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This is one of the coolest Ecommerce Director jobs around!

We are working with Healthy Directions in their search for a Director, Online Acquisition Marketing based in Bethesda, MD.

Healthy Directions needs a strategic and results-oriented Director to manage its online acquisition marketing team. The new Director will be responsible for maximizing qualified traffic through the (judicious!) use of paid media, organic search, affiliate, display and Social Media, and more.

In this role, the Director will focus on new to file direct sales and lead generation through online channels and will be responsible for creating media strategies that engage qualified target markets and call consumers to action through highly targeted forms of online marketing. This key role will report into the VP of Online Marketing and manage a team of three marketing managers.

HARRY’S COMMENTS: This is our second search for Healthy Directions, and these are super talented people. There’s a lot to like about this business, and it’s getting better all the time.

Healthy Directions markets alternative health solutions to the 60+ segment of the market. HD’s products are supported by world-class science and research and they tend to be health condition based – developed to prevent or alleviate the symptoms of specific maladies. HD maintains a strong product development capability and the Doctors who endorse the firm’s brands have been featured in numerous popular media outlets including Huffington Post, CNN, InStyle magazine, and Shape magazine.

Healthy Directions’ appeal to Helen of Troy was understandable.

Healthy Directions’ core business, strategies, and financial discipline made it a natural fit for Helen of Troy’s acquisition profile. Helen of Troy had been building a portfolio within the health and wellness space since its acquisition of Kaz and OXO, and prior to snapping up Healthy Directions, its health and wellness businesses accounted for >25% of the firm’s sales — thanks for products like Vicks and Braun humidifiers, vaporizers, and thermometers; Honeywell in air purifiers; and PUR water filters.

Healthy Directions’ owns a huge portfolio of highly respected physicians and medical experts who lend their names on an exclusive basis to Healthy Directions’ doctor-branded products in growing vitamins, nutrition, and health-oriented product categories such as heart health, blood sugar, digestive health with probiotics, anti-aging, joint health, vision support, and skin rejuvenation. Additionally, HD has a strong R&D pipeline plus relationships with additional doctors intended to add new, well-researched doctor-branded products in the future.

There’s a lot to like about the supplement space, too.

In 2013, the Nutrition Business Journal projected that the vitamin, mineral supplement industry is expected to continue to grow at a mid to high single-digit rate annually over the next five years. Healthy Directions which targets consumers age 55/up expects to benefit from the aging of the US population, with over 70% of those aged 55 and up taking vitamin supplements in 2013.

According to the US Census Bureau’s national population forecast, the 65 to 74 age segment is expected to grow more than 50% between 2012 and 2025. And the segment of age 75/up is expected to grow more than 40%. This positions Helen of Troy to benefit from further diversification by adding an additional business in these population segments.

Don’t laugh: The 60+ market is a gold mine!

At 80 million strong, Americans born between 1946 and 1964 make up 26% of the US population. Roughly 1 in 4 consumers is a Boomer, and every day for the next 18 years 10,000 Boomers will reach the age 65. 40% of Boomers are considered affluent with median household incomes of $140,000. 46% of this group have net worth exceeding $2 million. This puts the number of affluent Boomers at approximately 25,000,000.

For Directors of Online Acquisition Marketing who target this demographic, it’s important to know that Boomers see themselves differently than everyone else sees them. According to the 2010 Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey …

  • Boomers set the benchmark of old age at 80 (!!), and there is considerable distance between their chronological age and the age they identify with, which is 15 years younger.
  • More than 50% of Boomers say they exercise regularly, and many feel they are in better shape now than they were some years ago.
  • Many Boomers, especially younger Boomers, are extremely skeptical of government benefits being available when they become seniors.
  • 72% of Boomers intend to keep working past the classic retirement age of 65.

Boomers are focused on maintaining their health, which makes this market very attractive to competitors of all shapes and sizes. The US health supplement retail industry includes 5,000 companies operating ~10,000 stores with combined annual sales of approximately $6 billion. As Healthy Directions’ Director, Online Acquisition Marketing, that’s what you’re up against.

