Matt Gardiner

Managed and developed annual marketing plan & budget in conjunction with Area and Region Leadership.
• Developed Area marketing strategy and initiatives. Counseled, and provided support to Area Leadership to maximize impact of corporate driven marketing programs and best practices for delivering local programs.
• Managed marketing activities to support and drive key results; sales and profit growth, customer penetration, and account growth.
• Developed, planned, executed marketing & sales activities such as sales meetings, promotions/incentives, culinary events.
• Directed and supervised Marketing Coordinators remotely.
• Responsible for communicating local promotional results to sales team by using Corporate provided analytics or worked with Sales Analyst on local tracking needs.
• Worked with Area VP Merchandising & Marketing, Area Category Operations Managers and Area Director of Sales Support to identify and develop promotional opportunities for localized vendors.
• Built strategic relationships and partnerships with key industry players, agencies and vendors.
• Responsible for ensuring company brand standards were maintained on all Area marketing material and that all personnel and vendor/broker partners followed brand guidelines.
• Achievements: Managed annual budget of $630,000
• Created and launched virtual sales meeting for 100 attendees across 3 markets
• Developed annual sales promotion and grand prize trip to Waldorf Astoria Park City
• Secured $65,000 in funding to developed first ever Austin Food & Wine Festival sponsorship.
• Secured over $90,000 in funding for customer events: PGA Dell Match Play, University of Texas Football, Austin FC Soccer, Austin Restaurant Week, Texas Restaurant Association.
• Executed annual Sales Awards Banquet with over 200 guest

Responsibilities encompass all phases of sales & marketing for golf course and organization.
Duties include developing effective marketing campaigns, negotiating media buys (radio, print), electronic and print communication with constituents, writing press releases, maintaining effective media and vendor relations, event planning and coordination, fundraising campaign support, promoting donor relations, marketing signage and other corporate sponsorships, targeting and recruiting large organizations, selling golf memberships.
Responsible for design and creation of all marketing materials, including website, printed and electronic newsletters, proposals, presentations, meeting support materials, tickets, posters, and brochures.
Extensive interaction with the Board of Directors, executive management, constituents, donors, partners, members and volunteers.
Achievements: Turned golf course into a profitable business within first year of tenure.
Completely re-designed and enhanced the First Tee website; making it more user-friendly, updating content and graphics, and improving its ability to drive business to the golf course.
Responsible for planning, coordinating and directing our Annual Celebrity Golf Tournament, which raised over $219,000 from major donors and high-level corporate executives.
Assisted in establishing a comprehensive sales and marketing plan each year for the golf course.

• Responsible for maintaining region supported marketing & sponsorship budgets throughout the year, providing monthly forecasts, tracking and analyzing expenditures and balanced expenditures against objectives.
• Developed, planed, executed programs, events, promotional materials to support company marketing priorities.
• Partnered with Regional VP’s, District Managers, and Store Directors in region to provide marketing expertise and ensured consistent execution of marketing programs as the store level.
• Developed and coordinated integrated marketing plans to support in-store events/promotions, off-site activations, vendor events, store grand openings, online sweepstakes, register to win promotions, product display/demonstrations, player appearances, promotional giveaways, and regional campaign initiatives.
• Assisted internal Ecommerce & Digital teams to create marketing drivers to increase web traffic.
• Worked cross-functionally with vendor marketing, advertising, creative, Ecommerce, buyers & merchants, store operations, legal department, visual merchandising, public relations to execute retail promotions and events.
Achievements: Created tactics that amplified and localized corporate brand message through programs and partnerships that promote Academy brand, drove traffic, and built customer relationships.
• Developed partnerships with local community influencers and organizations that increased business for the region.
• Partnered with Communications, Community Relations and media stakeholders to drive community engagement and ensured localization of messaging across media channels.
• Managed Academy’s marketing & promotional relationships with Emmitt Smith & Danica Patrick.
• Developed and managed company’s four annual nationwide online sweepstakes that helped build email/social databases and drove Ecommerce business.

Successfully coordinated high-profile, nationwide marketing campaigns at this sports marketing firm with clients Pepsi and Sirius Satellite Radio.
Responsible for coordinating and managing a nationwide youth initiative program, co-sponsored by the NFL, MLB and MLS, and held exclusively at Wal*Mart stores.
Served as liaison with Pepsi's National Account Sales Managers and Key Account Managers, as well as Wal*Mart management, to execute logistics and intricate details of events.
Assisted Pepsi Sales and Account Managers in developing effective program sell-ins, event concepts, promotions and regional market-wide strategies to fully leverage program.
Specific duties included scheduling and coordinating all events, preparing itineraries, hiring local staff, managing, processing payments and invoices, and preparing detailed reports on each event for management.
Achievements: Contributed to an increase in total events from 785 to 953 within one year for a 97% success rate
Increased bottlers' sales by 25% with use of the program.
Established a partnership between the local New Orleans Pepsi Bottler and the New Orleans Hornets across bottlers entire 30-store market.
Generated 46,453 incremental hits to the Music Mayhem promotional website in a 7-week period.
Promotion made 3.3 million impressions on consumers through the 28 NCAA partners and their conference, radio, web, TV, on-site activation, e-blast, and print materials.