Smart Marketing
Starts Here
Utilize proven processes to create a marketing machine that delivers results….all the time.
Follow the Road
to Smart Marketing
Create marketing dashboards that really measure results. Learn what works and what doesn’t.
Start With the End in Mind Let us help you understand the present, dream of the future, and chart your best path forward.
If You Build It,
They Will Come
Understand your customers and delight them. Companies that follow this mindset are more successful that those that do not.
Follow the Marketing Roadmaps
Marketing Roadmaps, LLC is a strategic marketing consultancy that helps companies to create a profitable marketing machine that wins customers for life. We help you understand the present, dream of the future, and chart the best marketing path forward.
We start by creating (or refining) your strategy and goals. We then build and implement processes, plans and tactics that deliver results. Finally we measure, review, and optimize results to continuously improve your marketing machine.
It’s what I call “smart marketing” and is the amalgamation of my 20+ years of hands-on marketing experience, all personalized for you, to help your company grow like you dreamed it can.

How Marketing Roadmaps Can Help You Grow Your Business
The Marketing Roadmaps Process is designed to be modular, so you can do what you need, when you need to. It’s best to be comprehensive and complete all the steps and build a solid foundation. But the process can also be used in modules, allowing you to pick the elements that are most important. Because timing in business isn’t always on our side and we must move quickly.
The Marketing Roadmaps Process, when used in its entirety is comprised of 5 modules, that when completed, will create a complete “marketing machine”. It all starts with the strategic marketing and brand identity modules. Then the process continues with channel development and marketing implementation. Finally it finishes off with marketing measurement and optimization.
Your Marketing Roadmap to Success

Strategic Marketing
Begin your marketing journey with a solid plan that includes a comprehensive review of your company and your market position. Set solid growth plans for 3 to 5 years.

Brand Identity
Ensure your company image is the best one. Includes branding, messaging, product or service review, content development and customer experience.

Channel Development
Organize the marketing mechanics that will drive your marketing machine.
- Customer Journey Mapping
- Customer Relationship Marketing
- Marketing Database Management
- Voice of the Customer
- Marketing Automation
- Artificial Intelligence
- E-Mail Marketing
- Blogs & Newsletters
- Video
- Inbound Marketing

Marketing Activation
Get moving on all customer touchpoints to drive qualified leads into your organization. Includes digital marketing and traditional marketing initiatives.
- Website Design & Landing Pages
- Search Engine Optimization
- Social Media
- Direct Mail
- Digital Advertising
- Traditional Advertising
- Event Planning
- Influencer Marketing
- Public Relations

Marketing Measurement
Review your efforts via a monthly marketing dashboard. Keep what’s working and improve on what’s not.
- Marketing Calendars
- Marketing Dashboards
- Customer Advocacy
- Customer Satisfaction
- Lifetime Value of a Customer
Get Better Results
I’m Karen Illes and I created Marketing Roadmaps, LLC to help businesses change growth trajectories. I have helped improve the performance of more than 300 brands at over 30 companies.
I utilize an interactive approach, combined with my marketing roadmap process, to help businesses like yours attract the right customers. Customers that increase sales and improve profitability.

