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We are working with Teavana in their search for an experienced, analytical direct marketing manager based in Atlanta, GA. Teavana is a specialty retailer of premium loose-leaf tea and tea accessories located primarily in high-end malls in the United States and Mexico. Here’s a video backgrounder on the company …
HARRY’S COMMENTS: Currently, I am handling a VP of Marketing search for Teavana, and I have included a ton of great information on the company right here. What I failed to mention in that post is that this Ecommerce Marketing Manager position will report to none other than Jay Allen, an ecommerce executive of fine reputation and real talent.
As a longtime student of direct marketing, I have a soft spot in my heart for executives like Jay, who come from a catalog background. Why? Because they are very analytically biased, and their mentality is to “beat the control” in any marketing situation. Guys like Jay were born to test.
Some of you old-timers remember that a “control” is any piece of direct mail that out-pulls all other versions. Once upon a time, a direct marketer might have had a sales letter that pulled, say, a personal best 4% response rate. That letter would have become “the control” (or benchmark) against which all new versions of the sales letter would have been measured. The name of the game for any direct mail marketer was to “beat the control,” and every year, organizations like the DMA celebrated the winners with great fanfare. In some agencies (like Wunderman, Ricotta & Kline), beating the control was a blood sport.
Anyone who understands the catalog business knows what I’m talking about, and through the years, for this very reason, some of my favorite candidates have come from the direct-mail space. They aren’t married to any particular idea. They do what works — and shift gears when they find something that works better.
Anyway. There are loads of copy blogs and analytics blogs that act like they invented this stuff — but those of us who have been around a few years know that guys like Gary Halbert, Ted Nicholas, John Caples, Claude Hopkins, Clyde Bedell, Vic Schwab, and Robert Collier and were the ones breaking new ground long before Al Gore created the internet back in the 80’s.
So, the reason for an up-and-comer to work for Jay is to learn his approach. It’s old-school, yet perfectly evolved for the modern age: Jay is always testing, and he’s always learning. Whether the medium is email, SEM, SEO, CSE, display advertising, merchandising, or whatever — it’s Jay’s nature (and his training) to try new things; to test small; to fail small; to double-down on the things that work; and to ditch the ones that don’t. In a marketing sense, he’s as egoless as anyone with whom I’ve ever worked, God bless him.
If you’re thinking about applying for this $70-80K base job, please check out my other Teavana post. There’s loads of great company information there.
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 Description:
This role is focused on growing sales through various online initiatives and developing new ways to find customers.
- Acquire customers. Develop plans and strategies for growing the online business and acquiring new customers. Utilize affiliate, shopping engine, banner ad and PPC programs to increase sales within cost expectations.
- Manage budgets. Monitor spend and sales by marketing tactic and insure Teavana is investing in the correct areas to grow sales. Forecast the results of advertising tactics and choose the methods with the best ROI.
- Improve SEO/Usability. Work with the ecommerce team to improve the SEO and usability of Teavana website over time. Implement best practices and find new ways for the customer to shop.
- Drive reporting. Insure analysis and reporting of Teavana.com is measuring meaningful and actionable numbers. Find and act on insights coming from our merchandising analyst.
- Handle daily marketing tasks. Manage the marketing tasks that need to be done in order to achieve sales goals as well as the overall marketing calendar. Tasks include working on organic search content, adding products to the site, updating shopping feeds, updating recommendations and more.
Position Requirements:
- Bachelor’s Degree in marketing or business.
- Background in online marketing or business analysis.
- Analytical mindset and understanding of retail metrics.
- Detail-oriented personality and ability to handle multiple tasks/projects effectively.
- Understanding of HTML and CSS. Some experience writing HTML and CSS for a public website is a plus.
- Good communicator and team player who works with the rest of the company to achieve results.
- At least 3 years of experience working in an online marketing capacity for an ecommerce website.
- Understanding of search engine optimization techniques, online design basics, affiliate programs, online marketing and the specific needs of an ecommerce website.
- Familiarity with Coremetrics, Ecometry (Escalate Retail), Mercent and/or Google Affiliate network is a significant plus.
- Ability to write content for search engines/blogs/social media a plus.
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to ask Harry for packet #1353 of market research and company / competitive intel that will differentiate you in your candidacy. Due to the competitive nature of this search, thorough preparation for these interviews with this proprietary material is strongly recommended.
