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One of the coolest email marketing jobs around!
We are working with Ashford.com in their search for an Email Marketing Manager based in trendy Brooklyn, NY — birthplace of Adam Sandler, Woody Allen, Eddie Murphy, and Marisa Tomei.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Funny story about this search: About two weeks ago, Ashford.com’s new President called me about a handful of potential searches. I was out of the office when I took his call so I didn’t have an opportunity to pull up his LinkedIn bio as we began our discussion. After exchanging pleasantries, we got down to business and he asked me to step him through my qualifications for helping him topgrade his team.
My experience with Presidents (even excellent ones) has been that the vast majority know TONS about business but relatively little about ecommerce. With that in mind, I answered his questions as simply as I could, schooling him respectfully in the basics of ecommerce staffing. My rap was kind of 101-ish, if you know what I mean. Well, it turns out that Ashford.com’s new President is none other than Engle Saez, the former CMO of both Blue Nile and Eddie Bauer, who was also an SVP of Marketing at Starbucks.
It was like lecturing Ted Williams on hitting.
Anyway. Engle was extremely gracious and listened politely for about 20 minutes before saying that I knew my stuff. But he could have squashed me like a bug if he’d wanted to. I relate that story to candidates because it’s always nice to know you’ll be working with somebody who is phenomenally well experienced, smart, and has a sense of humor. Plus, Engle has a really exciting vision for the business.
So here’s the 411 on this role:
Email is one of the highest potential growth engines for Ashford.com. The channel remains one of the firm’s most cost effective and its customers continue to push towards aspirational lifestyle content consumption on mobile devices. Your job will be to engage these readers with consistent, relevant, anticipated, and personal white hat emails while optimizing the channel.
For this role, Engle seeks a seasoned email marketer who has spent a significant portion of their career working within the channel. Two years of experience won’t cut it. 5+ years experience is more like it. We’ll expect you to be an expert in email list building, targeting, promotional calendaring, copywriting, design, production, deliverability, dynamic content, triggered programs, list management, A/B and multivariate testing, and segmentation.
Everything — soup to nuts.
Obviously, you’ll need an analytical bias to the way you make decisions, and you’ll need to understand which metrics to benchmark depending on the nature of each campaign. For example, acquisition oriented campaigns might involve an analysis of the campaign’s acquisition rate, cost per acquisition, or ROI. Alternatively, a campaign specifically designed to improve awareness might involve an analysis of number of unique website visitors, the number of impressions on a particular digital asset, or the campaign’s open (or click through) rate.
And it doesn’t end there.
We expect you to have a vision and a teachable point of view on industry trends such as the continued convergence of social and mobile and how it might impact the email channel. Given the level of exposure this position will have to Ashford.com’s senior management team, we would expect you to be highly polished. Poise counts, as does being able to speak your piece in plain English.
Email marketing is both an art and a science.
Like most luxury marketers, Ashford.com is working hard to reduce the number of “emotional unsubscribes” in this channel. Accordingly, you’ll need the hypothesis-driven approach and analytical rigor of a scientist, while designing and delivering emails that improve the “emotional payoff” a recipient gets when he opens an Ashford.com email.
Meaning, we want Ashford.com’s emails to have a flair that reflects favorably on the firm’s brand. That means developing a “feel” for the right images, copy, and offers for each email campaign – and knowing how they will render on a variety of platforms and devices.
Perhaps most importantly, you’ll need to elicit the best efforts of others as they become involved in your work. This particular email marketing job is all about bringing everyone’s energy, excitement, and enthusiasm to this vital marketing channel.
As always …
We’ve got plenty of information that we can share with highly qualified candidates about Ashford.com’s marketing budget, tools / platforms, agency relationships, strategies, and more. We have greatly enjoyed working with Engle, and we have learned a lot about marketing on our calls with him. If you really want to take your marketing knowledge to the next level, Ashford.com would be right up there with NYU.
The only difference is Ashford.com will pay you handsomely. NYU will charge you an arm and a leg. If you’d like to know more about this opportunity, please apply below.
View Harry Joiner’s profileThis position is responsible for the development and successful execution of email marketing initiatives that meet or exceed the short and long-term goals of email marketing at Ashford.com.
Responsibilities include:
- Full ownership of the email program including sales, selling profit and subscriber engagement
- Responsible for all aspects of email planning and analysis including by program-Standard Promotional Message; Triggered Marketing; Triggered Transactional.
- Creation of comprehensive email marketing plan for year/season/month/week which supports overall Digital Marketing goals.
- Work in close collaboration with merchants to create detailed email plan by category for each quarter (by month/week/day) which balances overall growth and profit needs of the firm.
- Work with Email Service Provider and Database Marketing team to create and implement a horizontal email contact strategy
- Management of email subscriber list. Develop and implement strategies to identify and grow engaged subscribers.
- Develop, implement and manage standards and standard processes which increase efficiency, mitigate risk and reduce reactive situations.
- Develop, test, implement, publish and continually refine best practices for email marketing.
- Work closely with Merchants; Web Content; and Web Design to optimize session conversion by landing visitors on most relevant and highest converting landing pages.
- Creation of relevant reporting and analytics which provide insight into issues and opportunities leading to action.
- Manage relationship with Email Service Partner and all other email vendors.
The KPI’s for this function include:
- Email sales
- Email selling profit
- Engagement as measured through key performance indicators specific to email (Open rate; Click thru rate; Browse; Order and Unsubscribe)
Also critical determinants of success include:
- Philosophical alignment and support of the company core values.
- Ability to effectively build relationships with other functional areas in the organization.
- High degree of respect and credibility as a functional expert.
- Maintains strong network of external resources.
Qualifications:
- Ideally 5+ years of experience working in and managing email marketing.
- Strong project management skills.
- Strong network of external peers and experts in Email Marketing.
- Enthusiastic self-starter who is comfortable working independently and as part of a team.
- Customer centric. Passion for the Sporting Traditions Lifestyle a plus.
- Ability to grow professionally as the business grows.
- Never ending curiosity and love of learning. A passion for new technology and email marketing.
- Experience in a Consumer Direct retail environment a plus.
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