Archive for category Business
Bob Kumagai – Resume
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business on January 10th, 2010
Bob Kumagai
Email: bkumagai@gmail.com
SUMMARY
A seasoned executive and proven leader for strategic marketing and online advertising activities that excels in fast-paced, innovative environments, developing profitable products and effective digital marketing initiatives. A strong team-builder with expertise in driving revenue, lead generation and profitable channel development.
Skill Sets:
E-Commerce Planning and Development |
Database / Segmentation Marketing |
Email Marketing Strategy |
Product Development |
Website Analytics & Business Intelligence |
Affiliate Marketing |
Search Engine Optimization and Search Marketing |
Social Media Strategy |
Media Planning and Budgeting |
Website Design and Content Management |
Strategic Partnership Development |
Public Relations and Corporate Communications |
Brand and Product Management |
Information Architecture |
SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Developed product roadmaps and multi-year strategic marketing plans for digital e-commerce platform driving over $450 million annual sales.
- Built a comprehensive marketing team driving double-digit growth in the digital products vertical.
- Manage major website redesign and information architecture processes to support $28 million EBITDA.
- Implemented marketing automation processes integrating enterprise email systems and CRM system.
- Initiated a tradeshow and event marketing program generating over $35 million in new account sales.
- Developed and managed global marketing programs generating more than $46 million in incremental sales.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
ClickBank 2010 – Present
Global e-commerce platform for digital products
Vice President of Marketing
Responsible for all operational and strategic marketing activities, including product development, marketing communications, pricing, social media, content development, website design, media and public relations, tradeshows and events, lead generation, training and knowledge transfer, brand and creative development and awareness, and promotional initiatives that establish ClickBank as the most trusted and profitable platform for online entrepreneurs to promote and sell digital products around the world. Lead a team of marketing and product development professionals and establish the go-to-market strategy for a $450 million e-commerce platform, payment processing and affiliate/performance marketing network. Also has responsibility for the global initiatives of supporting e-commerce transaction growth in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Manage and lead strategy for the language translation processes that support the business worldwide. Drive incremental net revenue through advertising sales programs and strategic partnerships that directly impact $2 million EBITDA. Act as the primary sponsoring executive for all product development and maintenance projects to the IT teams. A key member of the executive team reporting to the CEO and COO.
onTargetjobs 2006 – 2009
The web’s largest portfolio of niche job boards
Vice President of Strategic Marketing
Lead the product development and strategic planning for the Niche Job Board group. Responsible for new product development, product lifecycle, and annual marketing plans for the healthcare, biomedical/pharma, medical device, and restaurant/hospitality job board properties. Manage and develop a team of product directors and managers, P&L accountability for site technology, content and functionality. Lead collaborative product feedback and development teams with sales and account management leadership. Develop and execute on presentation and data layer transitions for legacy business units into enterprise web services products supporting over $68 million in revenue. Act as the primary sponsoring executive for all IT product development and maintenance projects for industry job board sites. Institute website analytics and metrics management tools and processes to monitor traffic levels and website performance. Additional responsibilities included the strategic planning and tactical delivery of all traditional and online marketing programs for the Healthcare division of onTargetjobs. Responsible for online products, marketing services, social media, print media campaign management, direct marketing execution and list acquisition, email acquisition and retention marketing programs, PR, traffic generation, online and offline advertising, association and channel partner management and event/exhibit support.
Avis/Budget Group (Budget Truck Rental) 2006
Nation’s second largest truck rental company, a subsidiary of Avis Budget Group
Head of Internet Marketing & E-Commerce
Direct the online marketing plan and strategy for transitioning the enterprise reservation process off of national call center and local dealer channels toward Internet. Manage in-house and agency teams of marketing associates, analysts, consultants, implementation agencies, IT and project managers to support revenue channel of over $80 million. Plan, develop and support marketing efforts to the consumer, commercial and resale sites. Source and select all third-party agency partners. Manage paid Search Engine Marketing, organic Search Engine Optimization, Paid Inclusion, Customer Support functions and direct all online advertising buys. Support and drive the information architecture and design of new consumer site with a development budget of over $1 million.
Digitally Unique 2005-2006
Online retailer focused on consumer electronics and IT products
Director of E-Commerce
Responsible for developing and managing all third party programs to drive qualified traffic to the site and for acquiring new content to drive conversions to sales. Managed paid search, natural search engine optimization, comparison shopping engines, affiliate sales channel, portal placements, and media planning and buying. Implemented best-of-breed site search functionality to increase sales by 60% over previous solution.
