JOB SUMMARY
The Director of Marketing reports to the Vice President of Ecommerce and owns the brand, creative, content, SEO/SEM, and campaign engine for the Smartliner enterprise. This is a senior leadership role responsible for building a cohesive, compelling brand presence and the integrated demand-generation programs that drive growth across every digital and retail channel.
The Director of Marketing operates as a peer to the Director of Ecommerce and the Director of Sales & Retail Accounts. Where the Director of Ecommerce owns channel performance and the Director of Sales owns retail accounts, the Director of Marketing owns the brand, organic discovery, and campaign execution that fuel both. The ideal candidate is a brand-minded marketing leader who can set creative and SEO direction, run integrated campaigns end-to-end, and manage an internal team, freelancers, and the external agency to a consistently high standard.
BRAND & CREATIVE DIRECTION
• Brand Stewardship: Own and protect the Smartliner brand. Define and enforce brand guidelines, voice, and visual identity across every customer touchpoint — digital, retail, packaging, and B2B.
• Creative Direction: Set the creative direction for all marketing output. Develop briefs, guide concepting, and ensure every asset — photography, video, infographics, lifestyle, and enhanced content — is on-brand and built to convert.
• Brand Revitalization: Lead the brand revitalization initiative — emotional storytelling, persona-driven campaigns (e.g., Clean Parent, Outdoor Enthusiast), and the “Smartliner Hero” program — to deepen brand affinity and recover organic engagement.
• Visual Consistency: Build and maintain a scalable visual system that holds up across marketplaces, the DTC site, retail partner content, trade assets, and B2B materials.
INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT
• Campaign Planning: Own integrated campaign planning across email, social, content, and creative — aligned to the promotional calendar, seasonal moments, and product launches coordinated with the Director of Ecommerce and Director of Sales.
• Content & Social: Own the organic content and social strategy — editorial calendar, content engine output, and channel presence — to build audience, authority, and discoverability.
• Email & Lifecycle Creative: Own the creative and messaging for email and lifecycle programs (e.g., Klaviyo). Partner with the Director of Ecommerce on segmentation and automation strategy while owning the on-brand execution.
• Go-to-Market Support: Build end-to-end go-to-market creative and campaign plans for new product launches and promotions. Partner with merchandising, sales, and ecommerce to land launches with a consistent, compelling story across channels.
• Paid Creative Partnership: Develop the creative and messaging that powers paid media. The Director of Ecommerce owns marketplace ad budget and ROAS; the Director of Marketing ensures the creative feeding those campaigns is on-brand, tested, and high-performing.
SEO, SEM & ORGANIC DISCOVERY
• SEO Strategy: Own the technical, on-page, and off-page SEO strategy for the Smartliner domain. Drive the organic-traffic recovery and ranking initiatives that reduce paid dependency.
• SEM Oversight: Own the SEM strategy and, in partnership with the agency, the search campaigns that drive qualified demand. Set keyword priorities and hold spend accountable to performance.
• AEO & Emerging Search: Build Smartliner’s visibility strategy for AI-powered search and answer engines — structured data, entity optimization, and content built to be cited by generative answers.
• Content Engine: Operate the SEO content engine — owning the volume, quality, topical authority, and conversion performance of organic content across blog, category, and product surfaces.
TEAM & AGENCY LEADERSHIP
• Team Leadership: Lead a multi-disciplinary team spanning creative, content, social, and email — including full-time staff and freelancers. Provide mentorship, clear expectations, and constructive performance feedback.
• Agency Management: Own the strategic relationship with the external marketing agency. Set scope and priorities, manage workstreams, hold the agency accountable to deliverables and timelines, and ensure their output meets Smartliner’s brand standard.
• Freelance & Creative Network: Build and manage a reliable network of freelance designers, content creators, and specialists. Scale creative capacity up or down to meet campaign demand without sacrificing quality.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Partner closely with the Director of Ecommerce, Director of Sales & Retail Accounts, and merchandising to ensure brand, SEO, and campaign work supports commercial priorities and lands consistently across digital and retail.
PROJECT & WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
• Project Management: Own marketing project management and prioritization (Asana or equivalent). Ensure on-time delivery of campaigns, content, launches, and creative across competing deadlines.
• Workflow & Process: Establish and maintain the creative workflow — intake, briefing, review, approval, and trafficking — that keeps output consistent, fast, and on-brand as volume scales.
• Prioritization: Manage overlapping deadlines across platform teams, brand campaigns, and agency workstreams. Make clear prioritization calls and communicate them proactively.
PERFORMANCE & REPORTING
• Marketing KPIs: Define and track the metrics that prove marketing’s contribution — organic traffic and rankings, engagement, content performance, email metrics, brand health, and campaign outcomes. Report on a regular cadence to the VP of Ecommerce.
• Creative Testing: Build a test-and-learn culture for creative and messaging. Use performance data to continuously sharpen what the team produces.
• Continuous Improvement: Use results and insights to refine brand, content, and campaign strategy over time. Bring forward-looking recommendations, not just recaps.
REQUIREMENTS & QUALIFICATIONS
• 8+ years of experience in marketing, brand, or creative leadership, with at least 3 years in a director-level or senior role managing a team and external agencies.
• Experience in the automotive aftermarket is a plus.
• Proven track record building brand identity and running integrated campaigns across email, social, content, and creative — ideally for a product brand selling through digital and retail channels.
• Strong command of SEO, SEM, and organic content strategy — hands-on understanding of ranking factors, technical SEO fundamentals, and content-engine operations.
• Strong creative judgment with the ability to set direction, write briefs, and hold internal and agency partners to a high bar.
• Experience managing an external marketing agency relationship — scope, priorities, accountability, and output quality.
• Hands-on experience with project management tools (Asana or similar) and the discipline to run multiple concurrent workstreams to deadline.
• Strong collaborator who can partner with ecommerce, merchandising, and sales leaders to align brand and SEO work with commercial goals. Comfortable with marketing data and a test-and-learn approach.
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or a related field preferred; equivalent experience considered.
• Based onsite at the Apopka, FL headquarters. Travel up to 10% for shoots, trade shows, and business needs.
PHYSICAL DEMANDS & WORK ENVIRONMENT
This position is based onsite at the Apopka, FL headquarters. Physical requirements include:
• Ability to sit or stand at a desk and work on a computer for extended periods throughout an 8–10 hour workday.
• Occasional evenings or weekends may be required based on campaign timelines, launch deadlines, or business needs.
• Ability to lift items weighing up to 50 lbs. unassisted, along with bending, kneeling, and reaching as part of on-site or shoot-related tasks.
• Travel up to 10% for photo/video shoots, trade shows, and other business needs.