Location: San Diego, CA (or remote; hybrid)

Our client company: Sendlane — sendlane.com

Title: Vice President of Marketing (Growth)

About Sendlane:

Hello! We’ll start by introducing ourselves. We’re Sendlane! A SaaS startup in Scripps Ranch that’s disrupting an entire industry by influencing the way people learn about and use email marketing automation. Established in 2015, we’ve grown year over year and that’s been possible because we are constantly looking to out-do ourselves and evolve.

Our team’s dedication to making Sendlane what it is today is humbling which is why we’re looking for that next “special someone” to help take us to the next level. That’s where you come in!

Listen, we get it. Job hunting is 100% THE worst. So, we’re happy to tell you the search is over! You did it! You finally found the company of your dreams. Go ahead and give your boss “the finger”, flip your desk, knock over your cubicle and march your happy self on over to Sendlane HQ!

Just kidding…we have to invite you. Please don’t just show up. Anyway, we’re looking for our Vice President, Marketing.

To start, we are an email and SMS marketing automation tool for those in the eCommerce space. We help our merchants communicate with their customers, nurture their leads and recover abandoned carts. Also…we’re profitable AND in hypergrowth (NO VC treadmill here…)

Okay, how do we put this…delicately…? If your idea of being our Marketing VP involves sitting back, delegating tasks and designing branded pens then we have terrible news for you: this is absolutely not your gig. We’re not looking for a Corporate Marketer.

We’re looking for a lean, mean, lead-generating machine who can strategically and collaboratively orchestrate customer engagement while owning and managing all other facets of our Marketing efforts. Leveraging your strong experience in demand generation specifically, you’ll be managing and mentoring a growing team of 3 while working exceptionally close with the Sendlane CEO whose background is also deeply rooted in various aspects of demand gen and content marketing. Our expectation of you is that you’ll be incredibly hands on in your approach to running this department, taking what exists and making it better with your innovative, forward-thinking (and frankly, experimental) buyer-centric strategy.

We have a lot to cover here but before anything, let’s talk about you…

You are someone that drives outcomes. Motivated by your expertise, you are strong in not only leading and mentoring teams but developing and implementing strategy that encourages growth of our business, expansion of our market share, increase in our sales and elevation of our brand. As a thought-leader who is data-focused and driven by accuracy, you are confident in your ability to understand and interpret us, our customer profile and the data displayed before you. Interpreting that data and recognizing its patterns is one way you’re able to consistently iterate and improve.

Being our resident expert in the marketing field, your creativity is propelled by your “know-how”. You KNOW marketing; Demand generation, content creation and management, digital advertising and branding (just to name a few aspects). But, at the end of the day, it’s all of this know-how that truly gives you the inventive energy to create, optimize and evolve successful marketing efforts while coaching your team and reporting your successes on a weekly and quarterly basis.

“Wow. These guys are a little intense…” says you.

“Yes, thank you for noticing,” says us.

Alright, let’s talk shop.

Complementary to and partnered with our Sales team, the Marketing department at Sendlane is responsible for demand generation and customer engagement which means you are responsible for demand generation and customer engagement. There’s no specific focus on just sales enablement nor are we looking for someone to take the “megaphone” approach to build brand awareness.

With your customer-led growth mindset, you’re establishing initiatives that effectively educate along the buyer journey. You’re coordinating interaction points. You’re monitoring buyer behavior and managing our go-to market strategies. Then, you’re taking all of that and optimizing demand investments against sales outcomes (you’ll be reporting on all of this each week…we’ll talk about that later). Have you picked up on our ever-so subtle hints that you need to have a true understanding of Demand Generation? You need to have a true understanding of Demand Generation.

But, wait! There’s more!

Outside of scaling demand generation and owning company revenue (no big deal at all), you’re curating all other marketing efforts. You’re managing and mentoring a growing team. You’re tracking our competition. You’re conducting marketing research and evolving strategies. You’re optimizing business and team performance through data and analytics. You’re negotiating with and managing our vendors + freelancers. And that’s on a light day!

Now, listen, we know that no one is great at or passionate in ALL of this. But if you don’t have in-depth experience in demand generation, if you don’t love the grind of getting your hands dirty at a fast growing startup and you’re not in love with the idea of coaching a growing team…those are the non-starters…

It’s true. This job makes for a tall order. But, the right person will read this and say “HECK FREAKING YES” so if we haven’t lost you yet, then we’re already impressed.

