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We are working with Lenovo in their search for a Director of Website Marketing Strategy based in Raleigh, NC. If you are not familiar with Lenovo, the company was the largest PC maker in China when it acquired IBM’s PC operations for $1.74 billion in 2005. The firm remains a leader in China, but now Lenovo has a global presence. The company’s products include desktop and notebook PCs, workstations, servers, storage drives, and IT services. Lenovo also offers IT management software under the moniker, ThinkVantage. According to the client’s positioning statement, …
“Lenovo is not just another technology company. Lenovo doesn’t just manufacture electronics. They believe they make the technology that powers the world’s best ideas. Lenovo designs tools for those who are driven by accomplishment. Individuals who live for the opportunity to roll up their sleeves, achieve great feats, and leave their mark on the world around them. Lenovo is the company that powers the people who Do. The engine that helps them Do more. Do better. Do what’s never been done. And Lenovo is united in the quest to help their users defy the impossible.”
All of which kind of makes sense given the following advertisement …
HARRY’S COMMENTS: According to this position’s hiring manager, the role comprises three primary areas: site experience, operations, and analytics. You can see the breakdown in the posting below.
Regarding site experience: Lenovo needs someone who can look at the site experience and identify areas of opportunity to remove bottlenecks and help the visitor accomplish their tasks in finding the products and solutions that are “right for me.” Additionally, this individual needs to be able to understand the brand direction of the company and ensure that the site aligns to the branding strategy and displays the brand consistently while developing an online personality that attracts the “new millenials” or 18-24 year old age group while still connecting with the 35-55 demographic.
The new hire should have a marketing and ecommerce background, strong analysis skills, understanding of user experience, and may have in their background (but not required) experience as an Information Architect preferably with an online retailer. Rather, the client wants somebody who understands brand marketing and can work with technical people from other functions within the company. In essence, the company seeks a technology oriented marketer, rather than and marketing oriented technologist.
The new hire will be responsible for determining how to make the brand more consistent across the website, support pages, product pages, etc. This hire will be responsible for the strategic development and execution of product roadmap, in addition to owning the product testing roadmap.
In this role, the new hire will ask high level questions such as What’s working? What’s not? How do we know? What should we be doing globally? And more. The idea is to simplify Lenovo’s product and service offerings to help customers make better decisions. For example, the new hire will work with usability team comparison tables to reduce the complexity of Lenovo’s product line in order to help Lenovo’s customers answer the question “What are the 2 or 3 products I should be considering?”
To be successful in the role, the new hire must have a hypothesis driven approach to product testing: What should we be testing and why? Which product attributes make the most difference to customers and why? To help keep the new hire on track, performance will be based on two KPI’s: a CSAT metric and a project completion metric. These metrics will determine how successful the new hire has been from a site experience standpoint.
The role will be global in scope: It will be a significant influencer in the way the organization works with other functions across Lenovo (ie. ecommerce team, regional marketing teams, etc.) to implement site experience improvements uniformly across Lenovo.com. Interestingly, Lenovo’s ecommerce organization is separate from its site experience team, and the site experience team also has quite a bit of influence over the companies regional marketing groups – all of whom seek to understand how to use data driven insights to improve their businesses. Accordingly, there is a significant opportunity to fuse workflows together so that the company has a seamless user experience across every customer touch point.
To do great work, and to have credibility within the organization, the new hire must be able to back up their insights with deep analysis of the test results they’ve gathered. Additionally, the new hire must be able present her findings to stakeholders at every level, both internally and externally throughout the organization.
We are not looking for an analyst. The role is too strategic for that. The new hire will work with an analyst to determine what the most salient data is; make inferences regarding what the data says; and then develop a storyline for what those trends mean for the business – now and in the future. All of this analysis must lead to a prioritization of projects.
As you might expect, there is a significant operations piece to this role: The new hire must be able to work with different stakeholders across different silos (including regional marketing leaders) to make sure that Lenovo’s executives really understands the needs and requirements to help them improve their businesses.
