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We are working with ForeSee Results in their search for a Head of Marketing based — possibly — where ever you are. That’s right: One of America’s coolest, best loved analytics vendors is looking for a top marketing executive, and they are willing to bring the game to YOU.
ForeSee already has offices in Atlanta and New York City, and it may open an office in either Seattle or Los Angeles. You can work out of any of those offices. Or, if you are a PERFECT match for the role, then the company would let you work remotely and might even open an office in your city. Obviously, this would represent an incredible commitment on ForeSee’s part — but that’s how committed they are to the role. And oh yeah, the money on this deal is pretty great, so if you are a Player and don’t mind monthly trips to ForeSee’s HQ, then we want to hear from you.
Headquartered in Ann Arbor, MI, ForeSee is a pioneer in customer experience analytics, continuously measuring satisfaction across customer touch points and delivering critical insights on where to prioritize improvements for maximum impact. Because ForeSee’s superior technology and proven methodology connect the customer experience to the bottom line, executives and managers are able to drive future success by confidently optimizing the efforts that will achieve business and brand objectives. The result is better business for companies and a better experience for consumers.
As ForeSee’s business continues to grow, the firm seeks an experienced Head of Marketing. This position reports to the CEO and is an integral member of the senior executive team.
The Head of Marketing will be a strong leader and be:
- skilled at developing marketing strategy that supports current and future business and reputational goals
- experienced at directing the execution of a strategy in a clear, focused, and tangible manner
- capable of transforming strategy into tactical plans and overseeing the execution of these plans
- an excellent manager of both junior and senior staff
- a positive, collaborative, team player who can contribute to the organization’s strategy at the highest level
Key responsibilities will include management and strategic direction of Public Relations and Social Media, Marketing Communications, Events, Conferences and Shows, Branding, Industry Trends, Corporate Marketing Strategy.
In this role, you will work collaboratively with sales, product development, and client services on multiple projects, spending your time establishing both short and long-range strategic marketing plans and programs to achieve corporate objectives. You will oversee a team of marketing professionals in order to make sure that all marketing activities are clear, concise, coherent, and cohesive.
A Bachelors Degree in a relevant field or related discipline is required and a Masters or MBA is preferred. Ten years of senior marketing and supervisory experience with a demonstrated track record is required.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: This is my first go-round with Larry Freed and the team at ForeSee. Based in Ann Arbor, MI, ForeSee helps its clients better measure satisfaction across channels and then helps them figure out what improvements will produce the best return on investment. And from what I can tell, the companies who use ForeSee’s tools love them.
Here’s how it works: ForeSee asks its client’s customers a series of questions about their experiences with that client (at the brand level or with a specific touch point like the website, call center, store, mobile app, etc) and then analyzes the resulting data with a complex algorithm that correlates the relationship between the customer experience and future financial success. ForeSee tells its clients what their customer satisfaction score is, how to improve it, and quantifies what will happen if they do improve it (e.g. more sales, higher loyalty better word-of-mouth recommendations, etc.)
For example, based on more than 24,000 responses from visitors to the top 100 e-retail websites, ForeSee’s analysis shows that compared to shoppers who report being dissatisfied with a website, highly satisfied shoppers are 71% more likely to purchase from that retailer again online and 58% more likely to buy from that retailer offline. 71% and 58%!
How much is that information worth?
Satisfied shoppers also report being far more likely to return to the site, recommend it and stay loyal to the brand. Furthermore, ForeSee’s analysis of top U.S. e-retailers has shown that, on average, a one-point change in website satisfaction was found to predict a 14% change in the log of revenues generated on the web.
Point being: Customer experience matters!
ForeSee’s customer satisfaction research extends to merchandise as well, with merchandise appeal, variety, and availability appearing as a top priority for two-thirds of U.S. retailers. ForeSee’s customer experience analytics can provide retailers with a clear direction on prioritizing improvements that will yield the greatest increase in overall satisfaction, and by extension, sales, loyalty and customer recommendations.
Conventional analytics packages won’t do that. And therein lies ForeSee’s value to its customers in a wide variety of industry verticals, including financial services, government, healthcare, retail, and more. ForeSee’s mission is to improve business outcomes (sales, loyalty, and recommendations) for its clients through improved customer satisfaction.
More than 600 companies (including more than half of the Fortune 500, 70 of the top 100 retailers, and 7 of the top 10 banks in the US) look to ForeSee as their bottom-line source for strategic advantage in the marketplace. The insight that ForeSee gives companies involves taking the voice of the customer and applying science to it. It’s all about helping clients understand what they should do next in each customer touch point and at the brand level– and in other functional areas of their business.
About the role …
The companies who use ForeSee swear by it, and the company does a very strong job on filling its sales funnel and converting leads to meetings. Where the company could do better is in closing deals. Don’t get me wrong: ForeSee is in fantastic shape, and this role does not involve a turnaround. ForeSee has grown 25-30% a year or more every year since it was founded in 2001. This is not about fixing a broken system. It’s about helping an incredibly successful company achieve hypergrowth.
The key challenge for ForeSee’s new Head of Marketing is that ForeSee lacks awareness in the C-suite, which causes very long sales cycles. When a ForeSee prospect (a VP of Ecommerce, VP of Operations, Marketing Manager, etc.) goes to get approval from their executive team for the spend on ForeSee, that executive team needs to have more awareness and understanding of the value ForeSee brings so they will feel comfortable endorsing the relationship.
This is a very important aspect of this marketing job because of the number of functional areas ForeSee’s solution touches. ForeSee works in stores, call centers, mobile, social, web, and at the brand level. In fact, one of ForeSee’s core marketing challenges is that it is very well known in the web analytics world, but has had some difficulty breaking into the store and call center functions, particularly in other markets like United Kingdom in Canada.
According to ForeSee’s CEO, Larry Freed, “We have a defined a market for ourselves in the online arena, and we need our new Head of Marketing to replicate and improve on that success in other channels and at the executive level.”
”To do that, we need someone with strong leadership skills; managerial talent; the ability to think innovatively; the ability to integrate with a well-functioning executive team; deep knowledge of B2B marketing practices; campaign-based marketing experience; excellent project management skills; a solid understanding of digital marketing best practices, and a very strong track record of success in building an enterprise software business.”
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.
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