About Shashi Bellamkonda

Principal Research Director, SoftwareReviews  01/2023

Marketing Advisory Group.Principal Research Director in Info-Tech’s SoftwareReviews Marketing Advisory Group.
SoftwareReviews · Full-timeSoftwareReviews · Full-time
Jan 2023 - Present · 1 moJan 2023 - Present · 1 mo
Potomac, Maryland, United States · RemotePotomac, Maryland, United States · Remote
Member of a team of experts in the software marketing space whose top goal is to drive measurable results for our members and clients. Delivering research content and advisory services on Marketing Strategy, Business and Marketing alignment, Marketing Opportunity and Segmentation, AI and Emerging Marketing Technology targeting the technology provider market. Developing methodology-based research content as well as market-leading insight and thought models, and provides advisory services to our research members (clients). Build thought-leadership by sharing and presenting our research and insights via online and offline thought-leadership events.

SoftwareReviews’ mission is to elevate the B2B software experience for both buyers and providers. We empower organizations with the best data, insights, and advice to improve the software buying and selling experience.
 
Combining our customer experience-focused reviews with our decades of technology coverage, our action-oriented research and advisory services offer unique insights into the B2B software market. For buyers, our proven software selection methodologies, customer insights, and technology advisors help maximize success with technology decisions. For providers, we help build more effective marketing, product, and sales processes with expert analysts, how-to research, customer-centric marketing content, and comprehensive analysis of the buyer landscape.
 
SoftwareReviews is a division of Info-Tech Research Group, a world-class technology research and advisory firm with over two decades of experience advising technology and business leaders.
Vice-President and Head of Marketing: involve.ai, Santa Monica, CA 03/2022 to 09/2022



Head of Marketing/ Vice President Marketing:  Leap , Columbia MD 03/2020 - 03/2022


As Vice President of Marketing for Leap, my primary focus is growing the organization’s footprint by implementing the overall marketing strategy. Taking Leap's application that digitizes every stage of the in-home sales process to new verticals and supporting the expansion of Leap’s partner and integration network. Collaborate with the excellent colleagues to achieve Leap’s vision of obtaining market-wide adoption of its platform by the home service industry.

The problem Leap solves -

Problem: The home improvement industry knows that problems exist between the various stages of the sales process, estimates, and production that could prevent these businesses from scaling and may be time-consuming.

Solution: The Leap team built a platform that makes the process easy, paperless, secure, error-free, and a better experience for customers.


SUREFIRE LOCAL Tysons, VA - 4/2015 – 3/2020

Senior Vice President, Head of Marketing


Working for a startup company is adventurous and hard work. You have to be a leader and an individual contributor. You have to compete and gain the attention of your target market with scarce resources. Being frugal with your marketing dollars and focusing on driving revenue needs a special set of entrepreneurial skills. I was very successful since I am extremely adaptable and used to flourishing in all sizes of companies, and industries. I'm not the type to ask about a title or how many direct reports or how big is the office! Just get things done & show ROI! At Surefire Local I often had to perform high-level strategic thinking to creative and detailed execution alongside a small team.


Marketing-Driven Business Growth:


o Hired at an early startup stage and took the company to 5x revenue growth in 4 years


o Directed strategy and hands-on execution working alongside a team of 5 to 7 members to create and execute marketing campaigns in paid search, paid social, display, re-targeting, content marketing, website optimization, email marketing, branding, communications, and PR


o Created an excellent customer experience from lead generation to sales and retention


o Achieved extraordinary results winning the INC 5000 for six years in a row


o Created a process for the segmentation of Customers and prospects using an AI model and machine learning. This helped us identify and prioritize best matches for sales and targeted messaging


o Was rewarded for spearheading the revenue growth of the company from of $3M to over $15M (5x) and moving the sales & marketing strategy from outbound calling to inbound marketing




· Team Management:


o Optimized the marketing organization with regular training and mentoring of a very early career team


o Cross-trained the team with necessary skills and exposure to outside experts


o Inspired the team with a clear articulation of the goals, showing them how their efforts contributed to the goals and helping them learn new skills and marketing techniques




· Product Marketing & Marketing Technology and Tools:


o Developed and executed the go-to-market strategy for Surefire's marketing platform and 4 small business tools including market validation, positioning, launch, sales, and customer adoption.


