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One of the coolest ecommerce marketing jobs around!
HARRY COMMENTS: We are working with MyPatriotSupply.com in their search for a world-class Digital Marketing Manager based in gorgeous Sandpoint, Idaho.
The headquarters for MyPatriotSupply is Sandpoint, Idaho. If you never heard of it, that’s okay – residents say “Shhhhhh …” This resort community, nestled between three mountain ranges on 26-mile long Lake Pend Oreille, was named the “most beautiful small town in America” by USA Today and Rand McNally Best of the Road. It’s a four-season paradise with swimming and boating in the summer and a large ski resort in its backyard for winter fun.
Seventy-five percent of Sandpoint’s residents were born in another state and are often heard saying “I hope nobody finds out bout this place.” Folks who love outdoor recreation, arts, culture and fine dining will find Sandpoint the bomb-diggity.
You can check out Sandpoint here.
WARNING: Today’s post is long. Frankly, I expect only ~ 5% of my readers to make it all the way to the bottom of this page. But I guarantee you this: 100% of the finalists for this search will read this missive SEVERAL times during their candidacies, and they’ll thank me for my completeness. Just saying.
Now then, regarding the emergency preparedness category, let’s start here:
It’s not crazy to keep supplies on hand in the event of a prolonged power outage due to hackers, weather, and whatnot. I live in Atlanta, and without getting into a long story about HOW it happened (trust me, it was crazy — but it made sense), in 2014 we experienced a very sudden, extremely severe winter storm that pretty much shut down the city for a week.
That’s right. A week.
For nearly a week my family of eight was stranded in our house, unable to get to a grocery store. By the 3rd day we were living on canned goods. By day 4 I took it upon myself to tromp 5 miles through the snow to my local Publix — which had been picked clean except for stuff like 16oz cans of beets and jalapeno peppers. I would have given anything to have had a square meal. My wife and kids felt the same way.
So did our dogs, as luck would have it.
You probably think that with a name like MyPatriotSupply.com, the folks who work at this company are all extreme social conservatives. They’re not. They do, however, value piece of mind, freedom and independence — and that’s what this business is about. As active participants in the preparedness lifestyle, they understand today’s complex concerns and challenges with getting prepared.
If this video resonates with you, then by all means keep reading.
Still with me? Beautiful. Let’s mush on.
Putting my finger on the size of the total addressable market (TAM) for MyPatriotSupply is tricky. I’ve got market research reports for …
- Natural Disaster & Emergency Relief Services in the US
- Baking Mix & Prepared Food Production in the US
- Dried Fruit & Vegetable Snack Production in the US, and …
- Canned Fruit & Vegetable Processing in the US
But here’s the thing:
Whatever numbers I could gin up, they’re pretty much meaningless. During Atlanta’s snowpocalypse, there were 5.5 million people who would have hungrily bought from MyPatriotSupply 1.) had they known of its existence, and 2.) had they been able to take delivery on the product in time to do them any good. It’s like Mark Twain used to say: “When you need a friend, it’s too late to make one.” And during the snowpocalypse, MyPatriotSupply would have been a welcome friend to all Atlantans, all politics aside.
Which brings me to the crux of this job posting:
There’s a big difference between capturing demand and creating demand for a particular product. Like most people, I know when I’m running low on toilet paper, so it’s a relatively straightforward thing for someone like Kimberly-Clark to capture my inelastic demand for it.
But it’s a whole ‘nother thing to sell survival provisions.
Normally, Homer Simpson doesn’t wake up in the morning and say “Today’s the day I’m going to buy 72 hours worth of provisions for a crisis that may or may not happen this year.” No, that demand must be created — even among people whose natural inclination is to prepare for a rainy day. In that respect, selling survival provisions is like selling insurance.
And there’s interesting money to be made selling insurance.
When selling insurance (aka peace of mind), one can never forget the importance of good old-fashioned salesmanship. That means not only making sure that the right prospects arrive at the top of the funnel, but also that you and your team are leveraging consumer triggers to help prospects buy now. (Why make them wait? They need peace of mind NOW.)
For MyPatriotSupply, we’re looking for a Digital Marketing Manager who not only knows the elements of effective online marketing, but knows the highly advanced stuff as well. We’re looking for a street smart marketer who’s channel agnostic — selling to the customer the way the customer wants to buy.
We want someone who can use the digital marketing trifecta to target consumers in clever ways — such as with related keywords that might drive consumption of survival provisions, such as “Cascadia emergency preparedness.”