Avenue A | Razorfish Search 2004-2005
Search Engine Management arm of the Internet’s largest independent interactive agency
Director of Account Management & Affiliate Strategy
Responsible for strategic planning and execution of paid search campaigns, training and supervision of a team of senior strategic account managers and analysts. Managed and implemented methodologies for maximizing profitability of advertising campaigns deployed through Google, Yahoo!, MSN and syndication partners. Supported and provided business development for the implementation and program management of clients’ affiliate partner programs. Provided strategy, recommendations and implementation plans for search engine optimization, performance-based display advertising, and site conversion improvement. Deployed client-facing documents, reporting and account manager review processes. Managed key client relationships generating over $2 million in direct agency revenues.
LinkShare Corporation 2000-2004
Largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet
Senior Program Manager
General manager of key clients’ online performance marketing and sales agency programs. Strategic management for company clients including Chase, Ford Direct, Disney, Columbia House, Dell, and Carlson Hotels Worldwide. Planned, launched and managed over 30 online marketing programs, generating more than $56 million in direct revenue and lead generation value for clients. Responsible for design, budget, implementation and execution of marketing plans. Coordinated account teams of developers, technical support, copywriting, data analysts and traffic managers to drive client results. Skilled in affiliate performance marketing operations, deploying permission-based e-mail campaigns, and management of paid search placements, paid inclusion, and sponsored display advertising.
Pediatric Web 1999-2000
Healthcare content portal for physicians
Director of Marketing
Developed and implemented strategic marketing and sales plan for start-up healthcare information portal and website design and hosting platform. Implemented online affiliate network and strategic content partnerships with pediatric offices nationwide.
Teknologie Asset Konsultieren 1998-1999
IT and asset management group, Züg Switzerland
Strategic Management Consultant,
Developed and implemented IT-based asset management systems for LawLandee, Inc., a manufacturer/distributor/retailer of children’s apparel in China. Responsible for the specification, selection, and implementation of financial management and inventory control systems. Built the IT supply chain plan leading to securing $5 million of venture capital for operational expansion.
Disky Business, Inc. 1988-1996
Retail music and video store
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Designed and implemented business, marketing, and capital formation plans. Managed site selection and lease negotiations. Supervised all aspects of advertising, financial planning, budgeting, information systems, merchandising design, publishing, joint venture activities, human resource, tax and legal compliance issues. Took start-up from its inception to a market leader position within three years, becoming one of the highest grossing independent music retailers in a five-state area. Introduced electronic IT solutions for both customer and internal activities, including inventory control, point-of-sale, music sampling, in-house publications and special ordering.
EDUCATION
Masters of Business Administration, Daniels School of Business, University of Denver
Bachelor of Science, Marketing, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado at Boulder
Measuring ROI 10 Years On…
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Technology on December 28th, 2009
Robot Last Click
To say that there have been seismic changes over the past 10 years in the ways that we market online is to belabor the obvious. That said, let’s belabor anew as the “00’s” come to a merciful end and we head into 2010. Among the most significant have been the erosion of the walls that existed between the online or digital activities of marketers and those of the traditional or offline variety. In 2000 it wasn’t uncommon at all for a company or brand to have a distinctly separate dotcom marketing team (and even business unit) from the majority of its marketing activities. The notion of silo’d digital marketing has become one that businesses adhere to at their peril as the wisdom of integration and alignment of all marketing channels has grown to become the prevailing wind. In other words, your website had better be telling the same story as your retail locations, you catalogs, your customer service teams, sales teams, as well as PR and brand support. Customers have come to expect your brand’s narrative around value, service or pricing to be consistent across each and every touchpoint they encounter. This is no longer about being a visionary, this about basic blocking and tackling.
Another important change has been the increasing emphasis upon more accurately measuring the ROI of those marketing channels. If businesses have learned anything from their online initiatives, it is that a great many of them can be measured in a way that their offline activities cannot. Of course, the fact that an activity can be measured does not necessarily mean that it should be, at least in the way that we have done so to date. What flows out of this reality is that marketers must apply some manner of metric to everything that they do – online and offline. There is certainly nothing revolutionary about the idea of measuring and applying critical analysis of how resources are spent, but it begs the question of whether businesses are measuring the right things and if those metrics are valid. The beauty of the Google paid search machine is that you get a pretty clear picture of what happens when you put money in the slot, i.e., a click costs a dime, it takes 100 clicks to get an action so voila! the cost to acquire is ten bucks. This leads to ROI calculation that is clean, relatively accurate, and aligns neatly with the silo’d activities of ten years ago. Unless you are a pure-play (online or offline) and market in only one channel, this model can lead to inaccurate metrics at best, and poor decision making around resource allocation.
