CTE teams, encouraging them to share it laterally so the burden of communication didn't fall on a single person.
"Say hello to Grouptrail's Monthly Newsletter! We have a lot of exciting things happening here and wanted to share them with our community (that's you!). With Back to School right around the corner we thought it would be the perfect time to share some insights and recommendations on kicking off your WBL programs. We would love for you to share this newsletter with everyone on your CTE team and encourage them to sign up — we will be keeping in touch monthly with important updates and would love for it to reach the right people so the burden of communicating upcoming events, new training material, and additional resources doesn't fall on you!"
The issue also included a practical WBL Program Rollout Checklist — 9 actionable steps from data sharing agreements to scheduling the first teacher training — giving readers immediate, usable value in the first send.
This pre-show eblast was written and deployed to ACTE CareerTech VISION WBL Division registrants to drive sign-ups for Grouptrail's "Trailgating" happy hour event and create awareness of their booth and sponsored session. The copy was intentional about the outdoor/trail brand personality while staying professional.
"Hi [FIRSTNAME], Come see Grouptrail at ACTE CareerTech VISION in Phoenix! There's so much to share — all of the work-based and career connected learning program best practices from our growing customer community and new Grouptrail WBL tracking features since last year's conference. We're looking forward to connecting with everyone in person and catching up!
November 29th — Grouptrail happy hour and YETI cooler raffle: We'd love for you to join us for our 'Trailgating' happy hour from 5–6:30pm. Register your interest here — by attending you'll be entered to win a YETI Tundra 35 Hard Cooler. The winner will be drawn during the happy hour and the cooler will be shipped, so don't worry about checking additional luggage!"
The post-conference follow-up sequence (two emails + social push) drove webinar registrations for the January product demo, converting conference contacts into pipeline. The raffle winners — from Idaho, Indiana, and Nevada — were announced in the first follow-up email to humanize the brand and drive newsletter sign-ups.
This issue served double duty: driving event registrations for the upcoming ACTE conference while spotlighting a customer story from the Council of Great City Schools conference. It illustrated the newsletter content strategy — always blend a timely hook with a proof point that builds credibility.
"Abigail Wolski and James Barnes covered their district's prioritization of equitable resource accessibility and accountability. Through cross-departmental relationships, district and building leaders have access to 'real-time' data thanks to Grouptrail student-level participation tracking — automatically generating live data visualization dashboards for Buffalo Public Schools to leverage and share at the building level."
At Openprise — a data orchestration and RevOps platform — I owned the community and customer marketing function end-to-end across FY21 and FY22. I generated $2.5M in new revenue pipeline through targeted multi-channel campaigns and email lifecycle management, and identified $1.2M in expansion opportunities through post-conference nurture campaigns converting prospects into qualified pipeline. I drove a 21% YoY increase in newsletter engagement and a 9.5% CTR improvement through rigorous A/B testing and content optimization.
I designed and launched the Customer Referral Program from scratch — mapping the full funnel from customer outreach to sales handoff with structured incentives ($200 per intro meeting, $2,000 per signed account). Co-owned the RevOps Toolbox product launch across in-product promos, email drip sequences, and LinkedIn paid retargeting. Ran Open21 user conference campaigns to 238 registrants and built attribution tracking across all programs via UTM-linked Google Analytics.
This is the full scope of what I ran simultaneously — not sequentially. Each was a live, recurring program with its own audience, cadence, tooling, and reporting.
Office Hours Webinar Series — Bi-weekly live sessions featuring Openprise product experts and power users. Managed topic selection, speaker coordination, registration emails, Zoom hosting, post-session video upload to Vimeo, and forum distribution. Ran sessions on lead scoring, analytics, projects, routing, and more.
Community Forum (Zendesk Gather) — Built content strategy for the customer forum, coordinated with CS and Product to ensure timely responses, and developed a protocol for routing questions across internal teams.
Customer ABM Cross-Sell Campaigns — Multi-wave campaigns targeting existing customers for upsell/expansion (TAM for SKO, Attribution, Data Enrichment). Briefed, segmented, and deployed via Marketo; coordinated with Sales Directors and AEs on targeting lists. Achieved 24–42% open rates depending on segment.
Movers & Shakers (Customer Contact Tracing) — Program to track when key customer contacts changed companies — a high-signal moment for both retention and new logo outreach. Built the tracking sheet, coordinated SFDC workflow with the RevOps team, and handed warm contacts to SDRs.
Customer Nurture Program — Three-vertical nurture tracks for customers not active in SFDC, active upsell candidates, and prospects within customer companies. Worked with CS to tag segments and build email sequences by persona.
Forrester B2B Summit — Conference presence and customer newsletter coverage. Coordinated email communications and community content around the in-person event.
G2 Review Campaign — Designed in-product pop-up copy and CSM email templates to drive new and updated G2 reviews. Incentive structure: $50 Amazon gift card for new reviews, $50 for updates. Coordinated with CS leadership and Product for in-product placement via Rey Ong.
CAB / Customer Advisory Board — Managed invitation email flow, calendar coordination, and follow-up communications for the Customer Advisory Board cadence.
NPS & CSAT Program — Set up survey cadence via SurveyMonkey, coordinated with CS on timing (post-conference, end-of-quarter), and managed distribution list hygiene.
Reference Database Program — Led vendor evaluation (SlapFive, Crowdvocate, RO Innovation, Orca) to find the right reference management tool. Tracked customer references, use cases, and sales functionality requirements. Coordinated with Lisa Wilberding on reference asks and fulfillment.
