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We are working with Winder Farms in their search for a VP of Marketing based in West Valley, UT.
An amazing VP Marketing job
Winder Farms delivers farm-fresh products to homes in Utah, Nevada and California every week. The company’s product line includes all natural dairy items, fruits and vegetables, salads, meats, freshly made pasta, dinner entrees and much more…all delivered directly to its customers’ doors.
Winder Farms combines the stability of a 130 year-old company with the prospects of a high-growth business. Winder Farms is among the fastest growing home delivery firms in the United States, and was recently recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America.
Winder Farms seeks a VP of Marketing with a strong background in marketing and a proven track record of success. The ideal candidate will possess drive and be savvy with new forms of media, including online and social, and can add magic to brands. Additionally, the new VP will be have incredibly high quality standards and know how to simplify Winder Farms’ customers’ lives through the seamless integration of Winder benefits into their busy days. The VP must know how to measure results, inspire a team, and achieve (and celebrate) success. A good sense of humor is required, as the team at Winder Farms knows how to have fun and enjoy a good laugh while still working hard.
About the Role
The new VP of Marketing will lead all marketing activities of Winder Farms, including new customer acquisition, brand management, public relations, products and pricing. The successful candidate will play an integral role in charting the future growth of the company. This opportunity requires an experienced individual who is a creative, ambitious leader with a thorough knowledge of direct to consumer marketing. This position will oversee and develop the strategic direction of Winder Farms’ marketing efforts by developing, implementing, driving and monitoring marketing plans to achieve business goals.
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Here’s a very cool VP level search from Utah’s Winder Farms. The company offers more than 300 grocery items online, including dairy, fresh produce, bakery items, meats, and many other delicious offerings. Most products are all-natural, dairy products do not include added hormones, and Winder Farms offers a number of organic and gluten free products to its customers.
All product is of the highest possible quality, which is consistent with Winder Farms’ goal of simplifying the lives of busy parents who care about feeding their families natural and nutritious foods. Groceries are delivered weekly to a customer’s doorstep in a cooler bag before 8 a.m., and changes can be made on a standing order as late as 8 p.m. the night before. It’s a fantastic value prop …
Doesn’t this clip make you hungry?
Winder Farms has been active in the online space for several years. The company started as a family owned dairy 130 years ago and was bought by a private equity group in 2004. At the time of the sale, the basic idea was to enhance Winder Farm’s enormously popular dairy business with additional line items. Today, Winder Farms has 40,000 customers, servicing California, Nevada, and Utah – with plans to add other geographies to its distribution network.
A Hot Market for Online Groceries
Online grocery sales reached $15.9 billion in 2012, up 16.9% from the year before, and with the U.S. economy starting to pick up, consumers are increasingly interested in buying their groceries online. Recently, AmazonFresh expanded its fruit, vegetable and grocery delivery business from Seattle to the Los Angeles area.
Natural, organic and fresh high-quality foods are in demand and retailers that can deliver them are poised for success. I spent the 1990s in the frozen food business, and I am quite familiar with the food distribution business. To operate profitably, it’s all about scale.
Here’s a quick look at Winder Farms’ business:
The company is extremely well-known and well-respected in the Southwest, and believe it or not, the company acquires most of its new customers by selling door-to-door. You regular readers may grimace at the thought, but this is absolutely the most effective way to build a business whose profitability depends on operating its truck routes at full capacity.
For the company to grow, it establishes new routes in promising areas and then does what it takes to acquire customers along those routes. Given the company’s reputation and unaided brand recall due to its advertising and PR efforts, selling door-to-door (while expensive) is effective.
Customers love Winder Farms’ value proposition, which is essentially that of a farmers market on wheels. The firm delivers fresh, mostly all-natural products from the farm to the customer’s doorstep every week. The merchandise assortment is essentially anything that’s on the outer perimeter of the grocery store: dairy, meat, bakery, produce, and so forth.
Customers agree to buy $10 worth of product every week, and they can change their order fewer than 12 hours before scheduled delivery – Winder Farms’ order management and distribution capability is that good. These people are supply chain and distribution experts who have figured out how to profitably manage “the last mile” of the fresh food trade. This is a code that Amazon and Walmart have yet to crack, and it may be a while before they crack it due to the specialized storage and handling this last mile requires.
No sales manager ever said “sell it or smell it” about a book!
