Director - Product Marketing (Milwaukee)

At Rite-Hite, your work makes an impact. As the global leader in loading dock and door equipment, we design and deliver solutions that keep our customers safe, secure, and productive. Here, you’ll find innovation, stability, and the chance to grow your career as part of a team that’s always looking ahead.

POSITION SUMMARY

Our Director, Product Marketing is responsible for leading all product marketing efforts for our Interior Solutions Group. This includes generating customer and market insights and creating a short and long-term marketing strategy and marketing plan across the business unit’s full product (hardware, software, services, solutions) portfolio.

You’ll assist and influence product management and other key stakeholders in developing winning product strategies and roadmaps. Reporting to our CMO, you’ll partner in developing enterprise-wide strategic plans. Key performance indicators will be orders, price realization, share gain, customer retention, marketing ROI, and utilization of marketing assets.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Customer Focus

• Creates and executes an annual customer insight plan in partnership with the insights and operational excellence shared marketing services team and leads a regular customer advisory board to discover unmet needs and utilization trends, validate product concepts, test value propositions and inform pricing decisions
• Leads a regular sales and service advisory board to ensure the voice of teams closest to the customer is incorporated into the marketing strategy, plans and tools
• Helps to capture insights by actively participating in customer experience center visits
• Defines and delivers a memorable customer experience across each phase of the customer journey; leads strategic customer experience initiatives to continuously improve customer experience
• Helps test ideas as part of the standard Rite-Hite innovation process to build a set of high value concepts for product management; actively participates in the innovation process and proactively drives idea generation where there are strategic gaps

Market and Business Insights

• In collaboration with the shared marketing services team and via analysis, research and problem solving identifies and continuously drives insights from key external and internal data and trends (e.g., market and industry growth / headwinds / tailwinds, visibility, win/loss, strategic account performance, Salesforce, sales tool utilization, demand generation activities, marketing ROI) to strengthen business investments and marketing impact as well as inform enterprise strategic planning
• Extends data analysis and insight generation to longer-term views that support 5–10-year strategic planning
• Provides clear and thoughtful guidance/coaching on the development of high impact marketing activities, incorporating lessons learned from prior work and internal/external benchmarking

Marketing Strategy

• From insights and aligned with the product management priorities and roadmap, creates the marketing strategy across an operating company to drive profitable growth (demand generation, funnel acceleration, share gain, price realization)
• In collaboration with the distribution and business development teams and product management, leads the definition of the commercial strategy including commercial risk assessment, target customer segments and sales channels
• Provides a market-backed pricing view to the product manager to help inform the final pricing decision; in concert with the shared marketing services team conducts external pricing research studies; monitors pricing trends and leads problem solving workstreams to improve price realization; coaches the team on developing an economic, value-based view to support the product manager’s pricing decision
• Collaborates with product management, distribution, business development and engineering to define new product offerings, pricing, marketing, and sales strategies
• Connects the marketing strategy across operating companies and with the enterprise strategic plan and overall company brand strategy

Product Marketing

• Aligned with the defined marketing strategy and starting pre-Phase 0 of the new product development process, oversees the development of annual and multi-year marketing plans supporting product launches and lifecycle that include branding, value proposition, product and competitive positioning, messaging platform, evidence generation, sales enablement tools and training and demand generation
• Owns the development of a relevant, credible and unique value proposition to drive customer delight and profitable growth; leads the testing of value propositions with external and internal advisory boards. Coaches the cross-functional product team on the development of high impact value propositions.
• Works with the shared marketing services team and external agencies to develop the messaging platform and positioning; drives a strategic and practical competitive positioning analysis to develop a prescriptive and highly utilized toolset for the commercial team; facilitates internal war-gaming exercises to pressure-test and develop the highest impact commercial story
• Incorporates competitive analysis from engineering teardowns, war-gaming sessions and product management input.
• Coaches the team to develop a data and insight-driven launch strategy, working with the shared marketing services team on the optimum marketing mix (awareness, lead generation/nurturing) and activities (digital, website, SEO, PPC, E-mail, media, print, tradeshow, content marketing, etc.) to maximize the business return on investment
• Develops thought leadership including reference and show sites and industry group partnerships in collaboration with the distribution, business development and product management teams
• Oversees the development of high quality, consistent and customer-focused marketing assets working closely with the shared marketing services and product management teams to ensure high utilization
• Identifies budget requirements and creative approaches to ensure execution of the marketing plan; owns marketing budget and proactively manages to meet business targets and make optimum use of marketing investments across the portfolio
• Defines the branding requirements for a given product portfolio (naming, trademarks)
• Collaborate with product management, business development and distribution as an active participant in product training
• Leads operating mechanisms across the marketing team and tied to the product development process integrate and motivate, share best practices and execute on-time with high quality deliverables that support business goals

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business or similar required.
• 12+ years related experience in product marketing, sales, product management or related field.
• B2B product marketing experience across the complete lifecycle preferred.
• Experience leading and developing direct reports

KNOWLEDGE / SKILL REQUIREMENTS

• Ability to work and communicate with colleagues across operating companies and supporting functions.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills; strong executive presence with ability to clearly and succinctly communicate to the leadership team and across the organization; superb clear-thinking skills with ability to drive high impact action from a blank sheet, significant set of data or across many viewpoints to guide team and deliver results
• Strong analytical, decision-making and problem-solving skills; leads formal problem-solving activities (problem definition, data/pareto analysis, root cause, solutioning and measures) for key marketing metrics and coaches team on ideal problem-solving techniques
• Ability to motivate and lead a team of direct reports and influence cross-functional teams.
• Deep marketing expertise in customer, market and business insights, marketing strategy and product marketing
• Must be able to plan, organize and prioritize work to meet deadlines.
• Up to 20% travel may be required.

Supervisory Responsibilities

This role will have direct reports and requires the completion of leadership / people management training.

What We Offer

At Rite-Hite, we take care of our people – because when you’re supported, you can do your best work. Our benefits are designed to support your health, your future and your life outside of work:

• Health & Well-being: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage, plus life and disability insurance. A robust well-being program with an opportunity to receive an extra day off and more.
• Financial Security: A strong retirement savings program with 401(k), company match, and profit sharing.
• Time for You: Paid holidays, vacation time, and personal/sick days each year.

Join us and build a career where you’re supported – at work and beyond.

Rite-Hite is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under federal, state, or local law. In accordance with VEVRAA, we are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for protected veterans. We are also committed to maintaining a drug-free workplace for the safety of our employees and customers.