I can help any company; if you’re just starting out, if you’re launching a new product or division, or if you just want a marketing refresh. I can step in and serve as your Chief Marketing Officer or I can manage just one project working with your existing marketing team. It’s all marketing, and what I love to do.
Marketing Roadmaps, LLC is a boutique strategic marketing consulting agency focused on educating, empowering and enabling small to medium sized businesses. I work with clients to understand the present, dream of the future and chart the best marketing path forward. I focus on strategy and goals while also implementing customer-centric processes, plans and tactics to deliver results. I then measure results to optimize and continuously improve. It’s what I call SMART MARKETING.
I know what it takes to build brands, create strategies, and activate plans that resonate with customers. I know how to build it, so your customers will come calling.
Read on and learn why Marketing Roadmaps, LLC can help you create smart marketing that delights your customers and a delivers solid return on investment.
Smart Marketing
Follow the marketing roadmaps and stop wasting your budget on projects that are not connected to your goals and revenue generation. Stop chasing after every new and shiny marketing idea that you see or read about.
Instead, create strategic plan and work it. Work that plan to increase sales from existing customers and also to gain business from new customers.
It’s what we call Smart Marketing and it’s an integrated approach to connecting marketing touchpoints with your most valuable customers. All focused on improving the lives of your customers and on continuously improving your marketing machine.
It will deliver optimum results…and it’s a surefire way to grow your company.
Four Pillars to Smart Marketing
Strategy Based
It all starts with a plan. Because if you don’t start with the end in mind, you’ll likely wander around and miss your goals.
A strategic marketing plan should focus on the next 3 to 5 years. It should include goals, tactics, metrics, and timelines.
We prefer one-page plans that anyone in an organization can follow. This way the plans can be used often to motivate, achieve, and measure. And they are personalized to help you realize your business dreams.
Customer Focused
It’s been shown in research studies that companies who seek to delight their customers are more successful. That by focusing on the customer, a company helps improve their lives and make things better. No matter what kind of goods or services are in consideration.
You might already be doing some of this already, but chances are, you can do even more. It’s a worthwhile endeavor since companies with a customer focus are historically high achievers.
Process Driven
It’s important to connect all your marketing efforts to provide a seamless journey your customers can follow. This can be created by integrating proven processes that, when combined, result in a marketing machine.
When all the parts work together in a synergistic manner, you interact with your customers in ways that delight them, and you realize your end goals.
Continuous Improvement
Once the first three steps are up and running it is important to create a marketing dashboard reporting process to measure results for all your marketing programs.
This will help determine which programs are working at optimum levels and which can use some adjusting, and maybe which you might want to stop using altogether.
Our marketing dashboard reports can be designed to be “all inclusive” featuring every relevant bit of marketing data or they can be designed in a more streamlined manner, focusing only on key metrics that indicate overall business growth. Either or both can be designed to help you.
All these steps create Smart Marketing; an integrated approach to connecting marketing touchpoints with your most valuable customers. All focused on the goal of improving the lives of your customers, and continuously improving your marketing processes to get optimum results. It’s a surefire way to grow your company.

No Matter What Industry
Marketing Roadmaps Can Help
I have worked with more than 30 companies in over 10 industries. I have found it relatively easy to understand any business landscape because of my customer-centric mindset.
I’m also hard wired with lots of empathy and individualization, and can quickly feel what others are thinking and feeling. That helps me get up to speed with any customer base and becomes the foundation for my communications and marketing efforts.
I have experience with the following market segments, but can easily help with others if your industry is not listed here.
- Consumer Products
- Medical Device
- Health Care - Physicians
- Health Care - Hospitals
- Musical Instruments
- Arts & Crafts
- Finance
- Investment Banking
- Fashion
- Human Resources
- Fitness
- Sports
How to Get Started
It is easy to get started working together. The best way forward is to schedule some phone time where I can learn about your business and hear your thoughts on the future.
I will then prepare a plan designed especially for your future success. We’ll meet and review the plan and you can then decide to move forward if you wish. The plan is yours even if you don’t move work with me.
Annual Contract
This is likely where you’ll gain the most benefit as I will be available to assist — any time, any day. I will be there to support your efforts whenever needed. This option can be billed monthly or quarterly upon request.
Monthly Plan
This can be for as many months as you wish. Perhaps you have a large project or a few smaller projects that need attention. We determine a plan and a timeline and get started. This option can be billed on a monthly basis.
Project Based
This can be for a day, a week, or however long it might take to complete a project. This also billed on monthly basis with detailed notes explaining hours worked.
How We Helped Them

Success in Las Vegas
Meet Lindsay Burns, Owner - Style Savvy
Lindsay runs a fashion styling business in the Las Vegas, NV and wanted to expand her client roster. I performed a marketing audit and found her content was solid, but it wasn’t terribly focused on her target audiences.
We identified five personas; Professional Women and Vegas Visitors as examples, and then set about creating 12-week marketing flights. We also focused on educating the audience on fashion and style.
In just a few weeks, we saw results. Lindsay was educating her audience and she was helping new clients improve their look.
“I loved working with Karen. She shared lots of her marketing expertise with me and taught me some valuable lessons that I employ even today. We created a solid marketing platform that I can expand as my business grows.”
– Lindsay Burns