Now then: Once customers sign up with Winder Farms, the company seeks to improve their LTV by cross-selling and up selling additional items for delivery. So, if Winder Farms has 50 customers on a truck at 50% capacity, the quickest way to make that route profitable is to help those 50 customers buy additional products from the company. Winder Farms is no more expensive than a typical grocery store, and its products are of higher quality on nearly every item across the board.
Do these 2 things and you’re golden:
As VP of Marketing for Winder Farms, you will have two primary responsibilities: Customer acquisition, and product sales.
You can use any direct marketing channel you wish to acquire new customers as long as the numbers tease out. But B.S. artists beware: Winder Farms’ senior management truly understands that direct marketing is all about the math. Indeed, this search’s kickoff call contained several references to customer acquisition cost and lifetime value. These people know how to count, so if you don’t have an analytical bias to the way you make marketing decisions, this job won’t work out for you.
With regard to customer growth, remember that these customers are already spending at least $10 every week with Winder Farms. You can use telemarketing, email, text messaging, singing telegram, or whatever to encourage these folks to increase the size of their weekly orders.
Your call. Do the math, then do what works.
Winder Farms came to EcommerceRecruiter.com to fill the search because of my firm’s ability to identify, access, pitch, and vet game-changing digital marketing talent. Meaning, the client has a distinct bias towards acquiring customers online, and then using digital technologies to grow those relationships.
But candidates remember: It doesn’t do Winder Farms any good to market to people to whom it can’t deliver its products. The name of the game is working with management to target high probability routes, and then target the high probability residences along that route. More than anything, this role calls for a direct to consumer geo-targeting master.
If that’s you – then I’d love to hear from you.
Responsibilities:
- Customer acquisition. Bring new customers into the Winder Farms family via direct marketing, social networking and other online media, direct mail and any other established and emerging electronic and print media. Plan, execute and measure all campaigns so that customers are acquired at acceptable costs.
- Products, pricing and promotion. Manage product strategy, including category and product selection, product launch planning and execution, and pricing and promotion to achieve revenue per delivery (RPD) and gross margin targets. Direct all online and email marketing and print promotions to existing customers. Measure, test and improve promotional campaigns for greatest impact. Perform market research and solicit and incorporate customer feedback to improve product offerings and adoption within a dynamic market and competitive environment.
- Brand enhancement. Ensure that the Winder Farms brand and related attributes are understood both internally and externally, and see that the company’s activities are on brand. Increase awareness of Winder Farms and its brand, especially with Winder Farms’ target demographic. Manage public relations activities to reinforce and build Winder Farms’ brand. Refine the Winder Farms brand as needed.
- Leadership. Lead the development and execution of marketing strategies across both current and future Winder Farms markets. Help develop and manage to the marketing budget. Lead the marketing team with motivation and clear direction to achieve goals while monitoring employee performance and development. Develop tools and processes to effectively measure and monitor marketing activities. Collaborate with other Winder Farms individuals and groups to maximize overall company performance.
Qualifications:
- 10+ years of solid marketing experience, with at least eight years in a leadership role
- Demonstrated success acquiring large numbers of customers via direct marketing, including direct mail and online vehicles. You must know what it takes to “close the sale” online.
- Solid understanding of electronic (email and online) marketing tools and experience with interactive and e-commerce marketing. Experience with SEO, ORM, PPC and other online tools and concepts.
- Understanding of and demonstrated experience developing strategies and tools required to improve the online shopping experience. You must know how to promote and upsell online and via email.
- Product marketing and management experience, including product selection and product launch expertise. Demonstrated experience successfully managing product pricing and margins.
- Experience developing marketing plans and motivating teams to achieve results
- Demonstrated ability to achieve goals and stay within budgets
- Ability to work well with others at all levels of the organization. Strong management skills.
- Excellent understanding of brand and brand strategies.
- Experience marketing consumer products to women is a plus. Food industry experience preferred. If you are a “foodie,” that’s also a plus.
- Insights into word of mouth and viral marketing a plus
- Previous experience working in a growing entrepreneurial setting strongly preferred
- A Bachelor’s degree required, MBA preferred
- The ability to see things through Winder Farms’ customers’ eyes and tailor a message to them … Absolutely Priceless.
UPDATE: THIS SEARCH IS CLOSED.
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