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Creative, accomplished marketing and design
professional focused on helping
consumers and retail firms create sustainable homes and offices that optimize health, overcome disabilities and aging,
save energy, and use green materials.
Retail firms benefit from superb customer relations, sales, and strategic multi-media marketing efforts executed with creative ideas
that make people sit up and take notice. Skills include web design, writing, event creation, project management, traditional and online marketing,
media relations, and social media. Background in retail, health, travel, home renovation, and
technology combined with experience as creative supervisor, designer,
illustrator, publicist, and copywriter.
Individual home design clients benefit from hands-on experience with multiple home remodels, a strong background in green building, and project management skills that ensure that you get your dream home without losing sleep at night.
Key Skills
- Exceptional writing skills (view Nicolette's
blog as an example)
- Background in energy policy, energy efficiency, and passive solar building strategies
- Certified green building professional (Build It Green)
- Web design (HTML, XHTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, ImageReady)
- Strong strategic planning and project management for web launches
and integrated online/print marketing campaigns (Dreamweaver, IBM
Websphere, InDesign)
- Online marketing: E-newsletters, banners, landing pages, SEO,
SEM and Cost-Per-Click campaigns (Google Analytics, SEO copywriting)
- Producing retail print catalogs and ads (print bidding/buying,
color correction, photo retouching)
- Brand management: coherence of messages and visual assets across
web, print, radio, and TV
- New business presentations and events (Powerpoint, video, multimedia,
scripting, media coaching, and speechwriting)
- Writing and management of responses to RFPs, editorial management
of print and e-publications
- Proven client management and communications skills
- Team building, managing multi-disciplinary teams and outside
contractors
- Skilled at sketching, drafting, and illustration (by hand, Illustrator, Photoshop,
SketchUp, and Revit) (See webpage and drawing portfolio)
- Public relations: News releases, stage directing events,
testimonials, news outreach in print and online
- Space planning and color consultation
- Hands-on experience from four home renovations, freelance experience
providing space planning, energy efficiency advice, and color consultation to home design clients
- Mature, creative problem-solver with small business and retail
experience
Career Highlights
- Creator of "Living in Comfort and Joy", a green building and interior design blog that attracted more than 37,000 visitors in its first year - now syndicated on Facebook and Chloregy
- Lead writer on RFP for solar panel installation on historic landmark building in San Francisco
- Earned 2005 commendation, bonus, standing ovation from top
management for website launch
- Facebook ad with online "killer quiz" (about serial killers) proved
most effective promotion in university’s history, gaining
a front-page story in San Diego Union Tribune
- Cut bounce rate by 50% and increased new user visits by more
than 200 a day after website
redesign, and launch of SEM, SEO and social marketing campaign
for forensics school
- Video development for Apple CD-ROM user training guide won
a "Cindy" creative award
- TV and videos: wrote script
for “Broken
Wings” documentary on domestic violence; created TV campaign
introducing New Zealand kiwifruit to US
- Creative direction for annual report chosen as one of nation’s
ten best by Business Publishing Magazine
- Creative concept for Hawaii Dreambook, rated United Airlines’ “most
effective travel promotion”
- National creative award from American Advertising Federation; Ads
Magazine also recognized Ampex campaign as “one
of ten business-to-business campaigns of the year”
- Re-developed website for PBS
TV series “Healing Quest”
Professional History
Marketing and Showroom Manager, Keane Kitchen Remodeling Showroom. San Carlos, CA, 2/10-present. Weekend manager for kitchen showroom offering full-scale remodels. Greet and orient potential clients, qualify leads, start design programming process, explain advantages of different materials and design choices (cabinetry, countertops, tile, flooring, and lighting). Creating new positioning, collateral, ads and PR for expansion of the showroom business.
Owner, Comfort and Joy Home Design. San Francisco, 3/10-present. Owner and chief designer for a remodeling design firm with accent on interior environmental quality and designs that enable those with disability and aging issues to live vibrantly in beautiful surroundings.
