Katrina Ward
Verified Expert in Marketing
Marketing Expert
Columbus, OH, United States
Toptal member since May 1, 2023
Katrina is an experienced marketing expert with a deep understanding of complex martech stacks. They led the overhaul of digital experiences, managed teams, and launched customer-focused marketplaces. With extensive agency and client-side experience, this flexible marketer is an outstanding addition to any organization who excels in various roles, from content management to executive leadership. They teach digital marketing courses to MBA students and are passionate about protecting user data.
Expertise
- Community Management
- Content Management Systems (CMS)
- Digital Agencies
- Digital Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Marketing Leadership
- Social Media Strategy
- Website Management
Work Experience
Marketing Technology and Strategy Lead
Molar Solutions, Inc
- Took on the first marketing role within a healthcare technology startup, still in stealth mode.
- Built a marketing team and martech stack from the ground up.
- Designed a best-in-class member engagement strategy that consistently surpasses company KPIs. Coordinated a brand refresh, established workflows and processes, and partnered with engineering to integrate marketing tools and data into the product.
Director of Marketing Operations
HealthEquity
- Fostered a culture of continuous improvement, optimizing processes for enhanced team efficiency and decreased GTM timelines.
- Oversaw the marketing budget and led the team that built collaboration with the finance team and effective process-based relationships with procurement, legal, compliance, and external vendors.
- Owned operational communications, including service recovery, change management, and crisis communication, focusing on crisis management, which enhanced stakeholder satisfaction and ensured operational stability during unforeseen events.
- Conducted formal vendor and process evaluations, identifying opportunities for standardization and cost savings.
- Forged successful partnerships with channel marketers, tech teams, and product groups, aligning marketing initiatives for superior organizational outcomes.
Director of Digital Strategy
Olive
- Built and led a team of subject matter experts to evolve the digital experience for both customers and employees and serve as the voice of the brand.
- Defined and orchestrated the roadmap for Olive’s digital ecosystem, including startup marketing, A/B testing, identifying growth opportunities, gathering requirements, and deploying strategic enhancements.
- Headed a website redesign, re-platform, full rebrand, and revamped viral marketing, social media, and email marketing strategies through marketing automation, Sprout Social integration, and implementation of the organization's first enterprise CMS.
- Leveraged the above-mentioned implementation to develop and launch the company's first intranet and rebuild and uplevel a homegrown marketplace built for customers.
- Defined a multimillion-dollar paid media strategy that built Olive's brand through engaging stories, developed a pipeline, and ensured customer acquisition.
- Instituted and documented processes and SLAs that allowed for more streamlined campaign planning and execution.
- Overhauled a contentious $3,000,000 agency agreement and transitioned the relationship into a true partnership.
- Owned marketing tech stack, email, paid media, social media, website, and logged-in states, including customer portal and intranet.
- Collaborated with cross-functional business leads, including sales, training, and customer support, to discover and design digital experiences with broad business value.
Director of Digital Marketing Strategy
Washington Prime Group
- Led digital and real estate marketing strategy at a real estate investment trust with 102 malls across the United States. Planned, promoted, and managed events using Eventbrite and handled online reputation management.
- Managed a team of subject matter experts and agency partners who served as the internal agency.
- Oversaw maintenance, management, and optimization of 84 customer-facing websites and 100+ local listings.
- Served as liaison between marketing and information services, driving technical projects forward that improved internal infrastructure, created efficiencies, and strengthened security.
- Owned the analysis and reporting of all digital marketing performance data, including paid, social, web, email, and local listings.
- Planned and managed department budget, including tool costs and media spend. Partnered with the legal department to lead the statement of work and annual fee negotiations.
- Spearheaded influencer marketing strategies, local SEO, and cross-functional testing and learning, including alignment with TikTok influencers for in-person events and an employee advocacy program to encourage content creation.
- Managed the adoption of the organization's first social media management tool for around 100 active users. The process incorporated vetting, software selection, implementation, testing, ongoing training, and user reporting.
- Created and executed a pilot program that monetized the brand's digital media for the first time. Partnered with sponsorship to educate and train teams on selling this new inventory.
Adjunct Lecturer
The Ohio State University, Fisher College of Business
- Taught weekend digital marketing courses to working professionals pursuing their MBAs.
- Built a curriculum for each session, including research, slide creation, and assignment prep.
