Company: ReachForce, Austin, TX
Company Description: ReachForce delivers cloud-based data solutions for B2B marketing professionals to accelerate leads to revenue. The Connected Marketing Data Cloud provides continuous marketing data enrichment and predictive insights to help B2B marketers like Act-On Software, Dassault Systemes, Eloqua, GXS, Marketo, ReadyTalk, and Webtrends increase and accelerate digital marketing program results.
Nomination Category: Marketing Professional / Organization Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Marketer of the Year

Nomination Title: Mary Firme, Director of Marketing

Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since January 1 2012 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Mary joined ReachForce in July 2012. The brief for Marketing Director was all-encompassing: demand generation, Marketo marketing operations and program development, field marketing, PR, web, blog, social and ad hoc communications. Before signing on, leadership made clear they were asking for the impossible – 1 person doing the job previously held my 3 – and Mary signed on. 

In the 9 months since starting, Mary has moved – and measured -- the following marketing mountains:

1) Rebuilt marketing automation nurture, including a wildly successful campaign that included an email traffic booth builder with subject line: “Marketo Summit, Free Beer and Gold For Everyone” Sent to 1200 suspected conference pre-registrants, measured open rate was 42.8%, Click through was 37.7%, and 22 leads were collected unexpectedly. In addition, 40 people wrote back to ReachForce directly congratulating on the email, the fabulous content, their new love of ReachForce, and indicated they had passed it around their entire marketing group

2) Increased event ROI by more than 400% as measured solely in booth leads at  Marketo Summit event, generating the most leads out of 55 vendors  and beating the company’s own results by more than 4X (2013 tally 398 vs 79 in 2012)

3) Created new joint marketing arrangements with thought leaders including Brian Massey, Justin Gray  and Chris Goward to create more inbound content assets for ReachForce with zero spend, and create a repeatable program to offer new webinars, downloadable assets for lead generation every 2 weeks, creating a predictable, low-effort source of new, engaged leads.

4) Launched demo webinars to offer mass scale product introductions, to increase territory sales rep productivity and reach. The first webinar had more than 55 registered attendees with only 2 weeks promotion

5) Recruited professional PR to launch news of a new ReachForce solution – the Connected Marketing Data Cloud and the stealth acquisition of the a company, coinciding with the biggest lead generation event of the year, the Marketo Summit

6) Generated 3 powerful new case studies measuring and detailing customer wins for new software solutions and rebranded an existing case study to create more interest.

7) Built powerful new marketing assets and imagery to elevate the corporate image to align with the advanced, technology marketing directors and CMOs who are the primary buyers of the ReachForce solutions.

8) Researched and constructed buyer personas and accurate understanding of reasons for purchase to inform new messaging and nurture maps.

9) Hired a nationally recognized SEO consultant to rebuild inbound lead programs and launch a new web site (coming May 7).

10) Built new marketing partnerships with allied companies including the company’s first ever side party with 3 joint partners called the San Francisco Social Club that drew 500 registered guests (all target prospects) in just 1 week of promotion (and featured an bar sculpted of ice that became part of social media promotion of the event hashtag #drinkluge)

11) Increased interest in ReachForce thought leadership with 2 speaking engagements, the most recent of which drew a capacity crowd of 268 people (all of whom become part of marketing nurture.) 

12) Did all of this with a smaller marketing budget than her predecessor.

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Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the nominee:

Mary Firme started her career as a business journalist in Hong Kong and rapidly became involved in data driven marketing activities and the development and launch of her company’s new Oracle database.  After 7 years overseas, she started internet marketing in 1996, when she led digital marketing for consumer publisher Future including Business 2.0 or PC Gamer web sites and worked on lead generation and audience development. She was also part of the founding web development team for what became IGN. Co-founder of internet startup VolunteerSpot. Mary is a team player, accomplished mentor, excellent speaker, aggressive pursuer of business results and enthusiastic communicator in person, in blogs, in tweets. She loves digital marketing, but she also creates and builds permanent school gardens and tweets @schoolgardening.