Posts

Apr. 01 2010

A resume can be a challenging document to create.  We can all talk about ourselves and our accomplishments for hours.  How do you sum that all up in an easily digestible format?  I don't think anyone has a great answer to that.

Here's my attempt. [Download Resume]

You can see the elongated version here in web format.

Apr. 01 2010

EDIT: My PDF resume is now available.  You can download it here.  That said, I would recommend you also read the following as this article provides some more insight into my accomplishments and abilities than you will be able to find in a 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.

Original Article Begins Here

I was recently laid off from Direct Logic Solutions, a Peoria, IL based D2C online marketing company.  I'll give you a brief synopsis of my dealings at Direct Logic, and an abbreviated resume here as well.  Check back a little later because I will be posting my full resume when it's finished.  Ah the joys of being unemployed!

At DLS, I was the Senior Manager of Search Marketing which entailed the conceptualization, realization, and ongoing management of online marketing campaigns.  My title denotes that my primary function was SEM (Search Engine Marketing), however my work at DLS embodied much more than that.

 

About My Work

I was the primary goto guy for the entire online marketing process, ranging from campaign strategy in Search Engines (i.e. SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising), Social Media and Networking advertising, standard banner buys, D2C email, etc., to the initial user interaction with a website, to designing and optimizing the various conversion paths (Conversion Funnels) on a website.  The primary effort was to gain awareness, send users to the site in a highly targeted manner, and streamline the process to convert.

The overall goal of my work was to implement large scale, end to end marketing for national and international clients like Hasbro, TVG, The Chicago Bears, BASF, Lionel TrainsWIlliams & Williams auction company, Day-Timer, and more.  Implementations for these clients included On Site SEO, which involved optimizing current site designs, content, and coding as well as large scale redesigns; External SEO, which included link building strategies; Search, display, social, and comparison shopping site PPC campaigns; interface usability redesigns; advanced web traffic and SEO analysis.

In my 2.5 year tenure at Direct Logic, I managed the entire SEM department.  At times I was managing up to 4 people and over $1.5 million in ad spend per year.  I am a Google AdWords Qualified individual, and a Google Analytics Certified Individual.

 

Day to Day

Day to day management of my team and accounts required my extensive knowledge in many web traffic analytics systems, PPC advertising systems, web programming, and interface design.  I am an advanced user of:

Web Traffic Analysis Tools:

  • Google Analytics
  • Omniture/Site Catalyst
  • Lyris

SEO Analysis Tools:

  • WebPosition
  • WebCEO
  • SEOmoz SEO tools

PPC Dashboards

  • Google AdWords
  • Yahoo! SM
  • MS AdCenter
  • Ask.com SL
  • Shopzilla
  • PriceGrabber
  • NexTag
  • etc.

 

I also met with my team members daily, to see if they needed help or direction.  I have always found it's much easier to spend 15 minutes with a person every day than to try and rehash something that may have gone awry because my team member lost focus or didn't understand their objective clearly.

 

The Pitch

Although I have many technical and creative skills, and I've had lot's of experience with large corporations, the most valuable trait I have is considerably intangible.  To put it simply, I connect the dots.  My experience as a web designer and developer, in SEM, in web usabiiity, in account management (both internal and external) allow me to see the big picture.  

I'm able to talk to the client, and understand their goals.  With my technical and creative knowledge, I can formulate a comprehensive strategy AND the plan to execute.  Then, I can communicate the plan and the steps involved to my team in a way that they understand, from a development perspecitve, creative perspective and management perspective.

So, like I said, I can connect the dots and end up with a cohesive finished product.

 

The Highlights

I thought it might be easier for you to digest some of the highlights from what you have already read, and some that you haven't if I put them in an easy to read, list format.  Sort of like an abbreviated resume.

My resume is ready for your viewership.  Download it here.

 

Acheivements

Increased Direct Logic PPC revenue by more than 200% in 2 years.

Over $2.5 million dollars in PPC ad spend managed while employed at Direct Logic.

Brought in and managed accounts more than 7 lasting clients, most of which subscribed to most or all of Direct Logics services.

Managed up to 4 people, and interfaced with all internal departments.

Consistently managed accounts to meet or exceed client ROI and conversion goals for online marketing.

Implemented all policy and procedure, from account set up, management, service agreements, to invoicing for the the Direct Logic SEM department.

Promoted to Senior Manager of Search Marketing within 7 months of employment.

