Marketing Portfolio & Results
Over the past 15+ years, I’ve led high-impact marketing campaigns that drive user growth, brand awareness, and revenue at B2B tech companies. Below, you’ll find a breakdown of key initiatives I’ve spearheaded, organized by marketing channel.
Product Marketing & Go-to-Market Strategy
Explore how I drove adoption and awareness of new products, drove revenue growth, and led GTM initiatives that increased user engagement.
Product & Feature Launch:
Challenge: In 2016, Animoto was at an inflection point. Our legacy slideshow product had ~100,000 paid subscribers, but the future of video was evolving. We needed a more flexible product to meet market demands. The challenge? Convincing our existing audience to embrace our new Builder product while attracting new users.
Solution: Users don’t care about tech—they care about what it enables them to do. To drive adoption and awareness for Builder, I led a strategic launch campaign focused on real-world impact:
Secured early adopters: Partnered with top brands before launch to showcase real-world use cases.
High-profile case studies: Led campaigns with Billboard Magazine and The Jane Goodall Institute, proving that even major brands saw value in a tool designed for SMBs.
Results:
Vertical-Specific Messaging: To maximize adoption of our Builder product, I identified high-opportunity verticals and new markets we could enter with our latest features. My role was to develop targeted messaging for key industries, including Pro Photography, Real Estate, Fitness Brands, Marketing Professionals, Non-Profits, and Event Professionals.
Execution & Impact: By crafting industry-specific value propositions, we positioned Builder as the go-to solution for each vertical. Notable initiatives included:
Content-Driven Marketing: Created messaging and content that fueled email campaigns for existing users and outbound campaigns for user acquisition efforts.
Vertical-Specific GTM: Developed strategies tailored to boutique gyms and fitness studios, leveraging partnerships with ClassPass and securing a speaking engagement for Animoto’s president at Mindbody’s BOLD conference.
Influencer Marketing & Strategic Collaborations
Influencers aren’t just content creators—they’re trusted voices, educators, and brand ambassadors who drive real engagement. By leveraging their reach and authenticity, I’ve developed influencer partnerships that fuel growth, increase brand credibility, and amplify product adoption. Here’s how.
Driving Growth with Influencer Marketing
Opportunity: Animoto first became cash-flow positive thanks to wedding and portrait photographers. To accelerate growth, I discovered influencers who had niche online communities, engaged email lists, and in-person audiences at conferences. Within three years, influencer marketing became a major acquisition channel, helping us reach ~15,000 paid photography subscribers.
Challenge: While pro photography grew to 35% of Animoto’s total revenue, growth eventually plateaued. We had saturated the wedding & portrait photography segment and could no longer sustain 40-50% YoY growth in new revenue from this segment.
Solution: To reignite growth, I identified untapped influencers who were interested in Animoto but needed video styles that aligned with their brand. I built a business case for VP of Product & co-founder Stevie Clifton, advocating for product updates tailored to these high-value influencers.
Results:
New influencer-driven video styles were launched, unlocking access to previously untapped audiences.
This initiative reignited growth, driving 40% YoY new bookings growth for 18 months.
Expanding Reach Through Influencer-Driven Education Partnerships
Leveraging key influencer relationships, I secured a strategic partnership with CreativeLive, a leading online education platform. This collaboration integrated Animoto tutorials and marketing education into courses watched by tens of thousands of professional photographers.
Results:
CreativeLive became a powerful acquisition channel, driving thousands of new subscribers over 2–3 years.
Sponsored courses featuring Animoto generated 200+ new customers within a week.
CreativeLive influencers drove thousands of new customers and garnered hundreds of thousands of views for Animoto course materials through livestreams and replays:
Amplifying Animoto’s Message Across Influencer Platforms
Influencers like Tamara Lackey and Vanessa Joy consistently drove thousands of views across Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, extending Animoto’s reach to key audiences. Additionally, they regularly featured Animoto on AdoramaTV, a platform with over 1 million YouTube subscribers.
Content & Video Marketing
Here’s how I successfully transitioned an early-stage product from relying on paid ads to building sustainable growth through organic content, video marketing, and community engagement.
Driving MQLs Through Organic Channels
Challenge: Paid ads are expensive and unsustainable for long-term user acquisition. When I joined Visor, the company relied on Google Ads to generate leads, but the website lacked a blog, and the site wasn’t optimized for search. I knew we could be more efficient in attracting their very specific ICP: project managers who used Jira.
In addition, their initial ICP was fairly niche: project managers who used Jira.
Solution: To reduce reliance on paid ads, I implemented a two-pronged approach:
SEO & Content Strategy: I prioritized creating SEO-optimized content to attract high-intent Jira users on Google and YouTube. Collaborating with a WordPress developer, we launched a site that scored 95+ on all Lighthouse SEO tests. I then developed a content strategy focused on addressing gaps in Jira’s product suite, with articles like Jira Timeline vs. Advanced Roadmaps & Jira Milestones in Roadmap
Atlassian Marketplace: I also worked to establish Visor as a trusted app in the Atlassian Marketplace, driving both brand awareness and Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs).