The referral program used a two-email system: a personalized outreach from the Openprise team to the customer, followed by a templated introduction the customer could send directly to a prospect. This reduced friction by making it easy for customers to act without having to write anything themselves.
"Hi [Customer Name], Given the success we've seen working together, I wondered if you would be willing to make some introductions. We are offering a pretty substantial incentive — each meeting set gets you a $200 gift card as a thank you. If that conversation resulted in a new Openprise customer, we'll send a $2,000 gift card. That applies for every introduction that converts.
I've compiled a list of companies and contacts I think could benefit from working with Openprise. Below is sample email copy if you want to copy and paste these intros."
"Hi [Referral], I'm not sure if I've mentioned it to you before, but I've been working with Openprise to tackle [insert solution used]. I thought you would be interested in exploring what Openprise has to offer, and wanted to introduce you to [AE contact] at Openprise.
[Referral], please meet [AE Contact]. [AE Contact], please meet [Referral]. Excited for you two to connect!"
The two-template approach — one for Openprise to send, one for the customer to forward — was designed to minimize the ask on customers while maximizing personalization. The program generated 3 referral responses in its Q4 pilot and was converted into an evergreen monthly cycle in Q1 FY23.
The Open21 registrant drive campaign used a coordinated two-channel approach — 1:1 emails from Customer Success TAMs and a LinkedIn Sponsored Posts campaign — targeting both existing customers and late-stage prospects simultaneously.
Objective: Drive Open21 registrations
Audiences: Customer list + late-stage prospect list
Channels: 1:1 TAM email invites (with junior CS support) + LinkedIn Sponsored Posts
Timeline: LinkedIn ads Oct 26–Nov 5 · Email 1 Oct 27/28 · Follow-up Nov 2
Campaign flow: Creative assets made → audience lists finalized → LinkedIn Ads Manager build → ad variations live → TAM emails out
Post-conference, I owned the content distribution checklist: videos uploaded to Vimeo (private showcase), conference site converted to an on-demand content hub, homepage and agenda pages updated with "Watch on demand" CTAs, and gated video content pages built with Vimeo embeds.
Momentive's paid digital marketing team needed operational infrastructure. I took ownership of the entire creative intake, scoping, and delivery process across four product pillars: Surveys+, SurveyMonkey (core), Market Research (MRx), and GetFeedback/Usabilla.
I built a Quarterly Creative Ask process that consolidated all requirements into a single structured intake before each quarter began. I developed a parallel Incremental Budget Increase workflow for mid-quarter requests — including one instance where the team needed to parallel-path new creative development in days to close a near-term revenue gap while managing over $5M already committed that quarter. I also established the Creative Review Process for external agency partners — standardizing brief flow, feedback loops, versioning, and media buyer handoffs across Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and programmatic channels.
Before I built this system, creative requests were ad hoc and reactive — teams would ask for assets mid-quarter, creating bottlenecks for the creative team and delays for media buyers. The Quarterly Creative Ask process front-loaded all requirements before the quarter started.
1. Paid team derives consensus on broader paid initiatives, aligning to OKRs and 30/60/90-day directives
2. Each pillar (Surveys+, SurveyMonkey, MRx, GetFeedback) completes a scoped Quarterly Ask template — modified for granularity and trackability across SM and external partners
3. Paid team QAs with Creative and Product Managers (owners of pillar-specific creative calendars)
4. Completed asks feed into the Surveys Marketing Creative Calendar and pillar-specific video/brand sheets
5. Approval ladders back up through respective Product Marketing owners (e.g., MRx owned by Morgan Molnar)
6. Final handoff to external agency with SM Creative Guidelines ensuring brand consistency
Top-of-funnel performance (clicks, CTR, creative association) was tracked via Google Data Studio dashboards and reviewed in weekly paid team syncs. The system eliminated the end-of-quarter creative scramble and gave the agency predictable, well-scoped briefs to work from.
Strategic marketing leadership for B2B SaaS startups and mission-driven orgs. Built $1.7M pipeline in 5 months for CAPA Strategies (climate tech) via GTM strategy, lead gen, and audience segmentation. Grew APANO program applicants from 1 to 45 via multi-channel content campaigns. Grouptrail: $300K pipeline and 20 SQLs from a single conference program.
Generated $2.5M in new pipeline and identified $1.2M in expansion opportunities across 10+ concurrent programs. Drove 21% YoY newsletter engagement growth, 9.5% CTR improvement, and 24–27% open rates across Marketo campaigns. Designed the Customer Referral Program from scratch and ran Open21 user conference campaigns to 238 registrants.
Systematized paid creative operations across 4 product lines and 6+ platforms against a $5M+ quarterly paid budget. Developed the company's first standardized marketing protocols and QA framework, improving campaign consistency across growth and content teams. Built the Quarterly Creative Ask framework and external agency review process.
Delivered 3.75x average ROI across growth initiatives through data-driven social media strategies. Guided 100+ SMBs in scaling e-commerce revenue through paid social and organic content strategy.
Every campaign gets a brief. Every program gets a workflow. Good documentation is what separates a one-time win from a repeatable system.
I don't write content before I understand who I'm writing for. Persona clarity and pain-point research come first — always.
Attribution frameworks, UTM discipline, and campaign dashboards aren't optional. If you can't tie effort to outcome, you're guessing.
The best marketing is done shoulder-to-shoulder with Sales, CS, and Product. I build programs that other teams want to be part of.