o Created new product concepts, Wrote requirements and collaborated with technology, IT, Customer Success to execute and launch plus develop messaging and training


o Products launched


§ Digital Marketing Awareness Level tool that used APIs and databases to return a score about the prospects as a tool for Sales


§ Digital Fitness Grader was a public-facing tool that scored a business on their web presence elements


§ A lead Management tool that built on top of Google’s Local Service Ads platform


§ A prototype of a trial offer using a few elements of the marketing platform


o Very familiar with Marketing technology tools and automation tools and have hands-on experience with setting up of new marketing technology stack and integrations




· Enterprise Business Development:


o Developed the biggest channel partnership in the company that resulted in over $6M in ARR in 3 years


o Developed the strategy for new business targets


o Created and presented to new enterprise and channel clients collaborating with the sales and new business development teams




· Brand:


o Rebranded the company from Surefire Social to Surefire Local with grassroots efforts which generated a lot of industry buzz and earned media


o The brand efforts created enthusiasm and fresh motivation for both clients and employees


o Saved over $250k in this effort by using my existing networks and resources








· Partner & Channel Marketing:


o Developed and activated relationships with Google, Yext, Facebook, Yelp, Nextdoor, Home Advisor.


o Created co-marketing campaigns, webinars, content marketing collaboration


o Built excellent content-sharing relationships with industry associations – NAHB, NARI. Media partnerships with ProRemodeler




· Content & Social Media:


o Established the playbook for content marketing, social media, and influencer engagement, email marketing, social advertising; managing a team of over 40 marketing, content and advertising professionals.


o Produced the industry’s highest listened podcast with expert author Mark Richardson that got over 300 listens per episode to a total on 60,000 listens in 3 years


o Won praise from partners, prospects, and customers on industry educational content. Reused and distributed content from webinars into Videos, podcasts, eBooks, White papers


o Created a program for customer case studies and referrals that contributed to10% of our new business




· Segmentation, Data, Marketing Analytics, and KPIs:


o Transformed KPIs & measurement to metrics-driven growth-oriented SaaS model


o Created an AI/ML model for customer segmentation. This model helped identify key attributes for scoring incoming prospects. Increased funnel conversion by 6%




· Budget:


o Managed a multi-million dollar budget. Worked with Finance to monitor and optimize spending in channels that showed the best Return on Investment. For every marketing dollar spent, the return was $1.2




· Analyst Relations:


o Collaborated with Forrester Research in organizing an analyst day, developed a Total Economic Impact Study (TEI) and Wave studies. Organized many analyst calls






· Marketing Data & Sales Enablement:


o Influenced the sales process to move from cold calls to using a predictable nurture process


o Created presentations, sales scripting, case studies, and marketing collateral




· Events, Tradeshows & Field Marketing:


o Supported lead generation through organized events and tradeshow participation. Created campaigns to drive full ROI for event spend and establishing relationships




GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Washington, DC - 2010 – Present


Adjunct Professor


· Teaching three critical courses evenings and weekends to marketing professionals: Digital Marketing Strategy, Search, Social and Mobile Marketing and Marketing Analytics to marketing professionals with several years of experience including C Level executives


· Devised curriculum and syllabus for the course and mentored students in new social, web and metric technology


· This opportunity helps maintain and keep in touch with new technology and research


· This is in the School of Continuing Studies and I teach marketing executives from other companies about the latest tools and techniques in digital marketing and analytics. Students grade me above 4.5.






THE BOZZUTO GROUP Greenbelt, MD - 2013 – 4/15


Vice President, Head of Digital Marketing


· Led a marketing team in managing web site platforms, software implementation, email marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing, online advertising, pay per click, search engine optimization, data mining, and customer segmentation, marketing reporting and predictive analytics


· Collaborated with senior leaders and the CEO to get buy-in for optimal strategic engagement model for supporting regional/market situations across the organization


Managed Marketing functions in the following areas:


· Data Science and Analytics: Managed, measured and manipulated digital marketing initiatives to discover actionable patterns in the data. Modeled, predicted and classified consumer behavior and business metrics across lead generation and web platforms


· Digital Marketing: Developed a Center of Excellence (COE) for creating the strategy and partnerships with all divisions and education on platform management, digital marketing innovation


