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One of the coolest ecommerce jobs around!

ALLAN’S COMMENTS: We are working with a manufacturer of hookah and shisha supplies and accessories in their search for a world-class DTC Ecommerce Manager, ideally based in North Carolina USA.

NOTE: There is an excellent chance this role will end up being remote or partial remote, so if after reading this posting, you’d like to apply, hit me up.

About the Company

This client is the 500 pound gorilla in the hookah space. There’s really no other way to put it. And frankly, they’re as smart and buttoned up as any client we’ve seen in the last two years.

As a global market leader in the inhalation business (that’s what they call it), the client aims to revolutionize inhalation rituals through the design, manufacture, and marketing of a suite of world class products to improve the physical, emotional and mental benefits of inhalation.

Have you ever heard of the Japanese tea ceremony? Well, it’s kind of a big deal in Japan, and there was a time when the Japanese culture centered around it. In fact, a few years ago, we did a search for Tea Forte, who was (very successfully) building a US ecommerce business around that concept.

Now imagine people sitting around enjoying a hookah — a forever mainstay of middle eastern culture. Same deal.

Our client’s global footprint includes offices in North Carolina, London, Dubai, Delhi, Jeddah, Warsaw, and Hamburg, and it operates its own factories in the UAE and Poland. The company is committed to innovation, and it is dedicated to reimagining recreation, sensorial discoveries and social connections.

The firm seeks to be a forerunner in the research-backed science of inhalation (in which the tobacco component is heated rather than burnt), and its research team is led by experts in their respective fields.

For example, while browsing the client’s corporate site, we were surprised to learn that in contrast to cigarettes (where the tobacco, along with paper, inks, and adhesives are physically set alight), a shisha cloud is generated at much lower temperatures through indirect heating. This makes smoking a hookah ~70% less harmful than cigarettes.

About its US operation

Worldwide, the firm does huge business — with the US market showing a ton of promise. Next year, for the first time ever, the company is launching a REALLY COOL proprietary individual inhalation device for sale only on their DTC site (YOUR site), and the device will require individual, proprietary Keurig-like disposable pods to use with the device.

Just like a razor handle with refillable blades. The backend is built right into the business model. What’s not to love?

We’ve heard the pitch and we’ve seen the photos. We think it’s going to be a hit, especially considering the relative benefits of using this product versus standard tobacco or vaping.

About the Role

As the firm’s new DTC Ecom Manager reporting to the client’s Head of DTC US, you will supervise the marketing setup and launch of this US consumer business. The client has already done the initial market research and the team has been given the green light. This WILL happen, probably next June or July.

Between now and then, you will be concentrating on planning, building, and managing the initial set up of the site’s Persuasion Architecture — meaning, selling to customers the way they buy.

You’ll be involved in discussions about how the site/system will function, and we’ll expect you to have an excellent understanding of the firm’s products (what they do, how they work, how they’re maintained) and what this means for how they should be marketed and merchandised.

Our client has a Marketing team which owns social and influencers. You will work closely with them on that strategy, ultimately owning relationships with major publications like Esquire and GearPatrol and others who support of the brand can impact the firm’s SEO strategy. The Marketing team will oversee the social strategy. You will work with them to help execute.

Speaking of SEO …

Due to the client’s category being regulated in a way that prohibits paid search marketing, you will rely heavily on SEO for customer acquisition. You must fully understand how to BUILD and OPTIMIZE an SEO-first ecommerce site. This is critical.

That means you should have a teachable point of view on keyword selection, off-site influences, onsite influences, and reporting and analytics. The four pillars of ecommerce SEO.

Day One, you will be solely responsible for the site’s SEO strategy and execution. The plan is for the client to hire an SEO Specialist as you get closer to launch.

Then there’s the matter of affiliate marketing.

The client imagines you will be using a tool like CJ or Impact Radius, but you will influence this decision heavily, given your work with influencers from anywhere and everywhere, including YouTube and TikTok. You DO NOT need to be an affiliate expert, but we’d sure love it if you had some familiarity with that channel.

Next: Where there’s affiliate, there’s email. Right?

You’ll be designing email flows. LOTS of email flows! Remember, this business will have an autoship aspect to it, and you’ll need to develop a strategy for that so at launch-time you’ll be good to go on your landing pages and funnels specific to the firm’s marketing channels. Your job is to hit the ground running.

Between now and the site’s launch, you’ll be hands-on with Klayvio, setting up campaigns, designing and setting up templates, getting assets from Design and Copy, and building emails until an Email Marketing Manager is hired. (Already approved / budgeted.)

