Anthony M. Ragland is celebrating 25 years in marketing and 50,000 hours as a strategic marketing practitioner (1999 - 2024) this year.
The Career Story Of Anthony M. Ragland
Introduction
Anthony M. Ragland is a strategic marketer and scientific advertiser with over 25 years of experience in B2B, DTC, Higher Education, FinTech, and SaaS industries, collectively.
Ragland earned his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from LaGrange College in 1999. After graduation, he became the webmaster + marketing director for Evander Holyfield, the Heavyweight Boxing Champion of the World.
During his tenure as marketing director (1999 – 2004), Ragland became known for his successful Internet marketing campaigns. Many of his campaigns were pioneering strategies and tactics in website marketing at the time.
From the early days of the ‘Internet‘ to the current ‘Digital‘ days… Ragland has compiled over 50,000 hours of practice in the art and science of digital marketing and paid media.
Today, Ragland ranks among the top practitioners in his industry… due to his extensive knowledge, expansive skill-set, and enterprising abilities in the fields of MarTech (marketing technology) and digital advertising.
To date, Ragland has generated tens of millions of organic website visitors. He has managed millions of dollars in paid advertisements. His teams have produced hundreds of thousands of online leads. And Ragland has helped companies earn over a hundred million dollars in revenue.
His digital brand assets and marketing contributions have lead to two major acquisitions in his career, one of which Ragland was an equity shareholder and Head of Marketing for a B2B SaaS company that became a unicorn.
Ragland uses his diverse professional experience to achieve collaborative excellence with stakeholders. He has 25 years of experience collaborating with executive teams, management teams, creative talent, product teams, web developers, and outsource partners. His authentic leadership style and abundant mindset have inspired growth in people, teams, and organizations worldwide.
Chapter 1 - Marketing Infancy
While practicing baseball and preparing for a professional tryout after college, Anthony met Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
Upon learning about his computer science degree, Mr. Holyfield hired Anthony to build his website (EvanderHolyfield.com) to promote his upcoming heavyweight championship fight against Lennox Lewis. At the time, the match was being dubbed as the fight of the decade.
Prior to the fight, Anthony had EvanderHolyfield.com embroidered on Mr. Holyfield’s boxing robe, shorts, and training gear. And, he advised Holyfield to say, “log on to my website…” at the end of every interview.
On the night of the fight, Holyfield’s website attracted so many visitors, it crashed the servers. The website and marketing/PR campaign Anthony produced was a huge success… he was promoted to marketing director by Holyfield Management soon after, and his marketing career was born.
While serving as the marketing director for Holyfield Management, Team Holyfield Boxing, and the Holyfield Foundation… Anthony was mentored by dozens of great business and marketing leaders.
He learned from billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Hoffman (co-founder of Priceline.com), the legendary promoter Don King, public relations icon Lee Solters, and many more great minds.
Chapter 2 - Marketing Adolescence
In 2004, Anthony founded Big Picture Media, a marketing firm based in Atlanta, Georgia… and he became a sought after Internet marketing, paid advertising, & SEO consultant.
During this time, he also built Big League Store, an eCommerce store that sold over 600 different baseball gloves, bats, and accessories.
He grew BigLeagueStore.com from zero visitors per month, to over 140,000 visitors per year with best practice SEO strategies and $0 advertising budget. He also grew it over 6,000 customers and 17,000 mailing list subscribers in five years.
As a marketing consultant, Anthony provided director-level marketing consultancy to numerous institutions around the country… including pro sports teams & athletes, advertising & marketing agencies, newspaper & magazine organizations, business-to-business & business-to-consumer companies, and academic & medical groups.
To date, Anthony is responsible for generating over a hundred thousand online leads, managing millions of dollars in paid ads, attracting tens of millions of non-paid website visitors, and earning tens of millions of dollars in online sales for clients.
Chapter 3 - Marketing Maturity
In 2016, Anthony was recruited by Property Brands (now, Inhabit IQ) to become Head of Marketing and employee number seven. In only two and a half years, Anthony helped the software company grow from $2MM to over $50MM in annual recurring revenue.
While serving as Head of Marketing across all portfolio brands, Anthony successfully re-branded the company’s M&A acquisitions.
He also launched integrated marketing communication campaigns that produced rapid organic and cross-sell growth within the portfolio.
In 2018, Anthony successfully exited Property Brands after the company sold for over 9 figures to private equity.
In his spare time, Anthony serves as a volunteer marketing mentor at the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, where he advises local start-ups on marketing + branding + advertising strategies.
Most recently, Anthony has served as a Fractional CMO to a few select B2B, DTC, and SaaS brands.
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