Resume
Melanie Johnstone
Direct Marketing Strategist / Owner / Director
Rocket Science Strategic Services Pty Ltd
(612) 9572-6636 or 0410 463 557
melj@rocketscience.com.au
Sydney, Australia
Summary
My direct marketing career spans 17 years and has been both progressive and exciting. It has included:
- Five years at Cellarmaster wines, one of the worlds’ leading direct wine companies, working across a number of customer service roles followed by senior marketing roles.
- Two and a half years at MercerBell, an independent direct marketing agency working with large blue chip clients, in a Senior Account Manager position followed by an Account Director role.
- The last nine years running my own successful direct marketing consultancy – Rocket Science Strategic Services Pty Ltd.
I’m extremely passionate about direct marketing and business development. I thrive on creating and implementing effective communication strategies that deliver incremental value.
I’m a highly motivated person, with strong ethical conduct who works well independently and as part of a team.
Career Highlights
- 2006, Presented a successful direct marketing case study on my work with Australian Geographic at the Australian Direct Marketing Summit, held in Sydney.
- 2002, Won the Australian Young Direct Marketer of the Year Award for work I had done helping Land Rover Australia to launch their New Range Rover vehicle into Australia.
- 1998, Guest lecturer at a ‘Wine Press Club’ event in Sydney and presented to approximately 100 senior executives within the wine industry on the subject of marketing wine to a younger generation.
Education
1995 ADMA Direct Marketing Certificate – Distinction
1993 Bachelor of Arts – Sociology Major – University of Auckland, NZ
Employment History
ROCKET SCIENCE STRATEGIC SERVICES PTY LTD (self-employed)
Owner / Director / Marketing Strategist
May 2002 – current
www.rocketscience.com.au
Responsibilities:
I set up Rocket Science to provide companies with a strategic, flexible and affordable direct marketing specialist resource.
The roles and responsibilities assumed are customised to the specific needs of each business, but generally include some or all of the following.
- Conducting marketing due-diligence for companies looking to purchase direct marketing companies.
- Conducting more general marketing audits on current and past communication programs, across all relevant channels to identify what is and isn’t working and strategic growth opportunities.
- Creating specific campaign strategies and tactics designed to achieve measurable objectives.
- Creating financial forecasting models that detail the likely investment and financial return from the recommended activity.
- Contracting and managing creative, production and distribution suppliers on behalf of clients.
- Helping to improve the measurability of campaigns.
- Analysing and presenting the campaign results along with key recommendations to senior management.
- Managing individual campaign and marketing budgets.
- Identifying and assisting clients to set up relationships with reciprocal corporate partners where both parties can benefit from the alliance.
Clients I have worked with since 2002:
Australian Naturalcare Products, Doubleday, Coca Cola, Lowenbrau Keller; Millers Retail; Australian Geographic; ACP; Aspermont/SuperLiving; EMI; UNICEF; Australian Wine Selectors; Pre Paid Services; Opdicom; Grand United Health Insurance; Asset Strata Investments; Hilton Healthstream; Lowe Hunt; Brown Hill Estate, Huntington Estate, McWilliams Mount Pleasant Winery, Tahbilk Winery, Citrix Online; Jones Lang LaSalle; and Virgin Mobile.
Outstanding Achievement:
I worked with Australian Geographic continuously from 2004 through to 2009. During this time I helped them to evolve their acquisition program so that it consistently delivered on or above forecast subscriber targets at positive contribution. This has been achieved through high level strategic thinking, scientific testing and in-depth campaign post-analysis. This relationship wrapped up in 2009, when I took some maternity leave. Since then they have gone through a significant restructure and have now hired internal staff to continue their marketing programs.
Testimonial from Australian Geographic:
“Mel has completely embraced our brand enabling us to attract new customers that are tuned in to our product offer, meanwhile beating all targets and reducing the acquisition costs by 30%.” Rory Scott, Managing Director, Australian Geographic
MERCERBELL (MercerBell is an independent direct marketing agency)
Account Director / Marketing Strategist
February 2000 – May 2002
Responsibilities:
A key part of my role was to create campaign strategies that helped my clients to achieve specific results. I would present these strategies and financial forecasting models to senior management, manage the implementation of campaigns, conduct post-campaign analysis and present the results, along with my recommendations to clients. Managing the implementation of campaigns included briefing and debriefing creative teams, booking media and buying lists, managing budgets and sourcing and managing other suppliers as needed.
