Director - Lifecycle Marketing

Director Of Lifecycle Marketing

The Director of Lifecycle Marketing serves as the end-to-end leader of Michaels' lifecycle marketing program. Lead a team to develop, implement, and optimize strategies and plans to maximize customer engagement and drive revenue growth in the short- and long-term, leveraging the CRM program and the email and SMS channels. Partner with Technology, Data Science, Brand Marketing, and Creative to deliver the content, technology, and scaled data science needed to build, automate and continuously optimize a highly effective targeted marketing program.

Major Activities

Strategic Planning & Goal Setting:

• Evangelize marketing communication priorities and brand strategy with the goal of establishing consistent, high-quality messaging, creative, and tone of voice across all of Michaels' communications
• Create a bold multi-year vision for the Michaels lifecycle marketing, and customer engagement program, making this discipline a key area of competitive advantage for the company
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including marketing, merchandising, and product management, to align on priorities and business goals
• Translate how the tactical and technical capabilities feed into overarching marketing goals

Program Management and Team Development:

• Serve as the Email, SMS, and Push Marketing channel lead. Collaborate cross-departmentally to create an engaging customer experience and drive customer engagement and revenue
• Develop and lead a multi-disciplinary team to execute targeted marketing strategies to drive customer acquisition, engagement, retention, and loyalty
• Partner with Technology and Data Science to implement marketing automation tools and technologies to optimize campaign performance and customer experiences
• Lead or participate in CRM/MarTech platform implementations (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Cordial, Braze) and lead cross-functional projects to build and manage platform integrations across the marketing technology stack
• Collaborate with external agencies to leverage their expertise and resources in executing targeted marketing initiatives
• Ensure compliance with relevant privacy regulations and best practices in data management and security

Reporting/Insights & Optimizations:

• Use data analytics and customer insights to identify and segment target audiences to drive customer-centric, personalized marketing campaigns
• Monitor and analyze campaign results and provide actionable insights that fuel continuous improvement
• Lead the team's approach to defining what performance data to collect and how to collect it across owned channels (email, SMS, and push), including the use of experimental design (treatment vs. control) to measure impact
• Stay up to date with industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices to drive innovation and competitive advantage, making recommendations to product and technical teams for new additions or enhancements
• Maintain awareness of how AI is impacting the MarTech landscape, including the sources and applications of AI technology across marketing platforms and channels

Other duties as assigned

Minimum Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

Minimum Education

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or a related field

Minimum Special Certifications or Technical Skills

• Proven ability to build and execute highly effective CRM, email, and SMS programs
• Demonstrated success in scaling and automating lifecycle marketing programs
• Deep understanding of digital marketing channels, including email, mobile, SMS, and website marketing
• Demonstrated proficiency in using marketing automation tools
• MarTech experience required — must have led or been part of a CRM platform implementation (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), Cordial, Braze), including leading projects involving various platform integrations, with a solid understanding of how technology is used and applied across marketing platforms
• Experience leveraging AI to accelerate campaign and program optimization
• Excellent leadership and team management skills, with the ability to motivate and inspire cross-functional teams
• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to convey complex marketing concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Proven ability to work in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment, managing many projects simultaneously
• Strong analytics acumen — able to lead the team on what performance data to collect and how to collect it across owned channels (email, SMS, push), with a working understanding of experimental design using treatment and control groups

Minimum Type of Experience the Job Requires

• 10+ years of marketing experience with at least 5+ years in a CRM or Customer Engagement leadership position

Other

• Deep understanding of data modeling, customer segmentation, and test/learn methodologies.
• Ability to analyze performance data and build frameworks and approaches to optimize against KPIs.
• Experience with vendor management and aptitude with technical CRM systems/processes.

Preferred Knowledge/Skills/Abilities

Preferred Education

• Graduate-level experience is a plus

Preferred Special Certifications or Technical Skills

• CDP, Omnichannel marketing platform knowledge/certification (i.e., Salesforce, Braze, Klaivyo, or similar platform experience)

Preferred Type of Experience the Job Requires

• At least 2+ years in a retail CRM leadership position