- Delivered lectures for seven consecutive hours with 50+ students per session.
Senior Strategist of Digital Marketing
Mindstream Interactive
- Oversaw social media strategy for a retail pharmacy brand, including content creation and other marketing collateral development, community management, and social listening.
- Established processes and oversaw community management, reputation management, and social content distribution for 104 franchise locations within the health and wellness industry.
- Owned performance reporting and client presentations. Social strategies included Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest Marketing. Utilized Instagram growth tactics to increase followers and engagement.
Senior Manager, Social Strategy
Resource/Ammirati (acquired by IBM)
- Led social media strategy for a global paint company.
- Organized an influencer program for the nation's largest department store chain through all stages, including influencer identification, contract negotiations, creative guidance, and content compliance.
- Owned performance reports and client presentations.
Project History
Enterprise CMS Implementation
Built and led a team of subject matter experts to evolve the digital experience for both customers and employees and serve as the voice of the brand.
I worked alongside our development agency to build the infrastructure and plan that not only allowed us to launch the rebranded and replatformed website successfully but also to launch the organization's first intranet, sales enablement tool, and product documentation, all housed within our enterprise CMS. This helped the organization reduce tool costs and drive consistency across content.
Influencer Meet & Greet Events
Led a multi-city influencer event marketing campaign that featured 21 TikTok stars at eight malls across the US.
Influencers captured live event content on TikTok and Instagram. The Meet & Greet events generated significant organic content from fans and followers on Instagram and TikTok. The campaign garnered over 51.8 million impressions and almost 400 unique pieces of content for the brand to repurpose. The properties saw increased foot traffic that day and increased sales to its food and beverage retailers.
Consolidated Performance Dashboard
Led the design and development of a dynamic dashboard that aggregated all marketing performance metrics across 102 malls into one place.
Due to the unique nature of this setup, with countless variables from the posting time and audience to copy and image differences, the corporate team found it challenging to assess what functioned well and where. I partnered with the IT team to connect our various marketing technology tools, distill the information from 200+ sources using Snowflake, and create a dashboard within PowerBI that was accessible and digestible to a non-marketing audience.
They essentially created a scorecard for each mall, showcasing web, email, social, and PR data in one place. In short, it gave a broader base of users access to business-critical information without the need to train them on individual tools. This enabled regional-level managers to identify opportunities for training or areas where we needed to deviate from the standard strategy.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Journalism
University of Missouri - Columbia, Missouri, USA
Skills
Core
Digital Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Strategy, Community Management, Digital Marketing Strategy, Social Media Marketing (SMM), Marketing Analytics, Marketing Technology (MarTech), Copywriting, Writing & Editing, Brand Strategy, Influencer Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Email Campaigns, LinkedIn Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing Automation, Instagram Marketing, Marketing Operations, Email Marketing, Paid Advertising, Landing Pages, Lead Generation, Marketing Automation, Organic Social Media, Content, Pinterest Marketing, Local SEO, Marketing Budgeting, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Marketing Collateral Development, Instagram Growth, Marketing Strategy, Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), Performance Marketing
Business Models
Software as a Service (SaaS), B2B, SaaS Product Marketing, B2C, B2B2C, SaaS
Platforms & Tools
Contentstack, Content Management Systems (CMS), ActiveCampaign, Yelp
Other
Facebook, Instagram, Digital Agencies, Chatmeter, Sitefinity, Healthcare, Real Estate, Team Leadership, Website Management, Reporting, Customer Acquisition, Digital Asset Management, Marketing Plans, Automation, Crisis Management, Startups, Growth Marketing, Marketing Attribution, Sales & CRM Platforms, Startup Marketing, Sprinklr, Sprout Social, X (formerly Twitter), Presentations, Brand Building, Reputation Management, Google, Event Marketing, Event Management, Web Content, Website Redesign, Sales Enablement, Implementation, Change Management, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Data Reporting, Dashboards, Email, Website Traffic, Salesforce, Trello, Lob, Smartsheet, Seismic, Adobe Workfront, Communication, Budgeting, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Process Improvement, Process Development, Team Development, Mentorship & Coaching, Real Estate Marketing, Crisis Communication, Event Planning, Eventbrite, Online Reputation Management, Viral Marketing, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Healthcare Services, Sponsorship, MarTech Solutions, Loyalty Marketing
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