Great Team Building Event with RMF
Meet Jean Noble, VP Marketing - Reverse Mortgage Funding
Jean was responsible for planning a three day event for her company in Las Vegas. They had already signed a contract with a hotel, but needed local assistance planning off-site dinners, special events, and breakout sessions. Jean was based in New York and had tons of other projects on her plate.
I helped scout locations, prepare contracts, and stage events. I was on the scene for three days and it all came together without any hiccups. There were lots of smiles and the meeting was considered a huge success.
“Karen was our “feet on the ground” expert and recommended venues for our special events and off-site meals. Many of the attendees at this event commented on how much they enjoyed their time. Karen was a pleasure to work with and I would highly recommend her. She is a talented marketing resource.”
– Jean Noble

Improved Branding Leads to Improved Profit
Meet Julie Walraven, Design Resumes
Julie helps clients create award and job-winning resumes. She was successful with marketing, but her positioning wasn’t focused on target customers, and she didn’t have a formal brand.
We worked together over a few years to develop a formal logo, update her positioning to appeal to a more targeted clientele, and implement a new pricing structure that was more in line with the service she offered.
Julie is now working with the clients she targeted. Her annual revenue is growing each year and her average sale is 30% higher.
“This marketing stuff is fun and it’s so much easier to do it with someone else. I so much appreciate your wisdom and you’ve taught me that working with experts is critical to meeting my goals.”
– Julie Walraven
Follow Your Marketing Roadmaps to Success
Reach out today, and let’s craft a plan for your business future.
A Goal Without a Plan is a Wish
If you were in Las Vegas and wanted to get to New York, you would make a plan to get there. You wouldn’t just show up at the airport, wander around, and get on any flight in the hopes that you would end up in New York. Or you wouldn’t just get in your car and start driving in any direction and hope you would end up in New York.
Instead, you would make a plane reservation or get out a map (or your smart phone) and chart your course. And, in the end, if you followed your plan, you would arrive in New York.
Strategic Marketing is, at its most basic level, a plan. Just like the plan you might make to take a trip. So if you wanted to grow your business, you should come up with a plan. That plan would likely have goals and metrics and a timeline. And, if followed, would yield the results you were seeking.
So, take a moment and step away from the operational aspects of managing your business. Be futuristic and think about what might be possible for your business. Think about what would you like to see accomplished in the next year, three years or five years?
It is really as simple as that. Taking the time to think about the future and putting a plan in place to get there. Give me a call if you would like help crafting your plan. I would be glad to help you drive your business forward.


Let Us Guide You Forward
Marketing today is complex. There are so many choices which seem to change often. And there is so much data that it can be difficult to know how to gauge success.
Yet marketing is very good for your business, especially if it’s executed in a coordinated and focused manner, AND is directed toward your target customers.
I can improve your marketing with my proven Marketing Roadmap process. A process that creates a clear path forward and is designed specifically for your business.
Let’s work together to create a strategy that integrates both the “art” and “science” of marketing to improve the growth trajectory beyond your deams.
Reach out today and let’s craft a plan for your business future.
Schedule a Strategy Session for FREE
Let Marketing Roadmaps take your business from where you are today, to where you want to be in the future.
Our Recent Posts
Marketing Strategy – Be the Purple Cow
When was the last time someone asked you the question “what does your company do”? …
Brand Development Tips – Color is Key
Branding is a way of sharing part of your company story with your potential and …
Use Photos to Tell Your Marketing Story
Company branding is like telling a story. It’s sharing information with potential and existing customers …
Hi! I’m Karen Illes.
Let me help you grow your business.
Get instant FREE access to my newsletter where I share my best tips about Strategic Marketing, Branding, and Entrepreneurship.
We value your privacy and we promise not to spam your inbox.
