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One of the coolest Boston ecommerce jobs around!
We are working with Coldwater Creek Direct in their search for a Digital Marketing Director based in Hingham, MA — just outside of Boston.
From Humble Beginnings
HARRY’S COMMENTS: In 1984, Dennis and Ann Pence relocated from Manhattan to the resort town of Sandpoint in northern Idaho to start a direct mail business. The Pence’s had a thing for Idaho, and if you’ve ever been there – you probably do too. They bootstrapped the business with savings of only $40,000. But ultimately their gutsiness and persistence was rewarded: In 1986 the company achieved profitability, and by 1996 Coldwater Creek’s sales had ballooned to $143.1 million.
What happened over the next 18 years has been well documented.
The rise and fall of Coldwater Creek is one of the most astonishing stories in the annals of the catalog business. It was a textbook tale of “rags to riches to rags.” But soon there will be riches again, as Sycamore Partners acquired Coldwater Creek’s brand and intellectual property in May 2014. Not wasting any time, Sycamore re-launched the brand’s ecommerce site in November 2014, and by March 2015 the famous Coldwater Creek catalog was back in circulation.
It was a smart move.
The brand’s house file remained massive, and the company was no longer hindered by its vast store network. Perhaps most importantly, its legions of fans never lost their taste for the brand they’d loved dearly for nearly three decades. The “Coldwater Creek look” had always been colorful by design – with an insistence on top quality and terrific fit and an understanding that fashion should be fun.
As Coldwater Creek’s new Digital Marketing Director, you’re inheriting a MASSIVE database of affluent, Boomer women who are passionate to the point of insane about this brand.
About the Role
Coldwater Creek is hiring a Digital Marketing Director to develop and drive the vision for its digital marketing programs, including email, paid search and SEO, social, display and affiliate programs. To get the job, you’ll need to demonstrate proven success in developing, executing, and analyzing digital marketing strategies.
The company is serious about growth, and it’s equally serious about digital – despite the obvious successes of its catalog. Additionally, Management has given a ton of thought to which KPI’s must be driven to position the brand for long-term growth, and you’ll be encouraged to take your inspiration from anywhere. The team only asks that you be both hypothesis driven and analytically biased.
The Coldwater Creek conversion funnel has a lot of moving parts, and even die-hard customers don’t usually buy after just one touch. The brand’s customer relationships are nurtured across multiple devices, multiple channels, and multiple dayparts — with its performance marketing initiatives being complicated by consumer personalization, device, and location.
There’s a lot going on here.
The firm’s leadership believes in investing, testing, and optimizing for growth. Naturally, Coldwater Creek’s culture reflects that. For now, the brand has somewhat of a last click orientation, but longer term, you will influence the development of an attribution model for the business. Additionally, you will have a material impact on Coldwater Creek’s retargeting, email, and social media marketing initiatives. Your involvement in these things might not always be tactical, but these things will roll up to you. A teachable point of view on these disciplines is essential.
The same goes for advertising and brand building.
The most effective companies in the world have a compelling vision for their brands, and they treat those brands as assets. We want you to be a committed life-long student of marketing who knows how to tease out a strong-yet-flexible-and-scalable digital strategy for Coldwater Creek, and then bring it to life in a cost effective, integrated way.
As such, you’ll be responsible for managing agencies, external partners and internal resources in order to meet the brand’s growth goals – which means that you must be a strategic thinker with a natural ability to drive results and gain the support of others.
You won’t believe how much we know about this search …
We spent a ton of time on the phone with this client teasing out exactly 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 brush fires you will be expected to put out during your first month on the job. Every ecommerce job has these — and this one’s no different.
- What your average day/ week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard performance marketing job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
- The leading and lagging 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 ecommerce job.
Our industry research for this ecommerce job exceeds 60 pages! Be sure to TEXT Allan Seibert at (706) 318-1196 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Responsibilities:
- Development of a digital marketing strategy that improves the performance of existing customers and successfully acquires new customers.
- Develop digital marketing programs that will create greater awareness for the Coldwater Creek brand, drive traffic and sales to the website, grow the customer database and increase customer engagement.
- Oversee the social media strategy for the company.
- Manage relationships with external agencies and serve as key point of contact on a day-to-day basis to monitor program performance and optimize programs by pursuing new opportunities, testing, and creative execution.
- Develop and manage optimal budget that will drive the optimal mix of acquisition and retention driving the highest ROAS possible and support overall company growth plans.
- Develop processes that help streamline workflow and time management.
- Responsibility for planning and budgetary control of all digital marketing.
Requirements:
- BS degree or equivalent working experience. MBA a plus.
- A minimum of 5 years of proven experience managing digital marketing programs to drive traffic to a retail website.
- Mid-level expertise of a standard clickstream analysis tool such as Google Analytics or Omniture.
- Experience working with and managing third-party vendors and products.
- Strong analytics skills and knowledge of KPIs for digital marketing.
- High energy individual that will lead with passion.
- Ability to navigate, orchestrate and work through complex issues with a strategic, tactical and fresh perspective.
- Proven leadership and ability to influence and work across the organization.
- The ability to operate with a learning orientation and curiosity.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills, collaborative team player.
- Effectively multi tasks, switching prioritization as business needs arise.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Allan Seibert. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Allan 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.
