Ben Carlson

• Lead digital marketing and ecommerce strategies to boost web traffic, customer engagement, and online revenue for a top firearm accessories and outdoor equipment provider. • Oversee product curation, pricing, visual merchandising, and content layout for a seamless, engaging shopping experience on Brownells.com. • Manage and mentor a team, including Sr. Manager of Digital Merchandising, Marketing Specialist, Email/SMS Manager, and Sr. SEO Manager, fostering innovation and collaboration. • Previously managed Channel Marketing Manager, Sr. Pricing and Promotions Manager, and Pricing Specialist, driving channel-specific marketing, promotions, and pricing strategies. • Led the Marketplace initiative, expanding Brownells’ platform with third-party sellers to increase product assortment and revenue, before transitioning to new roles. • Directed paid media campaigns on X, Meta, Google, and Bing, optimizing ROI and KPIs, prior to delegating to new roles. • Execute Paid Media, SEO, and Affiliate Marketing initiatives, using data analytics to enhance search rankings, ROI, and online reach. • Collaborate with brand marketing, buyers, category managers, supply chain, operations, and finance to align ecommerce with company goals and ensure efficiency. • Use Adobe Analytics to track performance metrics, guide pricing and assortment decisions, and improve sales and customer satisfaction. • Manage digital marketing and ecommerce budgets to achieve business goals and maximize ROI. • Implemented a streamlined marketing and merchandising planning process, establishing a concise annual cadence.

• Developed and led omni-channel marketing initiative and promotional plans with $350m+ revenue for Sportsman’s Guide, The Golf Warehouse, and Baseball Savings. • Drove cross-functional teams including marketing, creative, merchandising, and inventory to activate on comprehensive campaign alignment across web, email, SMS, print, and social. • Built data driven seasonal strategy and planning for all marketing campaigns. • Owned legacy loyalty program strategy and execution with annual revenue exceeding $23m. • Main contact with Bread Financial for daily management of house branded credit card. • Created and launched new marketing and merchandising workflow process and partnered with Adobe to begin creation of marketing and creative Workfront experience. • Responsible for executive communication of marketing strategies, calendar, and sales fluctuations. • Core team member for marketplace strategic initiative (Amazon and Wal-Mart). • Act as the company expert in customer lifecycle marketing, segmentation, personalization, and retention through data driven practices

• Maintained previous operations role and responsibilities in addition to interim leadership role during company acquisition, restructure, and during talent search process. • Led e-Commerce team (digital merchandisers, UX, and project manager) for sportsmansguide.com. • Team managed all partnerships, influencers, co-op, and brick and mortar retail marketing. • Managed full promotional calendar and all digital vendor relationships and tools.

• Acted as the primary site product owner and business liaison to web development and ERP teams for sportsmansguide.com. • Business lead in agile process (sprints, deployments, and quality assurance processes). • Drove the ongoing and iterative process to assess and assign project priorities and write stories for dev. • Supported and contributed to ongoing A/B test initiatives to improve site profitability and CX. • Established and maintained relationships with partners such as Bazaarvoice, Bloomreach, Certona, Tealium, Verint, and Adobe. • Acted as business lead with SEO partner, Bruce Clay, and worked with IT to implement changes. • Partnered with new and legacy SEM and affiliate partners (Adlucent, Avantlink, and Commission Junction) to launch and optimize campaigns and organize efforts between creative, IT, and merchandising. • Acted as business operations parter with Sezzle to launch new buy-now-pay-later system. • Direct reports included Sr. UX Designer and Sr. Operations Project Manager

• Oversaw full P&L and lifecycle for product lines totaling $120m for Explore Information Services. • Managed all aspects of flagship SaaS products including stakeholder role in production, engineering, and data science scrum. • Performed research on product extensions and whitespace in automotive and insurance tech industries. • Created business case documentation for new products and presented to executive leadership. • Identified key buying criteria and translated into customer-facing requirements. • Supported sales team in a technical sales role on key account team selling initiatives.

• Led development of brand positioning, customer segmentation, and long-range marketing planning for Pepper Ball business unit. • Created and led integrated marketing plans to activate company strategies for PR, pricing, packaging, promotion, and program development. • Owned market research to drive data driven decision making and improved new product introduction. • Sought and represented the voice of the customer (VoC) and developed customer-centric growth strategies that grew core business, developed new markets, and channels. • Led cross-functional engineering, operations, finance, sales, digital, creative, and events teams. • Developed and executed strategies to further vertical and horizontal sales/ marketing objectives. • Owned product lifecycle including product strategy, planning, pricing, manuals, post launch profit/loss, value proposition, and customer satisfaction. • Attended trade shows, assisted in onsite photo and video asset creation, and was the main media contact. • Collaborated with VP of Digital and e-Commerce to develop consumer journey, B2C site enhancements, brand engagement across paid and social media, interview influencers, and direct creative agencies. • Managed and negotiated new and existing vendor and agency SOWs and source new partners.

• Managed paid media strategy, plan development, and execution for all Vista Outdoor brands. • Tracked budgets and spend for multiple business groups (agency, paid media, and creative production). • Responsible for managing all integrated marketing projects including campaigns, print, video, digital, social, promotional, agency, brand, photography, web, and packaging. • Partnered with brand and sales teams to understand business objectives and managed cross-functional teams to execute plans with marketing, creative, product development, engineering, and sales. • Wrote creative briefs, marketing and promotional plans, and acted as SME for video and photo shoots.

• Tasked with bringing the consumer voice to life and presenting findings to executive leadership. • Partnered with product and engineering in product development process for new to world products. • Planned and led quantitative and qualitative research and engaged with users on product concepts. • Studied social media, customer reviews, and blogs to aggregate consumer’s perceptions and to identify whitespace and areas for product improvement. • Assisted in creating new product through idea management, ideation support, and managing centralized tools and techniques involved in gathering, sharing, evaluating and progressing new concepts. • Product and marketing owner for creation of a custom open innovation portal (Ezassi) and acted as IT Project Manager through development, launch, and site maintenance. • Created and monitored panel discussion topics and panel engagement plans with vendor (Gongas). • Led cross-functional teams within Contracts, Legal, IT, Engineering / Product Dev, Comms and HR. • Directed team members from Social Media, IT, and Digital to create content, integrate navigation, and analyze digital metrics/ KPI’s to create and improve social media strategies and adhere to brand standards.

• Established and delivered strategic training & marketing development programs across all channels. • Developed and managed all aspects of marketing pro-staff program. • Provided and communicated content materials to sales, field training, pro-staff, and trade marketing. • Managed internal and external training materials and web-based resources such as 3Point5/Expert Voice and Sales Shot (sales team portal) as well as all company VIP/Discount programs. • Drove experiential marketing strategy and execution through marketing pro-staff, brand ambassadors, and regular product focused events with internal and external groups. • Developed retail activation marketing strategy for innovative new product launches. • Aligned marketing strategies, sales tools, and shared services while guarding brand guidelines. • Worked with Product teams to develop and organize appropriate marketing training materials as part of product launch communications such as spec sheets, new product sheets, and competitive comparisons. • Developed annual sales meeting agendas and content for all classroom and in-field training. • Product manager for the retail merchandising display/POP program (creation, P&L, lifecycle, and SMU). • Assisted the Events team and vendors in planning and execution of trade/consumer shows.

• Various retail store and corporate management roles (Gander Academy) with 20+ direct reports and national marketing responsibilities.

Department of Political Science

Department of Political Science and History

Public Law and International Relations

Public Law and International Relations

Focus in criminal psychology, victimology, and statistics