Marketing Director, Hufstedler School of Education, Alliant International
University, San Francisco, 1/09-present. Currently supervise web and print marketing part-time for school of education at private graduate university with
$1.1M income from38800 students on six California campuses and
one in Mexico City. Manage internal and external clients; oversee
web and print budget and tracking, determine messaging and graphic
standards.
Associate VP of Communications, Alliant International University, 11/07-1/09 Pioneered social media strategies on Facebook and LinkedIn;
created and managed Pay-Per-Click campaigns.
Served asproject and design manager for Alliant's
massive, IBM Websphere-based website, portal and content management
system launched in “shortest period ever seen” by ad
agency. Design and SEO for six additional
websites. Managed print
designer, online designer/webmaster, plus freelance writers, designers,
print and IT contractors. Oversaw signage and graphics for three
campus moves. Developed new corporate identity, charted market
rollouts. Hired as PR Director in 2003, promoted to Assistant VP 2005 with added website, print publication and buying authority.
Promoted to Associate VP Communications in 2007. (Moved to current part-time marketing position in 2009 to provide more time for freelance clients and continuing education in green building.)
Media and Marketing Communications
Positions
- Media Director, Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, San
Francisco, 2/98-10/03
- Media Director, TURN, The Utility Reform Network, San Francisco, 7/96-2/98 - Conducted community outreach campaigns on energy efficiency and electric deregulation, engaged in lobbying on behalf of ratepayers, and informed media about impact of California deregulation proposals/law and energy policy.
- Owner/President, Nicolette Toussaint
Communications, San
Francisco, 1/94-8/96
- Sr. Communications Consultant, Communication
Technologies, San Francisco, 2/93-12/93
- Creative Services Manager, RIDES for
Bay Area Commuters, San Francisco, 9/89-2/93 Outreach to consumers and media to prevent traffic congestion and enhance clean air by reducing solo driving. Served on Spare the Air outreach board of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District; featured as keynote speaker for California Clean Air Week in three different counties.
Advertising Agency Positions
- Associate Creative Director, NW Ayer,
Los Angeles, 1986. Directed radio and print advertising
for Sheraton Hotels – Western US, and for AAA-affiliate
California Automobile Association
- Senior Copywriter, Dailey
& Associates/Lowe Marschalk, San Francisco, 1983-85. TV,
radio and print ads for Royal Viking Cruise Lines, Del Monte
brands (Chun King, Patio Mexican Food, A1 Steak Sauce and Wright’s
Hickory Smoke), New Zealand Kiwifruit Authority, Kaiser Permanente
and Magic Theatre
- Senior (High Tech) Copywriter, Foote/Cone/Belding,
San Francisco, 1983.
- Copywriter, Doug Gotthoffer Advertising, Palo Alto,
1983: Seiko Graphics, Hunter and Ready and Westminster
Software (project management and critical path analysis software)
- Advertising and Creative Services Manager, GE/Calma
Computer-Aided Design, 1980-83
Print and TV ads and user documentation for CAD/CAM
systems for architecture and engineering
- Advertising Consultant, United Airlines,
1977-81.
Education
Master’s Degree in Design, Institute
of Design and Architecture (Bauhaus), Illinois Institute of
Technology, Chicago, Illinoi
BA in English,
BA in Journalism, with honors, University
of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
Build It Green Certification
Current Evening Student, Certificate
Program in Interior Design & Architecture, UC
Berkeley Extension, San Francisco
Additional Professional Training
- Search Engine Marketing and Direct Marketing – American
Marketing Association
- Management by Objective, Gantt and Critical
Path Project Management – General Electric
- Web design,
HTML, CSS – Academy X
- Photoshop, Watercolor Photo-realism – UC
Berkeley Extension
- Scriptwriting – SFSU
- Interviewing
and Radio Production – National Public Radio
- Public
Speaking – Decker
and Associates
Professional Memberships
IIDA, Search Engine Marketing Salon, American Marketing Association,
LinkedIn, Linking Northern California, Green Marketing Group,
Mature Marketing Group
References
References on request; recommendations
on Nicolette's
LinkedIn Profile; click here for client
testimonials.
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