We are looking for someone who can be Jay Abraham-like in their ability to ask creative business questions such as “When someone creates a customer for themselves, how can MyPatriotSupply piggyback on their marketing efforts? Are there opportunities for MyPatriotSupply to co-market with companies that sell storm windows? Power generators? Gold investments? Gun safes? Are there opportunities to target any of those keywords in Google / Bing / Yahoo?
Other issues you’ll be ask to tease out include …
- How to best improve the ROI of integrated marketing campaigns involving TV, catalog, online, call center (with specific 1-800 numbers), and more. We need your expertise to be SEO, email, banner ads, and (hopefully) video. How can these channels be combined in ways such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? What is a particular campaign’s ROI? What are the leading and lagging indicators of success of specific campaigns? It’ll be your job to know.
- What can you do to improve the firm’s strategy of pulling traffic in through micro-sites? The company has dozens of landing-page type sites, and it will fall to you to tweak every aspect of their conversion funnel: The traffic that hits those sites; What exactly is offered on those sites; How copy is written and presented on those sites; What the conversion process looks like on those sites; and more.
- How can you best mentor and grow MPS’ bullpen of talented young writers and designers? These are motivated young people who are eager to learn what you have to teach them. A leader is someone with followers. Your job is to grow the team in ways that make them feel better about themselves because of their relationship with you.
W.W.M.C.D.?
As my regular readers know, I do 150-200 kickoff calls a year, and I’m a big fan of applying the Shark Tank test to my clients’ business: What Would Mark Cuban Do? Is this a really good business? Would I invest my own money in it?
Here, the answer is YES.
Well run company … Vertically integrated … Principled management … Massive addressable market … Plus I’m not sure I see Amazon invading this space in a major way. Not because it can’t, but because MyPatroitSupply’s customer doesn’t generally want to buy the product from such a mainstream outlet (even though MyPatriotSupply sells its Patriot Pantry brand on Amazon). Generally speaking, patriots want to feel like they’re part of a community — and they can’t feel like that when they’re buying the product in the world’s most mainstream outlet.
As always, my team and I spent several hours on the phone with My Patriot Supply’s CEO and VP Marketing exploring this opportunity and teasing out exactly what the new Digital Marketing Manager must do to “win” in the role. Yet for competitive reasons I’m not going to get too granular here.
I’m happy to discuss everything I’ve heard, seen, and researched about those things with qualified candidates. You definitely don’t want to apply without this intel, so let me hook you up.
Simply TEXT [your name + “My Patriot Supply”] to me at (404) 281-2025. Or simply apply online below. Either way, I look forward to chatting with you!
View Harry Joiner’s profile
Responsibilities include:
- Detailed project management of digital marketing campaigns supporting our 5 brands including My Patriot Supply, Patriot Pantry, Alexapure, Patriot Seeds and Colonial Concepts.
- Development of the creative and execution of digital marketing campaigns through multiple channels including email, social media, PPC, display, retargeting, video, SEO/SEM, blogs, affiliates, brand websites, and mini-sites
- Assessing and presenting detailed weekly analysis of on-going ecommerce campaigns
- Continuous A/B testing
- Assisting in crafting future marketing strategy and tactics through evaluations of previous activities
- Creating, publishing and sharing documents that clearly communicate to both internal and external groups
- Working with outside partners to establish and maintain project details, timelines and budgets
- Compiling and running reports for a variety of media and marketing efforts
- Keeping a detailed calendar of e-commerce marketing promotions
- Conducting research and gathering information for a variety of projects
- Documenting and presenting competitive analysis
- Working directly with the VP of Marketing on special projects
- Coordinating campaigns with the Marketing Manager
Skills and Knowledge Required:
- A proven history of ecommerce success and ROI tracking
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Strong financial and marketing analytics and problem solving skills
- Solid Office365 (Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel) skills
- Prior experience using or familiarity with Constant Contact, Basecamp, Google Analytics, Dropbox, Hootsuite
- Ability to work with minimal supervision, within a team environment
- Strong organizational skills, be able to follow up and pay attention to detail
- Detail-oriented organization and planning
- A strong work ethic and drive to exceed expectations
- Team-player with a positive attitude exhibiting excellent team-leadership
- Relevant product and industry knowledge a plus
The Ideal Candidate Will Have:
- 7+ years of ecommerce marketing and management experience work experience in marketing or related field preferred
- B.S. in marketing, communications, business or a related field
Applications for this position are being coordinated by Harry Joiner. To apply, CLICK HERE. Candidates, please be sure to email Harry for additional information 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.
