Marketing Portfolio
Billy Lawler
ABOUT ME :) I believe stories are foundational to creating connections. Storytelling began as my passion as a songwriter/musician and later became my profession as a marketer, telling the stories of brands, their products, and their unique features, all in an effort to connect people with new ideas, inspiration, and innovative solutions. A lifelong learner with the need for constant personal and professional growth, my musical upbringing hardwired me to think both creatively and analytically, and I’ve spent years nurturing those skills in my marketing career to tell stories and connect with customers through every channel imaginable—websites, blogs, emails, social media, physical and digital advertising, events, sweepstakes, promotions, and even on stage. As a Product Marketing Manager, I thrive in cross-functional settings and collaborative cultures, find purpose in problem solving, and genuinely love sharing those solutions with the world. Here’s some of my marketing story.
Blog Writing Samples
As the Social Media & Digital Marketing Specialist at Alfred Music, I coordinated and posted over 400 blog articles in 4 years. Objectives were to attract website traffic, create product awareness, establish brand authority, build trust with customers, and provide practical teaching solutions to music educators through content that informs, inspires, educates, entertains, and affirms. Blog visitor and page view KPIs were exceeded YOY.
Product Positioning
As the Product Marketing Manager for SmartMusic, an EdTech application, I created various pieces of collateral to uniquely position SmartMusic in the marketplace at a time when music teachers were turning to EdTech solutions during COVID-19 shutdowns and remote learning.
“Back to school season may feel a little different this year, but nothing has changed about our commitment to providing tools that keep all music educators and students connected and playing music all year long. Discover how SmartMusic’s unrivaled repertoire library, when combined with our growing list of game-changing features, add up to the single solution for music teachers and students—no matter the setting.”
How SmartMusic Compares to the Competition
Competitor Analysis: Ahead of the back to school season, I conducted competitor research to present a comparison of features. This was included in an Educator Toolkit I produced that included value-add resources on a range of teaching topics, all intended to set educators up for success and provide ideas for utilizing SmartMusic with students.
Teaching with SmartMusic’s Suite of Tools—No Matter the Setting
Solution-Based Positioning: During back to school in fall 2020, it was important to position SmartMusic as a tool that could benefit users in any educational setting (remote, in-person, or hybrid). With so much uncertainty, and so many different teaching scenarios, I chose to present the benefits of SmartMusic in a problem/solution format.
Differentiation: The #1 request we hear from music teachers is to have easy access to a wide range of repertoire. Since SmartMusic is home to the largest online repertoire library in the industry, it was especially important to surface this information on a high traffic page. We ran an A/B test to determine the best placement for this information on the website, and concluded that the Features page provided the most visibility for website visitors.
Feature Launch Campaign
As the Product Marketing Manager for SmartMusic, an educational SaaS application, I led the communication efforts for various product updates and feature launches. Highlights included communicating updates to subscription tiers and pricing structures, and launching new features such as Print, Single Sign-On, Playlists, and the release of a new Digital Sheet Music Library.
Landing Page: The “source of truth” for the feature, I coordinated the creation of a feature-focus landing page that speaks to the what, who, and why, and provides an avenue for customers to provide feedback as well as generate a quote to purchase. The landing page generated over $80k in quotes.
Webinar Segment: In a webinar that introduced a new PDF library for repertoire, I provided assets to include a segment on introducing the new Print feature to educators.
Classroom Printing Station Sweepstakes: To draw attention to the feature and influence Print add-on quote requests, I led a sweepstakes that gave away 3 classroom printing stations, each of which included a printer, Chromebook, ink, and paper, and resulted in over 500 participants and $3.3k in quotes.
Social Media: I developed additional pieces of microcontent to share across social media to bring awareness to the feature and the various problems it helps solve for music educators. A content audit I performed in my Social & Digital Marketing Specialist role informed me that infographics received the most engagement from our audiences.
User Testimonial: One of the winners of the Classroom Printing Station Sweepstakes provided a testimonial on his and his students’ experience with the Print feature.