If only it was so simple to measure the investment in marketing collateral, tradeshow displays, online and offline display advertising, direct marketing efforts, customer retention and lifetime values, search marketing, broadcast, social media, and so on. Truly integrated and multi-disciplinary marketing requires more thoughtful measurement models. Relying upon “last click” attribution today makes no more sense than using a print publication’s circulation and pass-along rates did when the magazine and newspaper business was still healthy. The challenge remains to blend the various aspects of a comprehensive marketing mix and emerge with a more holistic view of what is spent and what that resulted in.
Steve Kerho of Organic reported some interesting findings in a recent post on developing an “analytics ecosystem” model for multi-modal campaigns across the web. Paid search, display (banner) ads and branded website activities showed some inter-relationships that confirm what many marketers have “known” but have had difficulty demonstrating. To wit, paid search performs better when a user sees display ads prior to clicking through a search ad; branded sites converted at much higher rates when display ads were viewed in prior sessions, but after too many display impressions performance fell off. Clearly, utilizing a last-click attribution model around your paid search campaigns risks undervaluing concurrent campaigns in different vehicles. The temptation to discard every activity but paid search requires the development of proxy metrics and blended or weighted analytics to more fully capture ROI. The long story short is that being able to model and manage the data will be a minimal requirement for marketing in the coming years. Marketers that can develop or partner with those that can aggregate and segment data will have the best chance of success going forward. Sound familiar?
Managing Communication Differences
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Technology, That's Life on November 4th, 2009
Texting - Multitasking or Distraction
An ongoing discussion in both the workplace and the home is whether the persistent usage of social communications tools represents an efficiency gain or a distraction. Jeffrey Zaslow writes in today’s Wall Street Journal of the conundrum that businesses, schools and homes find themselves in – are younger workers and students able to accomplish tasks and incorporate and retain new information more or less effectively while they are awash in the continuous waves of text messages, Facebook posts and tweets? It’s safe to say that this is something of a generational difference with teachers and school assistant principals in agreement with most managers of “a certain age” that the non-stop digital social networking represents a lack of focus (at best) and a titanic time suck (most likely).
A great many workers under the age of 30 (i.e., those that have emerged from their teens and college years never knowing that information existed in a world without Google or Wikipedia) not only believe that they are able to effectively multitask but that, in fact, they are more efficient and waste less time than their, ahem, more mature colleagues on such wastes of time as holding meetings or making phone calls. All of us have had to endure our own Michael Scott-like managers at some point in our careers and understand that a significant proportion of meetings accomplish little more than what the average Facebook post does – at least with regard to how everyone’s weekend/game/vacation/kids are doing. Granting that, there is value and a craft to engaging directly with another human being in a non-digital communications channel. While many points of fact can be effectively shared via a text or IM, the nuances of context and agreement, understanding and alignment, are not so easily whittled down to 140 characters or less. Success in school and in business often is driven by strong interpersonal skills and the capacity to understand a colleague’s thoughts, beliefs and motivations.
In most workplaces and schools (as in most homes), trying to deny the utility and ubiquity of modern digital communication tools becomes its own waste of time. Obsessively checking Facebook or texting during classes or meetings is not going to work for any business or school. The challenge will be in setting standards for appropriate usage and in gathering factual data that shows if those Gen Y workers really are as efficient as their more seasoned colleagues believe themselves to be or are a distracted set of hyper-socializers that accrue vast quantities of information that is trivial from relationships that are shallow. For both business executives and school administrators (as well as parents) it is vitally important to become conversant and familiar with these social tools – not doing so makes managing them impossible.
