e-business + marketing

europeancourier.org

The EuropeanCourier.org started in 2006 as an opinion website and soon evolved to become a respected digital media outlet with a specialized focus on international affairs, business and new media issues. At the end of 2010, it had over 300,000 unique visitors a year, not counting those readers who visited the website repeatedly over the year. EuropeanCourier.org has been joined by many distinguished contributors, including Diego Arria (former President of the UN Security Council) and Muhamed Sacirbey (former Vice President of Standard & Poor’s and the foreign minister of Bosnia and Herzgovina). In 2008, we teamed-up with the Foreign Policy Association from New York City and conducted a series of video interviews with foreign diplomats at the United Nations’ headquarters (they are all listed in my “politics + human right + law” section). In 2008-2009 we joined forces with Ebru TV (Channel 53 in the U.S.) and helped them produce 3 episodes of the “World Affairs” TV series, which were broadcasted to over 9 million viewers in the United States. So far, our work has been quoted and featured in many recognized publications and media, including Daily Kos, Ebru TV, Noticiero Digital, Noticias 24, Sarajevo-X, Central Europe Digest, Stosunki Międzynarodowe, Portal Spraw Zagranicznych, Bosnia Daily or Dnevni Avaz.

At the EuropeanCourier.org, I serve as the editor-in-chief and the marketing director of the magazine. I personally designed and created the website, first by using html coding and then by switching to wordpress as a management platform and php as a design tool. I created and executed an online marketing strategy which in 2010 resulted in over 300,000 unique visitors a year (we achieved this result by growing organically from a virtual zero of users). I also did a lot of research and journalistic work with copy editing, video and content production. My work for the EuropeanCourier.org is mostly fun, but it is also very rewarding. Although the magazine started generating revenue in November 2009, it presently operates mainly as a marketing and public relations tool. Diego Arria, who is a leading opposition leader to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, uses our magazine to publish his blog over there. Our fast growing social media accounts at Twitter and Facebook are currently able to instantaneously increase our readership from a few hundred visitors to over 3 thousand unique visitors in any given day. In 2010, we used our social media marketing and public relations experience to advise a political candidate in a municipal election in Poland. We created and helped execute a successful online media strategy which resulted in the 3rd best election result in the voting district.

babybluu.com

BabyBluu.com is an e-commerce website, which has a quite romantic story behind it. While in China, I worked on a feasibility study for a start-up company in the Chinese fashion industry, which resulted in several presentations to the Chinese business experts and professors. After my come back to Boston, I spent some time on redesigning the business plan so that it could fit in the U.S. market as well. Eventually, I registered a company and brought BabyBluu.com to life. Something that started as a school project is now being tested in reality. BabyBluu.com is a website which offers time-limited deals for deeply discounted, selected fashion products of middle and high-end brands. Our deals usually last 2-3 days and the long-term goal is to bring that period down to 24 hours (one sale a day). We also adopted quite new and innovative business strategy. While the majority of fashion e-commerce websites bet heavily on search engine traffic and Facebook, we are building BabyBluu on the power of Twitter. At this point we are at the most difficult “awareness level”, promoting the website to potential customers to make them frequent visitors and repeated buyers.

marketing consultant | kamuu.com

In 2010, I met Prof. Stephanie Watts, a renowned business and IT scholar, who researches the role and design of smartphones in the ethical consumption movement in the United States. Prof. Watts came up with a business idea, which generated initial interest of the venture capital funds, for a unique iPhone app that would provide information to businesses on consumers’ behavior relating to the ethical consumption habits. Together with 2 other MBAs (including one from Cap Gemini), we formed a consulting team and over a period of 3 months created a comprehensive marketing and promotional plan for the launch of the app. Moreover, we conducted extensive primary and secondary research, including focus groups and surveys, that influenced the final app’s design, functionality and pricing strategy. The Kamuu company was registered at the beginning of 2011 and the iPhone app launch was scheduled for May 2011, based on our marketing and promotional plan.