· Marketing Operations: Enabled over 50% cost savings by moving data and applications to the Cloud and also developing applications and dashboards to increase efficiency


· Web Platforms: Researched new technology in web publishing systems and web development


· Content Marketing: Provided strategy to achieve business objectives through inbound marketing in conjunction with search engine optimization


· Digital Marketing Campaigns: Successfully used multi-channel promotions in social media email, mobile, web and other digital media to net over 40M impressions and earned media and increased leads by 10%


· Social and Mobile Platforms: Enhanced the company’s social presence and drove engagement by employees at different locations


· Online Advertising: Evaluated and selected advertising agencies and guided team on goal setting and managing Pay Per Click (PPC) / Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing and Social advertising, Search Engine Optimization - Implemented a strategy for search engine optimization that increased traffic by over 170% and drove over 20% more inbound leads


· Lead Nurturing: Applied new platforms and techniques for marketing automation to increase lead nurturing


· Budgeting: Managed the Digital Marketing budget of $15M and responsible for profit & loss (P&L)


· Awards & Recognition: Recognized in the Washington Business Journal in the 2013 Minority Business Leaders List and Washingtonian's Top Tech Titans list for the Washington DC area


NETWORK SOLUTIONS Herndon, VA


Head of Social Media & Digital Marketing - 2007 – 2013


· Created and executed a Social Media strategy for a 300M annual turnover technology company using Digital and Social Media tools that drives over 1M page views a year


· Developed and executed a Content Marketing strategy, which resulted in a positive change in perception for the company measured by the increase in positive mentions by 40%


· Created a new Technology product from concept to execution in 90 days


· Inspired a cross-functional team to get buy-in across the company, manage software vendors,


· Brought in to troubleshoot products that were facing issues; resulted in a 50% reduction in customer service calls, increased satisfaction by 10% and increased revenue by $4M


· Managed four product integration projects from a marketing and customer service perspective from acquisitions of products through mergers


· Set up a crisis plan to save the company from a negative reputation and positively affect customer retention.


NETWORK SOLUTIONS Herndon, VA


Senior Product Manager - 2005 – 2007


· Developed and managed product life cycle, coordinated product road map, created product concept, product development & create product requirements, plan customer research, identify technological challenges and new product feasibility


· Conducted pricing & product positioning; products include Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search services designed for Small Businesses and Email solutions


· Promoted 3 times in consecutive years for excellent project execution & achieving targets


· Executed product marketing strategies using Search & Online Marketing Strategies, pay per click advertising and web analytics


· Led concept to execution for support strategy for three new acquisition projects that led to increased revenue and great customer reviews




NETWORK SOLUTIONS Herndon, VA




Customer Service Project Manager - 2001 – 2005


· Drove the understanding, modeling and analysis of key metrics and drivers of the technical services business and customer requirements, Served as the SME for the introduction of a new web-hosting product, leading a 20-person team to achieve performance improvements in customer satisfaction


· which included developing and analyzing performance against defined business objectives, plans, forecasts, and targeted results






CHUBB INSTITUTE, Reston, VA - 2000 – 2001


Consultant ecommerce Website projects, Shopping carts, Java and XML, project management






Indique Group of Restaurants, Rockville, MD - 1997 – 2001


Operations and Marketing Manager









Hyderabad Marriott Hotel, India - 1993 – 1997
Executive Manager/Assistant General Manager






Indo-US Restaurant Group, Moscow, Russia - 1989 – 1993
Operations Manager






INDIA TOURISM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, New Delhi India - 1983 – 1989
Executive Hotel Operations


EDUCATION


INDIRA GANDHI OPEN UNIVERSITY New Delhi, India 1997 Diploma in Business Management


OSMANIA UNIVERSITY Hyderabad, India 1987 Bachelor of Liberal Arts, Public Administration, Sociology and Economics


INSTITUTE OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT Chennai, India 1983 Bachelor of Management


UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA - THE WHARTON SCHOOL 2005 Wharton Executive Education marketing program


REFERENCE LINKS


· Shashi Bellamkonda Case Studies Referenced in 18 Marketing Books


· Marketing Thought Leadership Talks on Video


· LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sbellamkonda/


· Washington Business Journal Minority Business Leaders Award https://www.youtube.com/


· Top 100 Small Business Influencer


· Washington DC Top Tech Titans 2011 and 2009











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