Please Tweet this job, and you’ll be automatically entered into our monthly drawing. Just do it and see what happens: 2010 prizes included $100 Amazon gift certs, Dean & Deluca steaks, and Keurig coffee machines …
Position Overview:
This role is a combination of web marketing and branding which includes a good understanding of user experience. This Leader will strategically work with the Art Director and Architect to make the Lenovo.com site easier to use.
This role will drive insights, requirements, and prioritization of digital experiences that will rapidly increase Lenovo’s ability to improve Experience Satisfaction (eSAT), task completion, and improve conversion to direct and indirect channels on Lenovo.com. This role will work hand in hand with analytics, usability, information architecture, design, and agencies.
The ideal candidate will have experience as a Web Manager or Web Experience Director. This role will drive strategy to optimize site experience for Lenovo.com.
Primary Responsibilities
1. Site Experience
- Own the overall Learn (marketing pages) experience and influence the Shop (direct sales) web experience to ensure a seamless visitor/customer experience that dynamically improves CSAT, task completion, and conversion.
- Deeply understand and consult with peers and stakeholders on the type of experiences that will elevate the site, product offerings & campaigns within the global branding guidelines and work with content and IA on how best to deliver them via the web.
- Define, develop, and prioritize the list of initiatives for the 6-12 month web roadmap inclusive of site experience improvements, testing initiatives, and product launches.
- Lead the Winter Plan initiative for the WW Digital Marketing team, including the establishment of a budget and the priorities of the team for the year.
- Identify and manage various agencies and interactive firms to help deliver on great customer experiences on the web that are “designed to delight”.
- Participate in focus groups and usability studies to better leverage VOC to drive improvements.
2. Reporting and Insights
- Work with Global Web Operations to build and scale web marketing insights (Omniture, iPerceptions, etc.) and website research
- Insure management reports and dashboards are developed, interlocking with key stakeholders in WW Marketing and in the geos to insure data is meaningful and insightful.
- Prepare quarterly updates for WW Digital Marketing team. Work with the team to complete the necessary information for the reports and develop a standard reporting structure.
- Track and prepare quarterly reports for the WW Digital Marketing team KPIs. These KPIs will be included in the regular quarterly updates for the executive team.
- Help the geos and regions understand what is driving success and opportunities to improve traffic initiatives and leverage analytics/insights as an influence.
3. Operational
- Create and implement repeatable and sustainable process globally with geo and regional counterparts to eliminate duplicate work efforts and remove unnecessary complexities and implement new procedures and workflows.
- Set the right priorities, align to team priorities, and cascade throughout the organization.
- Educate peer functions on how to best “lead” with the web
- Monitor and maintain a high level of awareness of competitors’ web strategy and capability
- Effectively manage own web budget and resources including 2 direct reports
Position Requirements:
- 6 -10 years of progressive experience in B2C, global online marketing and online customer experience
- Demonstrated experience developing a measurable roadmap of web features and content to drive conversion, utilizing testing and industry best practices
- Strong background in using and leveraging data from SiteCatalyst, Test & Target, and iPerceptions or like tools to develop scalable reports and drive decisions
- Experience initiating and building mutually beneficial marketing relationships with internal and external partners critical
- Possession of excellent oral and written communication skills including the ability to create & deliver clear, powerful & concise presentations
- Customer-centric mindset, with previous experience marketing to the consumer and SMB segment
- Technical understanding of internet-based hardware products and services
- Strong leadership and organizational skills
- Proficient verbal and written communication skills
- 6 yrs Web Marketing
- 6 yrs Site Experience Optimization
- 2 yrs Web Strategy – leading site redesign
- 2 yrs Branding
- 2 yrs Consumer Marketing
- 1 yr Web Analytics
- Bachelors Degree
Preferred Skills:
- Global experience
- SMB Marketing
- Understanding of Website Architecture
- Omniture
- Site Catalyst
- iPerceptions
- Test & Target
- Hardware/Software Industry
- MBA
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Allan Seibert. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Allan Seibert for a packet of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the intensely competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
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