Google AdWords Qualification

Google Analytics Certification

 

 

Client list

 

 

Knowledge Base

Web Traffic Analysis Tools:

  • Google Analytics
  • Omniture/Site Catalyst
  • Lyris
  • Urchin

SEO Analysis Tools:

  • WebPosition
  • WebCEO
  • SEOmoz SEO tools
  • Several Online Tools

PPC Dashboards:

  • Google AdWords
  • Yahoo! SM
  • MS AdCenter
  • Ask.com SL
  • Shopzilla
  • PriceGrabber
  • Become
  • NexTag

Web Development:

  • HTML/CSS [Including XHTML, HTML4, HTML5, CSS2, and CSS3]
  • PHP/MySQL
  • ASP.NET
  • JavaScript
  • XML
  • ActionScript 2.0 & 3.0

Content Management Systems:

  • Drupal 5 & 6
  • Wordpress
  • Joomla
Browser Proficiency:
  • MS Internet Explorer 4 - 8
  • Mozilla Firefox 2 - 3
  • Apple Safari
  • Google Chrome
  • Opera
Production / Design Application Proficiency:
  • Adobe CS4 [Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, etc.]
  • Adobe Flash
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Panic Coda
  • Panic Transmit
  • MS Office

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this.  I am looking forward to hearing from you.

 

May. 13 2009

Hello everyone!

Our founder, Lyle Rohr, has created a personal blog site to discuss topics of business, freelance, insights, marketing, and technology.  Check it out at TeaIsTasty.com.

Stay tuned for more from the SurviveStyle WeBlog as well.

Mar. 16 2009

Some fantastic work found on dropular.net created by a deviant artist at deviant-art.com.

Mar. 09 2009

We absolutely love the Drupal community.  Fanatic or not, Drupal developers, themers, or general advocates are always looking to expand and welcome anything Drupal.  We're proud to have been linked to from drupal sightings.  You can find our link here, we're the 4th bullet down.

Thanks guys!

Mar. 04 2009

Hey all you Drupal fanatics!  We have been working with Druapl for a while and thought all you other Drupal developers might like a goto source for startup, site upgrade or speeding up your development process.  Below is a short list of modules that can be a huge help to install before you even start theming or developing.  We would recommend them to anyone, even our own family.  They're that good.

Here's the list, all of these are organized by category and have descriptions below.

  1. Admin Menu
  2. Devel
  3. Content Construction Kit - CCK
  4. Views
  5. Imagefield
  6. Filefield
  7. Wysiwyg
  8. Google Analytics
  9. Ubercart
  10. Thickbox
  11. Token
  12. Pathauto
  13. Feedburner
  14. Nice Menus

 

Drupal modules for site development and theming/skinning:

1. Admin Menu

Administration Menu Screenshot

The Admin Menu is by far and above one of the biggest enhancements that has come to Drupal in terms of ease of use.  This wonderful module simplifies the standard Drupal Administration Menu by placing it at the top of every page (when logged in) and utilizing multi-level flyout menus.  If you haven't been using this, you're going o kick yourself for not knowing about it.  Not to mention it's fashionable styling!

2. Devel

Devel is equally as mindblowing, but in a slightly different spectrum.  If your Drupal theming or development takes you into template file modifying, function calling, node accessing, dummy content generating, or performance logging, you'll want to get your mouse hand on this module.  Devel can be a memory hog sometimes, so be prepared to turn it off when you aren't using it.  It's worth it though.  So worth it.

 

Must have Drupal modules for content creation and management:

3. Content Construction Kit - CCK

We're not sure how we were able to construct any content before CCK.  The CCK is a complete must-have for just about any Drupal site.  It allows you to create your own custom content types, assign them different fields, and makes both theming and content creation/management a snap! Too corny?

4. Views

Views, especially partnered with CCK, makes Drupal the most powerful CMS you'll ever know.  Views allows you to create page, block, and feed versions of one or more nodes of a particular content type.  It allows you to sort and filter any way you could really want.  Check it out, the description on Drupal.org is quite a bit more in-depth.

5. Imagefield

The Imagefield module is pretty straight forward in name and function.  When installed, it allows you to add a specific field that is an image to any content type with several upload and output options.  Not too many frills, but extremely necessary.

6. Filefield

Much like Imagefield allows you to include images in your content, Filefield allows you to upload files easily.  Many other modules need this module to function properly, so why not just get it right off the bat?

7. Wysiwyg

We like Wysiwyg.  It's not that we don't know how to handcode HTML into small textareas in the backend of our site, we would just rather type it in as we want it.  Oh, and if we want to add an image right into the content, we can.  It's really just that easy.  It is actually a nice wrapper for such Wysiwyg text editors as TinyMCE.  It makes the install clean and easy, and usually dampens the quirks of the editor of your choice.  Plus, it allows you to apply different wysiwyg editors to different content types and so on.

