Michael Halston Email & Phone Number

St. Charles, Il, Us

Vice President, Marketing Technologies – September 2023-presentI am responsible for the continuous development and improvement of Medium Giant’s marketing and advertising technology stack, ensuring that we have access to industry-leading marketing tools, business intelligence and data solutions. • I oversee platforms, tools, vendors/partners, SAAS/hosted/hybrid MarTech solutions for agency use in services delivery. In collaboration with corporate IT leadership on systems, processes, planning, data security, and compliance to advocate for the agency technology needs in the creation and delivery of client marketing services. • Serve as strategic product, technology and business lead for Distribion, Medium Giant’s proprietary through channel-marketing platform. Responsible for daily operations, software development, resource planning and to develop and drive the strategic product roadmap for custom application solutions.Senior Director, Marketing Technologies – August 2022–September 2023• I am responsible for Medium Giant’s marketing technology stack; platforms, tools, vendors/partners and solutions for agency use in services delivery. • Provide business leadership and lead strategic planning for custom proprietary platforms and solutions, including product roadmap(s) for development and sales/marketing.Consultant – March–August, 2022• Project based initiatives related to marketing services, strategy and technology• Interim daily management and support for Media team• Audit and analyze agency processes, provide reports of findings and recommendations

Greater Chicago Area

(Conversion Alliance – A Tribune Publishing Marketing Agency)Directed digital transformation, developed digital sales strategy, solution design, and implementation for key advertiser clients (locally and nationally). Worked as expert DMS resource to scope, design, price, and pitch appropriate solution to achieve goals. Drove solution development, drawing largely from core competencies in website development, search optimization and marketing (SEO and SEM), social media (community management, paid social), content marketing, data collection and analysis, managed newsletter programs, audience development, conversion optimization, ecommerce and CRM integration, inbound marketing, consulting, and advisory services. Led data security and handling initiatives, policies and procedures. Managed team of developers (local and offshore) and database administrators managing custom marketing portals, processes, data operations, audience modeling and segmentation, data normalization, reporting, analysis and insights.• I led strategy and management of digital marketing engagement for a higher education client to build funnel and conversion of business school student candidates resulting in 183% increase in conversions, reducing cost per lead by 81%. This was accomplished through continual data analysis, audience targeting, message testing and strategy refinement focused on ongoing optimization. Our success resulted in client increasing budget commitment by three-fold over 4-years of annual renewals to $1MM+.

Greater Chicago Area

*Tribune Publishing Company: 8 yrs, 9 mos(Chicago Tribune and Conversion Alliance Agency)In addition to MarTech & Digital Strategy lead at Conversion Alliance (a Tribune Publishing Marketing Agency), I served as General Manager of Digital Solutions for the Chicago Tribune Media Group. This dual role was unique within the Tribune Publishing enterprise (including Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and other prominent media entities). I led digital transformation, optimization, competitive analysis, sales strategy, solution design and implementation, workflow process and procedures, and transformation of sales teams to solution-sellers. This role focused on direct sales and services delivery for our valued advertiser clients locally and nationally.• I led an organizational workflow optimization project to improve delivery of services, role clarity and responsibilities, create SLA framework, improve QA process, empower Digital Engineer and support teams, and promote sales and operations teamwork. This resulted in improved efficiency, accountability and accuracy of digital advertising and services delivery.

Greater Chicago Area

(Motiv8 Agency – A Tribune Publishing Marketing Agency)Led strategy team in discovery, development, positioning, price, and pitch of custom DMS solutions. Contributed similar value to newly launched digital agency within Tribune Publishing, Motiv8. Directed internal and vendor partners in solution development and pricing. Member of Agency Leadership Team.• I led digital marketing for a leading national real estate website client including management of $200k/month SEM budget to drive trial subscriptions and drip marketing campaign sequencing in Marketo resulting in 185% lift in conversions.• I led a custom audience research project using Qualtrics to empanel and survey defined audience personas for conjoint analysis to inform product feature-set options and max-diff to inform future features to be added. Using 1st and 3rd party data modeling to define and segment audience targets, I was able to glean valuable insights to inform marketing strategies, tactics and optimal channels to help inform prospective mobile app development and improve upon overall marketing performance.

Greater Chicago Area

(Tribune Content Solutions – A Tribune Publishing Marketing Agency)Led strategy team in discovery, development, positioning, price, and pitch of custom DMS solutions. Directed internal and vendor partners in solution development and pricing. Acted as custom DMS solution specialist mapping to advertising sales teams in all Tribune Media Group markets (such as Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel and Tribune properties). Built team to support growing scale of custom DMS business opportunities. Collaborating with national sales teams, I built a lead qualification and intake process to provide digital marketing assessments, SWOT analysis, and opportunity recommendations for calling on prospective DMS clients. • As DMS subject matter expert, I attended joint sales calls to discover, develop and implement custom marketing solutions. This resulted in many dozens of website builds including ecommerce, ticketing integration, 3rd party integrations such as banking and real-time inventory systems, hyper-local search optimization and ultimately to support sales of advertising media programs on an ongoing basis.

Greater Chicago Area

(435 Digital – A Tribune Publishing Marketing Agency)I led custom digital marketing services (DMS) sales efforts mapping to Tribune advertising sales teams (85 sellers across 7 teams in Chicago; plus 200 sellers across 8 other major markets) in local, regional, major accounts and broadcast (WGN-TV, CLTV and WGN Radio in Chicago) divisions. • As subject matter expert, guided sales effort to pitch and close web development for 60-member, $500,000,000 revenue co-op buying and marketing group, including development of ~30 member company websites. I managed P&L responsibility for custom DMS engagements.• Developed and led custom video and localized content program for national financial services firm featuring 1,000+ on-location video shoots, editing and publishing to agent pages to enhance local search (SEO) performance, generating $1MM+ in net new revenue. Videos were required to pass brand standards, financial guidelines and legal compliance. Add on services included writing agent biographies and versioning for various web platforms.

Greater Chicago Area

Prospected, developed, closed, and maintained 300-plus small to midsize commercial clients for IT network systems integrator in Illinois. Oversaw full life cycle of account management, including needs analysis, sales proposals, procurement, implementation planning, project supervision, crisis management, account maintenance, and dispute resolution. Managed customer base consisting mainly of 200 user or less networked environments in SMB marketplace, including branch offices, multi-site regional enterprises, commercial real estate management companies, hospitality hotel/conference center, financial, and manufacturing and business services customers. Led efforts regarding solution development, including research suitability and computability. Selected, managed and maintained vendor/partner certifications and relationships for the company.• Delivered 110% or greater of sales quota for 50 consecutive quarters• Developed and maintained base book of business with client relationships spanning 15 years.

Greater Chicago Area

Worked in corporate sales for large custom PC system builder in Addison, IL