But here’s some good news:

Healthy Directions’ go-to-market model is unlike many other traditional branded supplement players. It goes direct to consumer for marketing and delivery. HD collaborates with its doctors to create unique magalogs, to educate consumers on its products, and to drive traffic to its call centers and website. The transaction process is simple, and set up to encourage automatic replenishment for recurring revenue stream and trial of additional products. Think Netflix …

Once acquired, a new customer is worth a pretty penny.

Healthy Directions’ website has a massive amount of content on it, and that content can be used to drive leads and sales in a multi-touch, omnichannel way. Your job won’t just be about paid search and display advertising – although those tactics are essential to success. Rather, your success will rely on using data to effectively allocate your marketing budget across every channel so that the whole of your efforts are greater than the sum of its parts.

Healthy Directions’ marketing executives are terrifically bright, and they’re experts in the areas of DRTV, Direct Marketing, Product Development, Marketing Strategy, Customer Insight, Marketing Research, and Retail. No doubt, you’ll learn a lot working with them, but they’ll expect you to bring a lot to the table, too.

For example, Google rankings are always important at HD, but ROI is where the rubber hits the road. It’s one thing for Healthy Directions’ site to be loaded with great content, but that content won’t perform well if it isn’t mobile friendly. Also, social signals must be integrated more effectively given that Google has begun to rely more on social signals in its SERPs.

It’ll be your job to oversee such things.

At the end of the day, this role is perfect for a person who loves direct response marketing and understand what it takes to drive DR demand. The job is perfect for someone who loves numbers and has an analytical bias to the way they make marketing decisions.

Ideally, we’re looking for someone who understands “cause and effect” in the marketing realm and can examine spend-versus-yield in a highly intelligent, hypothesis driven way. It will be up to you to define HD’s customer acquisition goals, budget, and leading / lagging indicators of success. You’ll find yourself working across multiple disciplines, such as customer service, brand, created, product sourcing, and more.

Ask us about the SIX THINGS you MUST know to get this job.

The marketers on HD’s hiring committee are terrifically bright, and you can expect these interviews to put you to the test. As always, we’ve pulled together a massive amount of information on 1.) this role, 2.) this client, 3.) the industry, and 4.) what you will need to do to GET the job and WIN in the role once you get it.

If you like what you’ve read so far, then you’ll love everything else we can share with you about the role. Please apply below for additional information.

View Harry Joiner's LinkedIn profileView Harry Joiner’s profile

Successful Candidates will:

  • Demonstrate hands-on experience and command of the intricacies involved with online, paid search, SEO, mobile, display and other digital marketing to ensure a well-integrated approach across all channels and tactics
  • Develop online acquisition strategies and plans, and work with other marketing teams for cross-channel integration; aligning plans with marketing and business goals
  • Manage the P&L for all online acquisition channels, including budget, forecast, and developing and presenting monthly channel business reviews
  • Manage multiple vendor relationships and push best practices policies and procedures throughout company
  • Partner with creative and design teams on developing marketing assets
  • Stay abreast of current industry trends and propose new solutions for meeting goals
  • Determine best brand, product, and offer mix promoted across all programs, given corporate merchandising and marketing priorities
  • Proactively manage tracking, measurement, reporting and analysis of marketing metrics against performance targets
  • Analyze data and deduce implications for paid media, website and social engagement strategies

Required skills

  • 7-10 years marketing experience with 3-5 specifically in online marketing
  • Exceptional analytics skills – the ability to analyze data, make sense of the data and turn it into actionable steps; strong business acumen necessary
  • Strong direct response background and mindset
  • Ability to put together presentations and present to senior management
  • Deep understanding of SEO and how to push best practices within an organization with the goal of growing visits to website
  • Proven ability at managing PPC teams through agencies, bid automation tools and directly with the engines
  • Experience with Kenshoo, Conductor, and content display networks a big plus
  • Strong leadership skills and ability to manage and grow team
  • Solid problem solving skills
  • Experience with analytics platform, especially Omniture SiteCatalyst
  • Ability to juggle multiple projects and work across multi-functional teams
  • Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree a plus

UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.

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