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We are working with Weleda in their search for an E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Manager. Located in Palisades, New York (just 30 minutes north of New York City), the newly created role of E-Commerce & Digital Marketing Manager will take responsibility for Weleda’s emerging North American (USA & Canada) natural/organic personal care e-commerce sales channel and their rapidly growing web-shop and website.
This position is ideal for someone who has a strong CPG e-commerce/digital marketing background, but can also demonstrate an ability to quickly understand the unique dynamics of the natural products industry – in particular, their loyal consumer base, natural health-food retailers and natural products distributors.
Harry’s Comments:
This is an incredibly cool search with a well-established, well-loved company that is considered a darling of the North American natural products industry.
Weleda is a multinational manufacturer of natural personal care products & homeopathic medicines based on Anthroposophic principles. The company operates in five continents with 20 direct subsidiaries, partnerships in 53 countries, and close to 2,000 employees worldwide.
The company was founded by a philosopher named Rudolph Steiner, who founded the “Anthroposophy” movement. (More on why this is important in a minute.) Dr. Steiner also founded the Steiner Schools (otherwise known as Waldorf Schools) as well as Biodynamic® farming.
Weleda was founded as a homeopathic business in the 1930s, and to this day the company grows its own ingredients. Seriously. Weleda controls every aspect of their product’s production. And what they don’t produce, they source through 50 very carefully selected fair trade partnerships worldwide. The company is very closely held by two societies: An Anthroposophic doctors group, and a European Anthroposophic community group.
To say that Weleda walks its talk is a massive understatement.
Weleda.com’s online revenues are very modest: $200,000 on their own web store. However, online sales through their partners are considerably more, given that their partners sell through Amazon, Soap.com, Drugstore.com, and the like. In other words, Weleda’s products are incredibly popular and enjoy an intensely loyal following, but until now Weleda has let its trade partners handle the brand’s development online.
Reporting to Hamish Cook, Weleda’s Vice President of Marketing, the company intends to grow its on-line channel in the hopes of being more targeted and efficient in its marketing spend, not only increasing brand impressions, but leveraging sales on-line. Hamish’s goal is to build digital marketing as an in-house competency to drive both on-line and off-line sales.
In June this year, Hamish took his entire marketing team to the Rose Fair trade project in Turkey. This video briefly catalogs that. Hamish tries very hard to give his team a first-hand experience of the sustainability and social work in which Weleda partakes …
Both Hamish and the new E-commerce and Digital Marketing Manager will develop the vision for the Canadian and US on-line business. For the company, digital marketing and ecommerce is somewhat new – but that does not mean that there is organizational resistance to it. Indeed, Weleda already has a significantly robust and fast-growing marketing department. But now they want to use digital as a serious complement to their more traditional marketing.
The good news is that Weleda has a very specific target market: “LOHAS,” women, aged 24 to 55 who maintain Lifestyles of Health And Sustainability. Some of these women are single; some of these women are mothers. In either case, these women are interested in products that not only work, but have some social value as well. They shop at places like Whole Foods and support brands like Burt’s Bees, Stonyfield Farms, and Seventh Generation.
Weleda also targets new mothers with interest in natural, organic baby care products. According to Hamish, “These moms read on blogs that Weleda products are the most healthy products for their babies. As the customer matures, it’s natural for us to ask these customers ‘if Weleda was good enough for your baby – isn’t it good enough for you?’”
Given the loyalty of Weleda’s following, this role is not simply about driving traffic, improving the average order value, and improving Weleda.com’s conversion rate. It’s about interacting with the market, believing in the product offering and even living the life of a LOHAS consumer.
LOHAS consumers are very values driven, and Weleda is an incredibly value-driven company. Therefore, Weleda seeks a Director of E-commerce who shares its values of sustainability and ethics.
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 position will take the lead on developing Weleda North America’s internal competency in natural products e-commerce and digital marketing. It will require someone to implement a new on-line vision for the organization which fully complements Waleda’s fast growing offline sales. This person will play a central role in the execution of on-line strategies for natural/organic personal care by working collaboratively with cross-functional teams (off-line sales, communications, finance, logistics, etc.), outside agencies (developers, media, creative, promotional, etc.) and the Weleda International Marketing department in Switzerland. The position will have a high degree of visibility across the organization and will play a vital role in helping Weleda achieve its aggressive growth objectives.
- Responsible for conception, development and delivery of Weleda North America digital marketing/ interactive strategies.
- Create and execute on-line marketing and promotion calendars to match offline marketing initiatives.
- Work closely with marketing, public relations & sales teams to optimize offline initiatives and partner relationships to drive on-line awareness and increase revenue.
- Develop, implement and maintain key digital marketing activities to drive lead generation, direct response and sales impact (SEO/SEM, on-line media, email marketing, mobile, affiliate & sponsorship programs).
- Provide strategic support for, and partner with in-house social media team. Take responsibility for alignment of social media, digital marketing and e-commerce activities.
- Partner with in-house PR team and third party PR agency to give strategic support for all e-PR related activity, with specific focus on beauty, natural products and mother/baby on-line editors and bloggers.
- Take lead on implementation and management of key digital marketing platforms for insight generation and follow-up, social listening, ad/social targeting, CRM.
- Manage third party digital marketing agency, developers and designers to achieve seamless execution of all activity.
- Initiate market research studies and analyze findings.
- Conduct financial modeling including ROI and KPI’s for on-line marketing programs.
Position Requirements:
- Displays a passion for e-commerce and digital marketing.
- Has a deep understanding of both off-line and on-line CPG sales functions.
- Is highly analytical and able to collect, analyze and interpret data.
- Strong technical acumen & ability to act as liaison between marketing & IT departments.
- Must be knowledgeable about the web and emerging technologies.
- Have a global perspective and be willing to collaborate on international digital projects.
- Is a problem solver – identifies and resolves problems in a timely manner, gathers and analyzes information skillfully and able too develop alternative solutions.
- Strong project management skills – develops project plans, coordinates projects, communicates changes and progress and is able to complete projects on-time and within budget.
- Demonstrates strong budgeting skills, with an understanding of margins & profitability metrics.
- Must have highly developed interpersonal skills, with an affinity for teamwork with in a small organization.
- Must be highly adaptable to changes within projects and work environment, and is able to change approach or method to best fit changing situations.
- Presents a keen-eye for the look and feel of the Weleda brand.
- Has a hands-on approach with can-do attitude, structured thinking and working style.
- Demonstrates the ability to interact and cooperate with all company employees.
- Comfortable presenting to various senior management, cross-functional teams and sales force.
- Challenges themselves by always thinking out-of-the-box.
- Maintain professional internal and external relationships that meet company core values.
- Bachelor’s Degree (MBA preferred).
- 3-5 years of e-commerce and interactive (digital) marketing experience.
- On-line retail and merchandising experience.
- Demonstrated experience with SEO, SEM, PPC, Email marketing, Adwords, etc.
- Demonstrated experience managing & optimizing on line marketing campaigns.
- Demonstrated capabilities using analytical platforms such as Google Analytics, Coremetrics or similar.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry Joiner 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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