Laura Giese

I planned and executed marketing initiatives, successfully managing simultaneous projects including branch collateral, print ads, newsletters, inserts and direct mail for retail and commercial products. I developed an integrated advertising campaign for Remote Deposit Capture using direct mail, ads in Crain's Chicago Business, copy on the bank's website, branch displays, and collateral which resulted in over 1,000 customers converting to Remote Deposit Capture in the first 18 months. My responsibilities included managing vendor relationships negotiating price and schedule for printing, photography, promotional items, print advertising, and mailing services. I developed advertising strategy to promote Reverse Mortgages using Google AdWords resulting in several new loans each month. I redesigned and maintained the Bank's website including writing new copy and directing web site provider on design. While in this position, I coordinated participation in the Remodeling Show at McCormick Place including developing the bank mascot "Alfred the Elephant," purchasing stuffed Alfreds from a manufacturer in China for use in the trade show, branch promotions, and commercial prospect leave-behinds.

I managed the MailSafe division including marketing strategy, advertising, budgeting, product development, on-line sales, support of the sales force and supervision of the customer service team. I developed re-activation and new prospect direct mail projects that consistently garnered over 1% response rates and increased sales in two target markets by 64% and 44% in the first year. I directed the development and ongoing maintenance of the e-commerce web site.

I developed the advertising plan and budget, managed public relations and media purchasing, designed and wrote copy for marketing initiatives, and supported sales staff with collateral materials. Specific projects included preparing and implementing annual advertising budgets ranging from $700,000 to $1,300,000, including negotiating advertising contracts with newspaper and radio reps and supervising several agencies creating annual reports, print ads in major newspapers and trade journals, direct mail, and radio and television ad production. I established and maintained the bank's first marketing brand as "the friendly, neighborhood, billion-dollar bank, " which was integrated into all bank advertising. I was responsible for two branch-opening campaigns generating $8,000,000 each in deposits in the first six weeks of operation, as well as, planned and coordinated promotional events, which included the popular "Dinner by the Vault" series. My team won two Chicago Financial Advertisers' Eagle Awards for design of a product brochure and collateral material for the launch of PlasticCash, the first debit card in the area.