Sam Decker, VP Marketing & Products, Bazaarvoice
Sam Decker is a recognized expert in eCommerce, word of mouth, and direct marketing. A frequent speaker at marketing and eCommerce events and author of a popular marketing blog (www.deckermarketing.com), Decker brings 14 years of marketing and online retailing experience to Bazaarvoice. As Vice President of Marketing and Products Decker is responsible for leading Bazaarvoice corporate marketing, PR and product strategy.
Bazaarvoice, Inc., a company focused on engaging customer evangelists to share word of mouth marketing with its clients web sites. Bazaarvoice clients include Overstock, Home Depot, BassPro, CompUSA and PETCO. Three months from launch Bazaarvoice garnered 40 press articles, an Aberdeen award for innovation, and was selected for the Red Herring 100.
Before joining Bazaarvoice, Decker spent 7 years of leadership at Dell, Inc. in marketing, eBusiness, CRM, and customer-centricity. From 1999-2003, he led Dell’s consumer website and built Dell.com into the largest consumer eCommerce website at $3.5B in annual sales, and established global best practices in merchandising, analytics, product management, and operations. Sam pioneered Dell’s successful customer-centricity strategy and customer segmentation using Six Sigma methodologies. Later he directed marketing for Dell’s $1.5B installed-based marketing division, responsible for eBusiness, marketing communications and brand management. During Sam’s career at Dell he was awarded Employee of the quarter, Manager of the Quarter, and MVP of the Quarter.
Before Dell, Decker spent over six years leading marketing at B2C and B2B startups and is recognized as a pioneer in online community building. He consulted with companies such as Apple, Claris, Adobe and Borland to help them develop word-of-mouth and installed-based marketing strategies.
Decker has authored two books on word of mouth and guerilla marketing, serves as Chairman of the Board of Advisors for the Web Analytics Association, Board of Advisors for Texchange, and is an active member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and Internet Strategy Forum. Decker holds a BS in Business Marketing Management from California Polytechnic University.
Sam is originally from Bay Area, but the Austin barbecue, lakes, and friendly culture has him hooked by the longhorns. Away from work, Sam is with his top priorities: his wife, 9-year old daughter, and 6-year old son. Sam aspires to one day enjoy an impressive collection of unused technology, get his money’s worth out of Netflix, tap into a growing stack of unopened business books, and share thoughts on his blog once in a while on how to lead, live and sell more stuff to people like him.