The client will be investing a ton of money in PR, content, events, and awareness marketing. YOUR job is to make sure that interest translates into CUST-O-MERS on the site. What that process looks like is largely up to you and your boss. Management has an idea, but in the words of Mike Tyson …

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

To win in this sole contributor role, you must be able to do the work yourself. You will have some agency support, as well as internal shared resources, but the idea is for you to drive as much of this yourself as possible.

That means testing … analysis … execution on the KPI’s … optimizing the site … tweaking the channel mix … improving the site experience … and collaborating internally and externally.

Basically, building a better mousetrap while asking yourself, “How many autoships are we signing up? What does the funnel look like? How can we incentivize improvements in the traffic, AOV, and conversion rate?”

You won’t believe how much we know about this search …

I spent a ton of time on the phone with the client teasing out exactly what you’ll need to KNOW and DO to hit the ground running in this role. Some of the things I can share with highly qualified candidates include …

1. The “real” background requirements for this position, along with the top five things all resumes MUST have to be considered for the role.
2. 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.
3. What your average day/week will look like in this role. There’s what you read in the standard ecommerce job posting … then there’s reality. We’ve got the reality.
4. The leading and lagging KPIs that will determine your success in this role. In a nutshell: How you’ll keep score.
5. 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.

I have a massive amount of proprietary intel to share with qualified candidates. My industry research for this assignment exceeds 100 pages! Be sure to TEXT me, Allan Seibert, at (706) 318-1196 for this info. Or simply use the email link when you apply for the role below.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Leading the D2C customer acquisition, reactivation and retention strategies, and establish best-in-class practices across digital channels such as SEO, Email, Affiliate, Community and Social.
• Develop the autoship subscription customer journey, drive subscription levels to meet performance goals and acheive increased customer lifetime values
• Having a passion for innovation, as well as tenacity for owning the end-to-end customer acquisition funnel, collaborating across multiple functions, and driving business results for both the short and long term
• Utilizing a data-driven methodology, analysis, and measurement to improve effectiveness and efficiency of our D2C channels
• Overseeing D2C channel & experience management and reporting, including in-depth analytics of LTV, CPA, ROI, and incrementality with an eye on developing loyal lifelong customers.
• Analyzing, strategizing and executing performance across all channels and identifying new opportunities for initiatives and optimization.
• Establishing and developing an effective customer-centric marketing, user experiences and digital strategy, with clear and consistent direction.
• Securing effective value positioning, segmentation, targeting, quantification of market value and journey mapping.
• Ensuring D2C’s continuous research capability, using qualitative research, quantitative data analysis and experimentation to explore new customer acquisition & retention channels while maintaining conversion and retention metrics.
• Partnering with internal teams to optimize performance and drive results, e.g., Marketing, Finance & Operations (targeting, optimization, user experience, offers, pricing, etc.)
• Generating, testing and analyzing inbound marketing growth initiatives based on data, benchmarks, analytics, and KPI’s.
• Collaborating with marketing on content strategy and execution through planning and repeatable mechanisms while adhering to our brand voice.
• Focusing on driving converting traffic from SEO channels and leveraging newsletter and Klaviyo flows to increase e-mail channel revenue.
• Operationalizing, measuring and managing new business activities within the marketing department.
• Planning and communicating AIR’s marketing message across departments and ensure that communications are consistent and on-brand externally.
• Collaborate with analysts to develop tooling, automation, and new measurement methodologies, improve measurement rigor, and optimize performance.

Requirements:

• 5+ years experience in a strategic Performance Marketing leadership role, managing a high-performing team in a B2C or D2C e-commerce environment.
• Previous consumables experience required in a subscription based model.
• Obsession with growth while not being afraid to get your hands dirty.
• Proven background in deploying and executing on a growth roadmap heavily utilizing inbound marketing (organic, non-paid channels and e-mail).
• Persistence and have bias-to-action with a track record of performance.
• You start by asking why?
• Being a natural hustler with a contagious “can-do” attitude who thrives in fast-paced environments
• Good understanding of customer and market research techniques, capable of applying the right approach to gather relevant data.
• Strong analytics skills: creative analysis to direct strategic growth.
• You are objective and prioritize based on potential impact
• You are curious and want to know how things work. You detail your hypothesis and measure the results.
• Ability to understand and grow a marketing tech stack centered around Magento, Google Analytics, BI Tools and Klaviyo.
• Strong presentation skills with the ability to clearly and persuasively articulate ideas.
• Native English language proficiency level.