Visor quickly showed up in AI Overview’s for “Jira Milestones” and in the top spot for searches about Jira’s built-in roadmap options.
Leveraging Video for Search Discovery
We quickly began seeing traffic and MQLs, but I knew we could drive even more brand awareness and leads by harnessing the power of video.
Many of the target keywords we were targeting had video results ranking on page 1 of Google’s SERP. To capitalize on this, I created how-to videos that not only ranked on page 1 of Google, but also gained thousands of views within a few months. These videos demonstrated how to use Visor for specific use cases, positioning the brand as a helpful, trusted resource for potential customers.
Videos ranked on page 1 of Google and in YouTube search results, driving engagement, traffic, and MQLs.
SEO/Organic Results: We successfully reduced reliance on paid ads and began driving PMOs and Jira users through organic search. Over the last 10 months, we've consistently increased organic search-driven traffic month over month.
Driving Leads Through the Atlassian Community
Atlassian has a robust community ecosystem with anointed Community Leaders, local events, and an online forum. To drive brand awareness, we leveraged a few strategic approaches within this ecosystem.
Partnering with Atlassian experts:
We collaborated with Atlassian consultants and trainers to create valuable content. By identifying key influencers in the Jira space, we demonstrated how Visor could benefit their audiences. These partnerships helped us reach both international and U.S.-based users, increasing awareness of Visor across a global community.
Becoming Respected Members of the Atlassian Community
To build credibility and trust within the Atlassian Community, I (along with another marketing team member) began posting as Mike, Visor’s CEO, in the community forums. We struck a balance between promoting Visor when appropriate and offering value by answering questions from newbie Jira users, even when it had nothing to do with Visor.
Additionally, I pitched Mike as a speaker at Atlassian Community events, taking advantage of free opportunities to speak on topics where we had expertise, further growing our brand awareness.
Results from Atlassian Engagement: Increased MQLs from the Atlassian partner channel by 4x YoY through strategic influencer partnerships and content creation.
Brand Messaging for Early-Stage Companies
Early-stage tech startups often emphasize the technology itself and its cool features, but they often overlook the most important aspect: the benefits.
After my time at Animoto, I spent several months working with a privacy app that needed a complete brand overhaul. More recently, I’ve focused on highlighting how Visor, a product designed for technical users, can solve their specific pain points.
Jumbo Privacy:
I led a messaging overhaul throughout the Jumbo app (available on iPhone/Android), streamlining the value proposition to consistently communicate the core benefit: users taking back control of their data and privacy.
To achieve this, we defined the benefits of each scan the app performs and brought them to life through educational copy within the app, which led to improved activation rates.
Results: Activation rates increased by 20%.
Visor:
I took a horizontal product with many use cases and narrowed the messaging to focus on the primary use case we most frequently saw among converting (paid) users.
Additionally, I revamped the website to better align with the app’s design. Previously, there was a disconnect between the dark, heavy website and the light, user-friendly app experience, which created confusion for new users.
Results: Visor now attracts more direct and organic traffic. The product team has noted that users arriving at the site are better aligned with what Visor offers. Previously, the less focused messaging attracted users whose needs didn’t match the app’s capabilities.
Visor’s Original Website
The original website was inflexible, scoring poorly on Lighthouse SEO tests, and didn’t reflect the actual product’s look and feel. Additionally, the messaging failed to address the primary use cases of power users, resulting in a disconnect.
Visor’s New Website
The redesigned website now features more robust product pages, many of which drive new leads through SEO. The site is now centered around the key Job-to-be-Done that we discovered through paid user analysis: a project portfolio management tool.
Thought Leadership & PR
To build trust with prospects, current customers, and journalists, I led initiatives that positioned executives as thought leaders. Additionally, I spearheaded PR efforts that supported prospects throughout their purchase journey.
Executive Thought Leadership:
I partnered with Animoto’s co-founder, Jason Hsiao, to secure speaking opportunities at high-profile conferences like Social Media Week and Mindbody’s BOLD Conference, where we could engage directly with our ICP. I also secured press coverage in publications such as Adweek, positioning Jason as an expert in video marketing.
Press / Research Studies:
Challenge: Animoto initially launched as a consumer product, but within a few years, B2B became the dominant revenue stream. However, prospects had an odd experience when researching us: they often found content focused on consumer use cases (e.g., Mother's Day video cards).
Solution: To address this, I led a research initiative that surveyed businesses on trends in video marketing. The findings were quoted in dozens of reputable publications, including a feature in Forbes and mentions in Entrepreneur.
Additionally, our Business Development team collaborated with Buffer on a research study to explore the impact of vertical video. I sourced participating businesses, project-managed the tests on their Facebook and Instagram pages, and worked closely with Buffer to publish the final research report on Buffer’s blog
Email Marketing
I doubled both traffic and revenue for The Close’s email channel between 2020 and 2022 by implementing segmentation, personalization, and contextually relevant CTAs across the site that encouraged visitors to subscribe.
As a B2B publisher, The Close needed to diversify traffic after heavily relying on SEO. My email marketing efforts helped broaden their reach and drive growth.
Examples of emails are available upon request.