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In one of the coolest online marketing jobs around, we are working with Jewelry Television® in their search for a Director of Online Marketing and Analytics based in Knoxville, TN.
This position is a member of the ecommerce leadership team, driving strategies in online marketing to drive incremental sales and new customers as well as leverage best practices in customer retention. The Director of Ecommerce Marketing will think and act both strategically and tactically to deliver a world-class customer experience. This position works collaboratively with cross functional counterparts to manage the current business, react to trends, and plan future business direction. The individual should be innovative, team oriented, and an effective communicator.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: First things first … Some of the happiest years of my career were 1997-2000, when I lived in Chattanooga, TN — just 2 hours south of Knoxville, home of the University of Tennessee and Jewelry Television (JTV). Tennessee rocks: It has four distinct yet very pleasant seasons; Smart, friendly (and good looking) people; Incredibly affordable housing; NO state income tax (which is like getting a 7% raise just for moving there); A great business environment; Outstanding schools; Minor-league baseball; A million things to do; And in Knoxville, there’s a brand of college football that resembles a religion.
I’d move my family to Knoxville any day.
Now then, Jewelry Television is a home shopping channel with an estimated coverage of over 80 million viewers in the United States. While headquartered in Knoxville, JTV has manufacturing facilities in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, and Thailand. JTV airs 24 hours a day, although programming varies from region to region.
In October 2008, JTV began broadcasting in high definition, and it also offers online streaming of its network on its website, JTV.com. In April 2012, JTV launched its Titanic Jewelry Collection in partnership with Titanic Museum attractions. Such partnerships have allowed JTV to ascend to the rank of 13th largest U.S. jewelry retailer, and JTV.com is the 5th largest jewelry destination on the Internet. JTV is the largest gemstone retailer in the world, with gross revenues exceeding $400 million per year.
If the four-year run-up in HSN’s stock (from $1.82 to $58!) is any indication, home shopping channels have been major beneficiaries from the spread of mobile technology. The market for jewelry is enormous, and according to First Research, the US jewelry manufacturing industry includes 1600 companies with combined annual revenue of $8 billion. The US jewelry stores industry is even bigger, with 20,000 companies generating a combined revenue of nearly $30 billion. Economic growth and consumer confidence are key drivers, and both of which seems to be in ample supply in today’s economy. As a recruiter who looks at hundreds of deals a year, I love this space.
About the Role
While we have a ridiculous amount of information on JTV.com’s KPI’s, unfortunately I can’t share them here. What I can say is that JTV.com drives a very significant portion of the company’s revenues, and the company is keen to continue investing in JTV.com’s desktop, mobile, tablet, social, and marketing initiatives.
According to Craig Shields, this position’s hiring manager, “There’s a lot under the umbrella of this position: social media; email (which includes automated emails, triggered emails, promotional emails, list hygiene and more); organic search / SEO; SEM; social media, web analytics, and essentially anything and everything related to customer acquisition.” The firm has an excellent corporate marketing department, and this position will collaborate frequently with them.
To hear Craig tell it, the current ecommerce team is excellent, but JTV could use some fresh eyes on strategy, operations, finance, vendor management and the more “macro” issues affecting the business – like mobile and social. “We could use an outsider to challenge our assumptions on how to grow the business, find new partners, develop new channels, and leverage our TV personalities in our online business. Additionally, we’d really like to add someone with strong financial skills who can run reports and help the team manage the business by the numbers.”
Critical, Important, or Not Important?
Whenever I take a new search, clients contractually agree to spend up to 90 minutes on the phone with me answering questions about their digital commerce initiatives. I’ve developed a 10 page form to guide those calls, and my form includes a 38-item list of ecommerce disciplines (like SEO, SEM, Logistics, International, etc) that I ask the client to rank for the open position on a scale of Critical, Important, or Not Important. If they tell me something is critical, I asked them to explain WHY in 100 words or less.
For this position, Craig picked 8 functional disciplines that are of critical importance to the new hires success, and he was extremely generous in his discussion as to why these things were critical, and how he would expect the new hire to hit the ground running in these areas. For competitive reasons, I can’t reproduce his comments here, but I’m happy to discuss these items with candidates by phone.
What I can say is that, in addition to being a smart, scalable, emotionally stable, strategically agile, financially literate, execution-oriented ecommerce GM with a cogent and credible vision of where digital commerce will be in 3 to 5 years, JTV’s new Director of Ecommerce must have a demonstrated track record of success in e-mail marketing; mobile commerce; and organic and paid search.
The “vision thing” is especially important.
Some retailers talk about being on the cutting edge of digital commerce; some companies walk that talk. Last year JTV created a customization for the iPhone where customers can take a ring off their finger and put it on the iPhone and it will measure the size of the ring, so that customers have the piece of mind that they are buying the right ring. This Demandware-powered innovation was so cool that Demandware highlighted it at a Goldman Sachs investor conference. Candidates, in order to do reputation enhancing work, it’s essential that you work for companies that have an action-oriented, customer-driven approach to innovation (like JTV).
In your first 100 days …
In your first 3 months on the job, plan on performing an overall assessment of JTV.com’s marketing channels:
- How is the internal team doing?
- Would a reorganization improve things?
- Is JTV.com tracking the right leading and lagging KPI’s for the business?
- Is the team optimizing partner, vendor, and agency relationships?
- And more.
This role is not a turnaround.
JTV.com had a banner year in 2013, and the team is firing on all cylinders. Yet imagine a very talented young orchestra in need of a world-class conductor.
You are Leonard Bernstein: You are a dynamic and analytical individual who’s looking for an opportunity to be both hands on in a fast-paced environment, but also you seek opportunities to work directly with senior-level executives on high-level financial, strategic, and operations issues that may have far reaching impact. If you’ve already read Ram Charan’s “What the CEO Wants You to Know,” that’s a good sign. Please apply below.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Responsible for all digital marketing strategies for JTV web properties including:
- Paid Search
- SEO
- Affiliate
- Display
- Mobile
- Driving overall Social Media strategy and execution.
- Responsible for Email Marketing including:
- Transactional messaging
- Automated campaign based on customer lifecycle
- Segmented promotional email
- Oversee all digital marketing team that is a blend of in-house and agency resources.
- Responsible for reporting and web analytics for all JTV web properties.
- Partners with Finance team on budget planning and ROI justification for online marketing efforts.
- Work closely with peers in Merchandising and Corporate Marketing teams on larger, company-wide promotions and brand strategy.
- Manage the team focused on customer experience and is the subject matter expert for business tools to support JTV sites.
- Set, document, and uphold all department standards and procedures.
QUALIFICATIONS
- College degree (MBA a plus).
- 5+ years experience in web environment; 5+ years experience in retail operations capacity, preferably with a multi channel retailer (with management experience).
- Deep knowledge of ecommerce operations and thorough familiarity with the online space.
- Experience designing online customer experiences.
- Senior level experience with Adobe Marketing Suite (Omniture)
- Demonstrated competencies in ecommerce technology, supply chain, fulfillment and call center functions.
- Proven experience in creating effective teamwork and an environment conducive to developing cross-functional collaboration
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.
PS – If you’re thinking about changing jobs this year (though us or anyone else), you might want to check out this post on why even TOP candidates get rejected.
