Ecommerce Marketing Jobs: Hale Groves seeks a Director of Ecommerce (Vero Beach, FL 32966)

This is a terrifically cool ecommerce marketing job in a town that’s as fun as it is affordable. And let’s face it: This time of year, what’s not to like about a city with the word “beach” baked right into it?

The brands’ parent company, Southern Fulfillment Services (“SFS”), is the largest direct marketer of citrus in the world. As a multi-channel marketing company, SFS owns and operates multiple brands and distribution facilities in Vero Beach, FL and Harlingen, TX.

Both of these brands have been around forever, and the company’s house file reflects that. Pittman and Davis was founded 1926 and Hale Groves in 1947. SFS is passionate about quality, and the company prides itself on the nimbleness of its structure. There’s not much hierarchy and red tape in the SFS decision-making process.

SFS seeks a Director of Ecommerce to lead all online marketing programs for Hale Groves and Pittman and Davis. In this role, you’ll drive vision and strategy for a digitally enhanced customer experience across multiple channels. Reporting to the President, you’ll work closely with operations, call center and outside consultants.

“Why would I move to south Florida to hustle citrus online when people can buy it at the grocery store? Because SFS is located in the smack-dab in the heart of citrus country — which enables it to ship fresh-picked fruit to customers only AFTER it receives an order.

With an awesome cash conversion cycle, SFS is like the Dell Computer of fruit: There’s no warehouse and no cold storage. Customers experience fruit that’s fresh and delicious, just days off the tree.

You’d have to drive to Florida to get your fruit any faster, and there’s a well established consumer market of citrus lovers and gift givers that appreciates the difference in freshness and quality. (Businesses dig citrus, too!)

Watch this video and see if you don’t start craving citrus …

According to IBIS World, per capita consumption of citrus fruits is increasing, and the industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 1.5% to $3.7 billion over the next five years. For women, the health benefits of citrus are well known, and many of those benefits extend to guys, too.

My intake calls (plural) with SFS’ CEO spanned THREE hours over two sessions. My personal notes exceed 3,000 words and the supplemental industry research adds another 80 pages to this intel packet. It’s INSANE. Yet for competitive reasons I’m not going to spill the beans here.

1.) B2B Marketing: Corporate gifting represents a huge growth opportunity for SFS, but B2B marketing is really hard. Be prepared to re-evaluate all aspects of the firm’s B2B digital activities, including lead generation, content marketing, and web design / UX.

2.) Customer Relationship Management: SFS has a new marketing database and it needs you to help develop a more sophisticated contact strategy for its housefile. We’d like you to bring to SFS a modern approach to RFM segmentation which will identify underdeveloped customers, target them for campaigns, promote repeat purchases and loyalty, defend against attrition and defection, and acquire new customers who resemble the best ones.

3.) Online Merchandising: Ideally, we’re looking for someone who’s OBSESSED with merch and strives to stay current on the latest trends in online merchandising and knows how to up-sell and cross-sell on an ecommerce site.

Great digital merchandising can happen both onsite and offsite, as in SEO and landing pages — and we’re looking for someone who’s constantly looking for ways to present SFS’ brands in unique, fun, and consistent ways — both online and in its print catalog.

4.) Social Media: SFS ships 1.3 million packages per year and roughly half a percent of these orders need replacing — usually because of unavoidable postal service / delivery issues. Occasionally, unhappy customers will vent on Yelp — despite the firm’s CEO addressing these issues personally.

While SFS continues to work to solve these problems, we want to know: What ethical strategies do you have for mitigating the effects of negative ratings and reviews in Google? (And you can’t just say to your customers, “Hey, fruit’s a gamble …”)

Like I said, we have a TON of information about what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things we can share with highly qualified candidates include …

• The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
• The top five problems that exist due to this position being open. These are the little fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every job has these — whether your recruiter wants you to know about them or not!
• What your average day / week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
• The top KPI’s that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you keep score.
• The major projects you’ll need to complete by Day 100 to be considered a home-run in this position. We’ve got the lowdown on how you can plug-and-play and drive REAL value in this job.
• And more!

To request my intel packet for this search, please text “[your name] + SFS” to (404) 281-2025. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.