 

The Google Analytics Drupal module:

8. Google Analytics

At this point, everyone developing for the web should know about the Google Analytics web traffic analysis suite.  Not suprisingly, the vast community of Drupal module developers have created an extremely easy solution for adding the Google Analytics trackings code to you Drupal site.  All you need to do is type in your GA profile number to activate.  We know GA isn't always the best solution for everyone, but for an entirely free and comprehensive analytics suite, we like it a lot.

 

Drupal Ecommerce:

9. Ubercart

Ubercart is a shopping cart software designed to interface with Drupal.  The original was built for Drupal 5, however they have finally worked all the kinks out of the Drupal 6 version.  It has a veritable plethora of product display, payment, and shipping options.  It even has functionality for fullfillment and inventory control.

10. Thickbox

"The Thickbox module is a wrapper for the jQuery plugin ThickBox."  Coulrn't have been said any better.  Also, you'll need this for Ubercart to run successfully in Drupal 6.

 

Other generally needed modules:

The modules below are generally necessary or can just make your site cleaner, or make certain actions easier, or we just thought they were cool.  Either way, here you go.

11. Token
12. Pathauto
13. Feedburner
14. Nice Menus

Feb. 18 2009

Every now and then we like to throw out a link that might help out those in our community.  Once upon a time we found this great, and extremely simple web safe font display page over at AmpSoft. 

They've made it easy to see what your site's font will look like via the different browsers on different platforms.  This comes in really handy when you're designing using web standards and you want to make sure that fontwill look somewhat similar accross platforms. 

So use it, live it, love it, learn it, whatever other "it" you want to do will probably be fine too.

Feb. 12 2009

"Authenticity is invaluable; Originality is non-existent."  -Jim Jarmusch

Found this quote and immediately had to post it.  

Feb. 11 2009

The world of media bookmarking has grown with the recent launch of Dropular.net.  Dropular resembles FFFFOUND in that it's social bookmarking site based specifically for images and video.  Users tag their individual entries and Dropular groups them.  You can sift through images with some ease by using your arrow keys as they've added some javascript to facilitate.

Give it a try, it's in the beta testing stages and you can still get an account at this point.  We missed the sign up for FFFOUND if there ever was one, but you can check out our stream at http://dropular.net/user/survivestyle.

Feb. 05 2009

Gates looses a swarm of mosquitoes at TED2009

I suppose releasing mosquitoes into an audience these days is an acceptable attention getter.  Bill Gates unleashed a small swarm of mosquitoes into the audience at TED2009 yesterday, telling them that "Not only poor people should experience this."  Apparently these mosquitoes didn't carry Malaria, but that had to be a very frightening and awkward experience.

Note to self, find the snack bar while Gates is speaking next year...

Jan. 26 2009

We just rolled out the fresh new look for DanielMFG.com!  Daniel MFG INC is a small company with some absolutely huge ideas in demolition equipment design.  Developers of The Beak, a highly usefull and efficient (so we understand) demolition tool for small excavators, sells equipment to vendors and clients internationally.

Check it out!

Jan. 26 2009

When it comes down to Search Marketing, your clients are probably all about return on investment- and rightfully so. Several of my clients are concerned about their ROI and measure what is essentially the same statistic, but with a different name. Some prefer ROI, and some prefer A/S (Advertising Spend/Sales Revenue), and some just prefer the net profit dollar amount to increase. While they are all measuring the same thing essentially, A/S is probably the easiest metric to use when determining how to optimize your PPC campaigns to meet specific ROI needs.

Let’s say that your client, Fred’s Deli Meats, has an ROI goal of 300%. This means that for every $1 Fred spends, he will be putting $3 back in his pocket. So what is this as an A/S? $1 Ad Spend / $4 Revenue = 25%. So Fred needs his PPC efforts to run at a 25% A/S.

Now let’s look at how the keywords within his campaigns are performing. All of the keywords in an ad group are running at the same Max CPC (cost per click). You notice that Italian Salami is brining in a ton of clicks, but rarely ever resulting in a sale, while Roast Beef has a 5 to 1 (or 20%) conversion rate. What do we do with these 2 keywords? We know that Italian Salami is primarily spending campaign budget without yielding any sales, therefor limiting the ability for Roast Beef to convert. So, we want to make sure that Italian Sausage’s A/S never rises above the 25% threshold.

To ensure this, we will apply this simple formula (RPC - Revenue Per Click):

RPC * (25% + standard percentage difference in Average CPC and MAX CPC Bid) = MAX CPC

This will ensure that your non-performing keywords will perform at an acceptable A/S level while allowing the best performing keywords to excel.

Jan. 10 2009

This will be a short post because we're still so busy, but we would like to welcome you to the new SurviveStyle.com!  We have been working with a great deal of clients lately, so keep on the lookout as we update our works.

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