Social Media Strategy for CACI
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Colorado, Technology on October 22nd, 2009
Pepsi’s Amp App Apoplexy
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, That's Life on October 15th, 2009
Amp Up
The marketing and advertising world is running around with its hair on fire in response to a new and tasteless iPhone app. To paraphrase Casablanca’s Captain Renault – “I’m shocked, shocked to find that sophomoric sexism is going on in advertising!” Continuing in the fine tradition established by countless beer, cigarette and fashion advertisers, Pepsi released an app called “Amp Up Before You Score”. The idea, that must have been cooked-up sometime between lunch recess and 8th grade algebra class, is to provide helpful hints to the average energy drink consumer on how to “score” with women. Upon selecting “Married” you’ll find this valuable set of tips – “Be careful with this one. The married woman could bring both pleasure and peril. But tread lightly, because a shotgun-bearing husband may not be far behind.” Providing timeless (and no doubt effective) pick-up lines like “Do you have a lot of divorced friends?” and “Do you believe an open relationship can work?” Where was this app when I needed it?
Heaven knows that after downing a few of these caffeine and sugar-laden energy beverages a guy could use a few helpful tips on what to say to the wide variety (24 types, including the “sorority girl”, “tree hugger”, and “rebound girl”) of women that are anxious to hook-up with an Amp swigging winner. Even better is that the app allows you to report your success on Facebook and Twitter – sweet use of the API, dude!
The folks at Pepsi are probably scratching their heads over whether all of the publicity and web searches for “Amp” is an enormous public relations fiasco or one of the best examples of the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Whether we’re talking selling drinks, food or sports, sex has always been the easy and effective path to the wallets of the average American male. The surprise isn’t that sex continues to sell all types of products – it’s more the abject stupidity of whoever gave this bit of crassness the green light. Not surprising, just not very inspired marketing.
Healthcare Reform Starts To Get Funny – Finally
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Politics, That's Life on September 29th, 2009
Now that this summer’s townhall scream-a-thons are over, can we get on with the business of mocking both sides of the healthcare reform debate? Thanks to Daniel Lyons for posting this on his blog The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tnhVwgrPBg
Did You Know? Now You Will
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Technology on September 22nd, 2009
The Economist’s Media Convergence Conference is coming up next month in New York. If the two days are half as interesting as this four minute video, it might be worth the price of admission. Thanks to Marta Kagan at Espresso for posting this 4-minutes of mental calisthenics.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8&feature=player_embedded
Happy Anniversary?
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Politics on September 15th, 2009
So one year ago the truckload full of risk called Lehman Brothers hit the wall and so began a series of events that had many thinking that we were headed into the Great Depression Version 2.0. One year later we all know the names of the firms that most Americans had only the faintest sense of recognition toward – AIG, Bear Stearns, Barclays – as well as the well known institutions that suddenly went from being pillars of stability to virtually insolvent – Wachovia, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual. There are hundreds of recaps of the week that resulted in the most fundamental and sweeping injection of government into private markets since, well, ever.
What’s most concerning is how little has changed. Alex Berenson’s article in the NY Times describes that despite the fact that we drove to the edge of the cliff and stared into the abyss, the companies that are “too big to fail” are still there, no meaningful changes in regulatory oversight have been put into place, compensation still richly rewards high risk-taking with little downside for poor results, and on and on.
Among the blessings that are also the curses of human nature is our short collective memory. With chairman Bernanke declaring the recession over, the stock market back in positive territory and $700K average bonuses at Goldman Sachs you’d think it was 10 years ago that we thought the world economy was coming to an end instead of a mere 365 days. It’s only the billions of dollars in debt that our kids (and grandkids) will have to eat and the 7 million idled workers that will remain as reminders of how close we came to utter disaster.
Customer Service Redux – Thule’s Response
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, Technology on September 8th, 2009
A couple of weeks back I wrote of the high cost of retaining customers when your customer service doesn’t match-up with your marketing message. You can read the original post here – the quick review is that a relatively small but important part of a Thule bike rack had broken. Their customer service, while responsive, was of little help. The rack was returned to the retailer (REI) where it was refunded promptly. The net result was a loyal REI customer and a determination to purchase anything but a Thule product in the future.
Apparently, the folks at Thule monitor the web for blog posts and tweets that mention their brand. The day after the original post I received an email from Thule’s Director of North America Customer Service that read:
Dear Customer Service Reps,
Please take the time today to read the below Customer Service story.
http://mudslingonline.com/?p=475
This is the devastating repercussion of not going the extra mile with our consumers.
I cannot believe this poor consumer service comes from our department. I am shocked and disappointed.
This will be addressed in our upcoming meeting.
