Selected Work 04

From interest to inquiry.

B2B Marketing & Demand GenerationHospitality, professional education, healthcare and regulated gaming

Some marketing ends with a transaction. Some starts a conversation. In hospitality, professional education, healthcare and corporate settings, I've worked on the campaigns, websites and communications that help people find a business, understand what it offers and decide to reach out.

  • Demand generation
  • Digital acquisition
  • Sales alignment

Where this work happened

  1. Director of MarketingAtomic Hospitality GroupPrivate dining, corporate events and event venues
  2. Interim marketing leadershipReal Estate Institute and Carepoint PharmacyProfessional education and healthcare
  3. Interim Marketing DirectorAccel EntertainmentRegulated, multi-location gaming
  4. Senior Digital Marketing ManagerEcentriaOpticsPlanet, CampSaver, Dvor and more

When marketing supports a sales process

Not every customer decides on the spot. A company planning an event might compare several venues, check capacity and services, talk budget internally and ask for a proposal before committing. Someone weighing a professional course or a specialized service has different questions, but needs the same things: clear information and an obvious next step.

In that kind of sale, marketing does its work before the inquiry and keeps working alongside the people who close it.

Atomic Hospitality Group · Director of Marketing

Marketing that supports business development

Alongside its restaurants and bars, Atomic books private dining and corporate events, and some of its properties are built specifically for events. Marketing supports the sales and business development team that handles those bookings.

Dedicated event venues

  • Morgan MFG
  • City Hall
  • Artifact Events

The work

  • I manage much of the advertising that supports sales and business development, with digital campaigns built to bring in event inquiries. An agency places most of the paid media, and I run some of the social ads myself.
  • We shape how each venue is presented online, so a planner can find the details they look for first.
  • We coordinate the marketing materials sales uses with prospective clients.
  • I work with sales on priorities, so marketing effort goes where the business needs it.

Someone planning an event wants to know whether a space fits before reaching out: how many people it holds, what it looks like set up, what's included and what it takes to book. The website, the advertising and the venue information all exist to make that call easier.

Handing an inquiry to sales doesn't end marketing's part. The two teams keep working together as conversations turn into proposals and priorities shift.

An inquiry isn't a booking. Marketing's job is bringing in the right inquiries and giving sales what it needs. Whether an inquiry becomes a signed contract depends on the date, the budget, the proposal and the people involved.

The audience changes. The work changes with it.

Interim marketing leadership

Real Estate Institute and Carepoint Pharmacy

Two interim assignments, one in professional education and one in healthcare. The work covered customer segmentation, digital acquisition, website strategy, messaging and campaigns.

The audiences had little in common, but in both cases people were weighing more than a casual purchase. The job was explaining a specialized offering clearly enough that they'd take the next step.

Interim Marketing Director

Accel Entertainment

A regulated, multi-location gaming business. I worked on corporate marketing, business-facing communications and digital infrastructure, including messaging for corporate and venue-related audiences.

Investor-facing communications were part of the role too, as a separate track with its own audience and rules.

Senior Digital Marketing Manager

Ecentria

Ecentria runs a group of online retailers, including OpticsPlanet, the outdoor specialist CampSaver and the members-only flash-sale site Dvor. I managed digital acquisition and performance marketing across the portfolio: acquisition campaigns, channel optimization, marketing budgets, brand launches and website conversion.

It was mostly consumer marketing, but the habits carry over: knowing what a channel costs, what it returns and where the next dollar should go.

Connecting marketing with commercial outcomes

  1. 01

    Understand the buyer

    Who's deciding, what they're comparing and what they need to know shape everything that follows: the channel, the message and the questions the website has to answer.

  2. 02

    Make the next step clear

    A prospective customer should be able to tell what's offered and what to do about it, whether that's sending an inquiry, enrolling or buying. If the next step is hard to find, a good campaign stalls.

  3. 03

    Keep marketing connected to the business

    Campaign plans, customer data, performance reporting and regular contact with sales or operations decide what happens next. Marketing that only reports to itself drifts.

Closing

The audience and the sales process have looked different from one business to the next. The job stays the same: understand what people are looking for, make the next step easier and stay close to the business that has to deliver.

Looking for someone to connect marketing with sales, or just want to compare notes? Email me, connect on LinkedIn, or get in touch here.