Understand the role of a chief marketing officer, their skills and qualifications, and the different ways you can engage one. Also, discover the easiest way to hire a CMO.
Meredith Kokos
Marketing Leader for Digital Start-Ups | Scale-Ups | Marketplaces (AI-Empowered)
I am a data-driven, AI-empowered growth marketing leader with nearly a decade of experience in the InsurTech space (and two decades of driving growth across industries). I have helped propel start-ups and scale-ups through data-driven digital strategies and achieved successful company exits. I drive growth through brokers, partnerships, and various marketing channels, leveraging my growing expertise in cyber insurance and artificial intelligence (AI), a critical and evolving field in today's eve…
Work
Boston Globe Growth Transformation through Marketing/Optimization
https://meclabs.com/research/case-study/boston-globe-transformation-marketerIn this interview, Meredith Kokos, Team Lead for Digital Analytics, Insight & Optimization, The Boston Globe, shares her experiences from establishing a testing program that has transformed how the company serves customers, from how marketing sells the newspaper to how editorial writes story headlines.
Insurance Marketplace Marketing/UX Optimization
https://clearsurance.com/best-car-insurance/MAClearsurance.com, the leading insurance ratings and reviews website, had over 150k reviews and lots of engaged organic traffic, but it wasn't monetizing it as well as it could, with only a 1% conversion rate. The steps below resulted in a site-wide conversion rate that went from 1% to 35% by improving the customer experience and targeting the right audience. "Conversion rate" meant that customers got referred over to a partner site such as Lemonade or Progressive and converted to a paying customer at a very high rate on their respective websites.
I took a three-pronged approach:
1) Create a recommendation engine to distill the 160k reviews and 50+ carriers into the 3 top recommendations for each individual user based on some minor criteria. (This was designed/built by someone in the company.)
2) Increase organic traffic through content optimization (rewriting old content for SEO best practices, writing new, relevant content, and ensuring that all SEO best practices - disavowing toxic links, no orphan pages, etc. - were in place). This organic traffic then could engage with the recommendation engine to get personalized results.
3) Turn on high-converting paid traffic, pass critical data parameters (non-PII) through to an engine that could sort through carrier options to provide a personalized recommendation about the top 3 carriers to consider.
Pet Insurance Partnership with Nationwide
https://www.rate.com/insurance/pet-insurance/Guaranteed Rate Insurance had an existing relationship with Nationwide Insurance, but wasn't tapping into the Pet Insurance market. Meredith drove deeper engagement and promotion of Nationwide's Pet Insurance offering, tapping into the growing trend of "pets as people" where animals were taking the center stage in people's lives and marketing campaigns. Not only did this allow Guaranteed Rate Insurance to engage with customers in new ways across social media and email (more pet-related advertising), it also attracted new customers and differentiated Guaranteed Rate Insurance as a "one-stop"
Website Redesign for Guaranteed Rate Insurance
https://www.rate.com/insuranceGuaranteed Rate Insurance needed a new "look and feel" that aligned with the overall Rate.com (Guaranteed Rate - #2 Mortgage Lender in the US). It needed to have vitality and a liveliness that reflected the overall Guaranteed Rate brand, while also being distinctly insurance. It needed to highlight the top insurance brands including Progressive, Lemonade, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, among others and showcase all of the types of insurance that Guaranteed Rate Insurance offers: Home Insurance, Car Insurance, Pet Insurance, Life Insurance, etc. It also needed to ensure that people could get to their desired location on the site in 1 - 2 clicks.
Rebrand/Website Redesign of Measured (Cyber Insurance)
https://measuredinsurance.com/Measured Analytics and Insurance, an AI-driven cyber insurance start-up, needed a new, forward-looking and exciting brand and website redesign to attract the attention of venture capitalists, investors, cybersecurity partners and cyber insurance brokers. It needed to engage people and be dynamic, with energy and movement. The prior brand look and feel was a muted purple with mountains and shades of light purple and grey. The new design has black and white with light-filled flashes of green and blue. Measured has attracted the attention of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other leading brands/companies with whom to be partners. Investors have noticed and commented on the noticeable brand evolution as well.
Experience
Measured Analytics and Insurance (Cyber Insurance)
SVP, Marketing
Mar 2023 - Present
At Measured, we provide more than cyber insurance, we light the path to confidence and security in cyber realms. We offer practical answers and innovative cyber insurance solutions for businesses seeking to manage enterprise cyber risks. Whether it's cybercrime, business interruption, or other malicious activity perpetrated by bad actors, the threats and the financial costs are real and complex. Our aim is to make our customers fluent and confident in integrating financial risk mitigation and cyber risk management into enterprise risk management. Companies want confidence, quantified. Diligence, quantified. Trust, quantified. That is Measured.
- Launch and drive high-impact initiatives from brand/website redesign to new content creation (white papers, blog content, LinkedIn posts) to email campaigns.
- Completed rebrand of Measured with branding expert in <4 months: website redesign, marketing materials, new tag line, core values, color palette.
- Launched 10+ press releases that placed Measured on the "center stage" with AWS, Security Scorecard, and other leading cybersecurity companies. Press releases included new hires/product launches.
- LinkedIn posts exponentially increased engagement with Measured's content and overall brand awareness. Organically doubled followers in <6 months.
