Curriculum Vitae

Véro S. Pepperrell
Blogger, Marketer & Geekette
Email: vero@thatcanadiangirl.co.uk
Tel: +44 7875 540 945

Who am I?

I’m passionate about online marketing, using new media creatively and giving brand evangelist customers products that excite them. I want to work with equally motivated businesses who are willing to experiment with new marketing tools and reach out to their community.

Skills & Experience

Online Marketing/Public Relations:

  • Blogger since 2000, social media addict since the mid-90′s
  • Excellent communication and customer relations management skills through traditional and new social media channels
  • Passion for social networks & experimenting in integrating them into marketing strategies
  • Email Marketing (Digital Impact, Epsilon, Campaign Monitor)

Technical/Analytical:

  • Data-driven mindset and analytical approach towards new initiatives & features
  • Logs & Javascript based web analytics (Clicktracks, Google Analytics, Apache logs)
  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) & Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign management
  • Blogging platforms (WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, TextPattern) and Content Management Systems
  • Not afraid of database design, MySQL queries, HTML, CSS or Shell (Bring it on! I’ll happily hold a geeky conversation with your CTO without my eyes glazing over.)
  • A Mac user at heart since the late 80′s, but I’ll use Windows or Linux if I have to

General skills:

  • Fluent in English and French with a basic knowledge of Spanish
  • Project and team management: I love people, I love organisation and nothing makes me happier than leading a project to fruition.
  • Awesome sangria-maker & one mean Mario Kart Wii player

Work experience

Head of Community Relations (Community Evangelist) at Taptu, Cambridge, UK

Taptu is a mobile search engine, bursting with entertainment and useful content, with a knack for making sharing results by email, SMS or Twitter simple and fun. I joined the team in April 2007.

  • Design and launch the Taptu blog, manage blog content and reach out to the community
  • Keep an eye out for upcoming social networks and establish how we can engage with the community both online and offline via social networks, events and forums
  • Establish key metrics from which to gauge success from all this fluffy community stuff (!)
  • Attend events and meet all the fabulous people who use our product, and get their feedback face-to-face

Sales & Marketing Director at Pepsmedia

Co-founded in 2005 with my husband Andrew, Pepsmedia is a web, media and marketing agency. It’s a work of passion for both of us and our objective is to help companies bridge the gap between traditional marketing and the new web 2.0 world they want to enter.

  • Provide bespoke Content Management Systems to businesses who require an easy and dynamic way of updating their website content
  • Produce thorough, creative marketing plans and striking branding documentation which clients can implement on a limited budget
  • Hold workshops introducing marketers & business managers to social media & web 2.0
  • Search Engine Optimisation resulting in vastly increased traffic to client sites
  • Efficiently handling client contracts, invoicing and business accounting (not my favourite task, but an essential one)

B2C Business Development/Conversion & Email Marketing at Booking.com (formerly Active Hotels Ltd) from June 2005 to April 2007.

Working for one of Europe’s leading online hotel reservations provider, my role was B2C focused with a mix of marketing and business development.

Marketing

  • Send weekly newsletters to +1 million readers/month, for two different brands, producing over £150,000 TTV/month
  • Manage WordPress blog design & launch for the Active Hotels brand, handle feedback and analyse statistics on growth and SEO impact on the wider business
  • Develop briefs for on-site features, closely analyse results during A/B tests and present conclusions and next steps to directors
  • Create copy for multiple new areas of the website, customer FAQs and management of translation process by in-house and consulting translators

Business development

  • Maximise revenue from car and flight bookings via multiple consumer touch-points (on-site, email newsletter, PPC, pre & post-booking)
  • Build and manage relationships with adjacent service providers (cars, flights, package holidays) to establish new revenue streams
  • Analyse and report traffic and conversion growth via each channel to directors and management

Marketing for Computer Science, Maths, Sciences in the Higher & Professional Education team at Pearson Education from 2002 to 2005

  • Create and deliver marketing plans and campaign schedules successfully to meet profitability objectives, track market share against objectives
  • Build comprehensive sales tools for use by sales teams in all territories across multiple disciplines
  • Write marketing copy and edit for the web, using HTML formatting; create web-based surveys, manage review process and analyse results
  • Implement PR plan to secure product review in relevant journals and publications

Personal Projects

That Canadian Girl
Since 2002, That Canadian Girl is a home for my ideas on online marketing, advertising, technology and business. In July 2008, it ranked as #30 on the Wikio list of Top UK Tech Blogs, and received over 245,000 unique visitors in June 2008.

SocialMediaCamp London
Held in October 2008, SocialMediaCamp London was organised single-handedly, with the aim of getting a hundred developers, designers, marketers, journalists and creatives together to share their experiences of social media as a tool in business, education and charity.

The event was a great success for the attendees and sponsors, and a second SocialMediaCamp London will be organised early in 2009.

Published articles on third-party websites

See a sample of Vero’s published articles

Education

1st Class Communications Baccalaureate, Advertising & Public Relations Concentration
Ottawa University, Ottawa, Canada

Scholarships

  • Scholarship for studies in Communications & Media: Received from the Donatien Frémont Foundation based on high grades and a demonstration of interest in the New Media field.
  • Scholarship for studying in French from the Government of Education of Ontario based on high grades and application to a French language University degree.

You’re still here?! Want to find out more? Get in touch for a copy of my complete CV.