Over the course of the next few days I was contacted by Thule and they graciously shipped a new rack to my front door. That may fall into the category of “overcompensating”, but I appreciated both the company’s response and their subsequent follow-up. From the standpoint of customer service, it appears that Thule’s management will be stressing the importance of “going the extra mile”, i.e., to get the small details right the first time. Now to be fair, Thule’s customer service wasn’t unresponsive – the rep that handled the issue initially just let a logical resolution fall on the floor. What is probably a $10 part morphed into a $450 headache.
So a few lessons for those of us in the brand and product marketing spaces:
- Customer retention requires consistent training and management support to ensure that the staff members directly engaged with customers are doing the right things and understand the importance of their roles. The best customer service is driven from the staff level up – when the rep knows the right thing to do and is expected and empowered to do it.
- Leveraging online tools to monitor blogs and social networks can provide rapid and actionable insight into how your brand and products are being positioned – not by you but by your customers.
- Competitive intelligence and opportunities can be captured via monitoring those same online tools. A competitor such as Yakima could have had an easy P.R. win by stepping in through Twitter.
- Visible and direct acknowledgment of identified service issues – both internal to your organization and externally to customers – is a great way to help ensure that the marketing message, product benefit and brand positions stay aligned.
So kudos to Thule’s management for stepping in quickly and authoritatively. They chose to go that extra mile to win-back a customer. Now it’s time for a bike ride…
A Tale of Two Customer Service Experiences
Posted by Bob Kumagai in Business, That's Life on August 24th, 2009
In these recessionary times companies would do well to remember that retaining their existing customers is a far less costly activity than attracting newbies. My experience has been that it is not unusual for new customer acquisition costs to run 4x (or more) the cost to hold onto what they’ve already paid for. Case in point is a recent experience with sports equipment rack manufacturer, Thule.
I had spent about $400 for a Thule bike rack a few years back – not an insignificant price for an accessory that did an awful job of enhancing the appearance of my vehicle, but a pretty good job of holding bikes. This thing weighed enough to induce a round of Advil shots every time I installed it into the hitch of the SUV. A good product with a lifetime warranty. Long story short, a fairly important part, i.e., the part that keeps the bikes from swinging wildly from side-to-side, failed during a recent roadtrip (more on that in upcoming posts).
Thule’s website provides a customer service link and a form post that allows you to submit questions and requests for help. I filled out the form and received an email back from a Customer Service Representative in about a day. So far, so good. The rep seemed a little fuzzy on which rack I had and what part had failed. Their CRM system required that any reply messages be written inside of some text brackets within the body of the email rather than allowing me to simply reply. I found this out after a couple of failed attempts to provide additional info.
Because your reply will be automatically processed, you MUST enter your reply
in the space below. Text entered into any other part of this message
will be discarded.
[===> Please enter your reply below this line <===]
[===> Please enter your reply above this line <===]
If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question at
http://thule.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/thule.cfg/php/enduser/acct_login.php?p_userid=xslkjlksdk.com&p_next_page=myq_upd.php&p_iid=87338&p_created=sdddfddddd” target=”_blank”>http://thule.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/thule.cfg/php/enduser/acct_login.php?p_userid=sdkjxlkekjkl.com&p_next_page=myq_upd.php&p_iid=873922&p_created=124932666
Note to businesses – don’t ask me to do things in a way that is completely inconsistent with what most customers expect. I know your CRM wants replies a certain way, but that’s good for you, not for me. Still no ability to figure out which model rack so I asked if sending a photo would help. The CSR went around the system and provided a direct email address where I could send pictures. That was good, but this is what came back…
…we don’t make it anymore. We don’t have the knob you are requesting available
That was it. No more emails, no additional advice on where to find the part – not so much as a discount coupon for a new rack. In other words, “see you later sucker!” I then went to REI where I had purchased the rack 4 years earlier thinking that they might have a spare part. Their CRM system was a human being that told me to bring the rack back to the store and they would issue a refund. She explained that their customer service policy is to guarantee unconditional satisfaction. Thule’s warranty is described as “lifetime*” – the asterisk apparently means that if they still make it or have an extra part laying around the warehouse, they’ll be happy to help. The REI service rep said that “Thule will have to deal with us on this” – I suspect that when what must be your largest retail customer drops a 4-year old broken bike rack in your lap your response is “Thank you.”
So what’s the end result? REI has me for life. The replacement rack will come from somebody other than Thule and I’m writing this as a way to spread the word that doing customer service right is the best economic solution. Perhaps Thule will regain me as a customer someday, but it’s going to cost them much more than before.