- Edited/designed innovative white papers focused on topics including "Generative AI Will Transform Cyber Insurance" and others.
- Developed new processes to increase efficiency across marketing: blog creation, email sends, designs, etc.
- Own the "top of funnel" experience for key stakeholders through email/online.
Guaranteed Rate - Guaranteed Rate Insurance
Head of Marketing
May 2021 - Feb 2023
2023 Agent of the Year - Travelers | Progressive Platinum Agency (Top 25 Agency) | Top 100 P & C Agency - Insurance Journey | Guaranteed Rate Insurance is one of the fastest organically growing independent insurance brokerages in the country. Since 2012, we have achieved double-digit growth, year over year, specializing in home, auto, commercial, life, and specialty insurance products. Guaranteed Rate Insurance is committed to serving its customers like no other company in the FinTech space and becoming a top brokerage in the insurance industry. Our strong culture and brand, national footprint, and our passionate team is what sets us apart. Our team is dedicated to delivering the highest quality customer experience. Guaranteed Rate Insurance was established in 2008 by Guaranteed Rate, Inc. President and CEO Victor Ciardelli. We offer an unmatched value proposition to our customers, our referral partners, and our team members. Our unique business model allows us to consistently achieve new heights and consistently redefine excellence all centered around the customer. As a national insurance brokerage, Guaranteed Rate Insurance serves customers in all 50 states and represents over 50 top-rated insurance carriers. We understand that it is our job to listen, to be proactive, and to act quickly with purpose. We are experts in our industry taking a consultative approach to sales and service, adding value, and creating a trusted partnership with our carriers and our customers.
- Drove growth through broad range of customer touchpoints (via DTC and sales team) – print collateral, email, digital, and website optimization.
- Partnered with leading insurance carriers - Progressive, Nationwide, Lemonade, Hippo, etc., to engage with Guaranteed Rate's customers and find the best insurance policies.
- Marketing efforts grew "direct to consumer" (DTC) insurance from 0% to 25+% of business via email acquisition/retention efforts, content and paid channels.
- Drove double-digit growth of prospect and customer engagement through email outreach program and customer journeys (Salesforce Marketing Cloud).
- Launched website redesign for GuaranteedRateInsurance.com.
- Launched new blog and accelerated content production via writers/editor.
- Launched company's first Referral and Review Platform via Birdeye.
Clearsurance
Chief Marketing Officer
Aug 2019 - Mar 2021
Clearsurance is dedicated to helping customers save on insurance Clearsurance was founded in 2016 by insurance professional Michael Crowe to simplify insurance shopping with customer-generated reviews, ratings, and other customer-focused data. Mike was quickly joined by a team of technology and insurance professionals who believed buying insurance shouldn't be confusing with or without the advice of an agent. The Clearsurance website was launched in December 2016. The team was unsure if people would care enough about insurance to share their experiences. However, within twelve months, more than 50,000 people had taken the time to review and share their insurance experiences. The result was more than the Clearsurance team hoped for — a transparent, customer-powered platform for real people to learn about and buy insurance including auto, home, and renters, with helpful information about pet and life insurance, too. As of early 2021, Clearsurance came under the ownership of 360 Quote LLC. The mission hasn’t changed — helping real people save on insurance by giving them a transparent and authentic platform to share their insurance experiences. The voices of real customers should inform your insurance choices. Clearsurance aggregates and analyzes reviews and ratings of insurance companies and policies posted online by shoppers like you. In fact, recommendations are based on over 150,000 authentic reviews by insurance buyers and use big-data analysis to rank the companies by policy. To show you how reliable the rankings are, we also share the number of customer reviews analyzed to arrive at the rankings.
- Successful sale of company to a Private Equity firm during Covid19 (January 2021).
- 3x+ increase in CTR and conversion rates through site optimization.
- Developed content strategy to grow organic search traffic by 200%+ YOY.
- Drove exponential growth of paid media traffic and conversions through ideation, creation, optimization of Facebook campaigns – branding, retargeting, conversion campaigns. Managed agency and self-ran ads.
- Drove growth through digital campaigns, content production/SEO, and site optimization. Direct to Consumer.
- Brand redesign and collaboration with expert designers for best outcomes.
Related Blog Posts
What Is a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)? 15 Key Responsibilities How to Hire a CMO for Transformative Growth: 8 Key Strategies Discover how to hire a CMO using eight critical steps, and get strategies to empower your CMO for success. Uncover the easiest way to hire the ideal CMO through Go Fractional.
What Is a Fractional CMO? (Services, Key Benefits, How to Hire) Explore how a fractional CMO can unlock growth in your business. Dive into the proven benefits and find out how to hire top talent through Go Fractional.
Similar Members
Adam Adelman - Branding
- Marketing
- Product Strategy
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- CPO
CMO & CDO - Specializing in Scaling Growth to 9 figures for Consumer Brands. Very results oriented.
Andrew Altersohn - Advisor
- Fractional CMO
- Go-To-Market Strategies & Implementation
- Fractional COO
- Strategy
Fractional COO, CMO, CGO | Scaling Growth & Operations
Michael Frank - Start-up Ventures
- Business strategy
- Competitive Analysis
- Connecting People
- Corporate Development
Startup Growth Guy / Wantrepreneur
Send me Talent
Chat with the founders of Go Fractional to learn what problems you could be solving tomorrow.