During this time I had one account manager and one senior account manager reporting to me.
In addition to the above roles, I also contributed to the core business with initiatives that included setting up budget forecasting models that enabled the client service team to better manage their projected and actual billings and income. This initiative also enabled the Managing Director to more easily identify and track sales by client and by account service team and identify trouble spots within the business.
Clients that I worked with during this time included:
Land Rover Australia; Apple Computer; ACP; The Smith Family; Lion Nathan; TD Waterhouse; and Australia Post
Outstanding Achievement:
I created and implemented the pre-launch strategy for Land Rover Australia’s New Range Rover that resulted in a sell-out of the first shipment (450 sales), two months prior to New Range Rover’s arrival in Australia. The average cost per sale bet our target forecasts by 10%.
Testimonial from Land Rover Australia:
“Mel’s most important contribution to our team objectives was the effort she made establishing the strategy for our pre-launch of New Range Rover. I have no doubt that without Melanie driving the New Range Rover pre-launch strategy, Land Rover would not have reached and exceeded our pre-launch sales targets. The results were recognised at a global level.” Krista Mulhall, Marketing Communications Manager
Testimonial from MercerBell:
“Mel is a very confident person as well as a good people person. She is an excellent strategic thinker who is able to focus clearly and develop sound, well thought out communication strategies. She has an enviable mix of being able to think creatively whilst also being extremely numerate which gives her the ability to deliver outstanding direct marketing strategies.” Nick Mercer, Managing Director
CELLARMASTER WINES
Cellarmasters Wine Club Manager / Marketing 2IC
Mar 1997 – Nov 1999
Responsibilities:
A key part of my role was creating annual marketing plans and budgets that were designed to set and show how circulation, sales and margin targets would be achieved. These plans covered all acquisition, retention and reactivation activities across all marketing channels (direct mail, email, outbound telephone sales, web, member-get-member and media). I was heavily involved in analysing data and creating new marketing programs to help deliver targets. I worked closely with I.T to amend the database structure and functionality as required, so that these new programs could be successfully rolled out and managed. I was also responsible for annual financial forecasting and monthly reforecasting and presenting actual results to senior management, including the Managing Director, Terry Davis on a fortnightly basis.
Marketing Assistant
Feb 1996 – Feb 1997
Responsibilities:
As marketing assistant I helped run campaigns and track and analyse results across a number of wine clubs in the Cellarmasters portfolio. I worked closely with other departments within the company such as the trading, creative and the call centre to ensure that campaigns were successfully implemented.
Customer Service Representative
Sept 1994 – Jan 1996
Responsibilities:
In this role I took customer orders and managed customer service enquiries and complaints. I was given the autonomy to work directly with customers to find the best solutions to the issues that arose, so that a favourable outcome could be quickly reached.
Outstanding achievement:
In my role as Cellarmasters Marketing Manager, I identified the need for and developed a customer segmentation testing model that significantly increased response rates and sales from various customer segments. The insights gained from this initiative increased campaign profitability and increased the average lifespan of an active customer. The successful insights gained from this model were applied to the other thirteen wine clubs to increase the sales performance across the business.
Testimonial from Cellarmasters:
“Melanie stands out as one of the most creative people we’ve had in the marketing department during my 11 years at Cellarmasters. So many young marketers are content to simply manage their businesses. Melanie led hers; she drove it. She was consistently innovative. She would come up with something new, and then test it to see if it would work. Many of the others looked to her for ideas.” John Hancock, Creative Director
Skill Summary
Non-technical:
Creating customer-centric measurable marketing strategies; developing financial forecast models; analysing and presenting results, educating businesses on all facets of direct marketing; and finally my passion for what I do and how I do it.
Computer:
Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Word press, Google Analytics
Interests
Films, reading, travel, learning, meeting people, pilates, yoga, skiing, running, Sydney Swans, swimming, my partner and my son Hunter.
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