Not everyone wants to read paragraphs so in case you’re more of a “bullet point” kinda guy/gal, here’s the bulleted skinny on who you need to be and what the job is all about…

You:

• A modern marketer, who has a digital first mindset.
• Have worked at a start-up previously and managed/mentored growing marketing teams
• Scrappy thought-leader with a strong sense of ownership for Sendlane’s success
• Data-driven and analytical with a creative streak and a strong attention to detail (aka data-driven marketing mindset )
• Deep understanding of the customer buying cycle
• Goal-oriented with no fear of lead commits because you WANT to win
• Demonstrate a strategic and customer-led problem-solving mindset with the ability to conceptualize, create, implement, and optimize marketing programs to generate more leads and revenue
• Big picture thinker who is continuously learning about our competitive landscape
• Organized with the ability to manage multiple projects AND people while consistently meeting deadlines/attain lead commits
• Can create compelling marketing materials and campaigns through written word or video.
• Self-starter who understands this role requires strong execution and hands on experience.
• OWN revenue with the VP of Sales and CEO.

Job:

• Report to CEO
• Manage, build and mentor the content and demand/lead gen marketing teams
• Work collaboratively and own revenue with the Vice President, Sales
• Cooperatively work with Sales and Product
• Own and manage all aspects of growth including but not limited to content, advertising, analytics and demand generation which results in sales enablement, revenue generation and brand awareness
• Identify, develop and deploy all market penetration strategies, including defining focus segments, overall approach strategy, budgeting, designing and executing campaigns to generate more leads.
• Consistently meet or exceed lead commit (aka quota)
• Take existing demand generation and iterate to redefine focus, strategy, and execution through marketing campaigns to reach potential customers.
• Execute multi-channel campaigns and programs at scale to drive brand awareness, increase inbound customer generation, and help grow the Sendlane pipeline.
• Report weekly + quarterly on all aspects (progress or set-backs) of marketing initiatives to Sendlane team

Must Haves:

• Scale stage SaaS Startup experience (must be relevant and not a “company inside a company.”)
• Proven background in demand generation with lead commits
• Proven experience in a B2B Saas environment. Especially at the growth and scale stage $5m ARR+
• Strong and proven track record of B2B Lead Generation, direct response/copywriting experience, paid media experience (Social and Search – FB, Google, Linkedin) and COLD email experience
• Management and Leadership experience – managed at least 4+ people at one time or more.

(You are not: https://www.saastr.com/hire-the-right-type-of-vp-marketing-or-youll-end-up-with-a-bunch-of-blue-pens/ <- please read this.)

We strive to ensure that our employees have the best experience possible (while still remembering that you are at your job).

Here are the benefits we offer:

• Health/Dental/Vision – 70% to 100% paid for by us (depends on the plan you pick)
• Parental Leave – New parent? Congrats! We pay you for 6 weeks!
• 401k – We match up to 4% (caveat: you need to be with us for 1+ years before this kicks in)
• Flexible PTO – Take what you need when you need it.
• We pay you to GO AWAY – $1000 bonus for taking time off!
• Equipment for your home office (including a MacBook and giant monitor)
• Monthly remote team building and consistent team engagement (we won’t force you to do Yoga with us but we will challenge you to do your best impression of the Spice Girls for $100 to Amazon)

When the pandemic is in the rearview mirror and we’re all in therapy, working through our new founded agoraphobia, we plan to remain “remote first”. This means that we’ll have our Office Headquarters open and available to anyone who wants to come in but if our team would prefer to remain a full or partially remote employee, we’ll enable them to do that!

Despite this policy of ours, ideally we would like our senior leadership to be local (or plan to be local post-pandemic). However, a fully remote candidate could still work in this role (understanding there would be regular travel to San Diego). Expect that you will be managing a partially, if not fully, remote team, regardless.

Alas, someday we’ll be able to go back to that beautiful 12,000 sq ft space and when we do, you’ll get to reap the benefits of a fully stocked breakroom, beer and wine after 4 o’clock, standing desks, catered lunches, team trips, ping pong and a spinny chair of your very own (with 18 adjustment points!) AND, of course, actually socializing in person with people – do you remember what that’s like? Neither do we.

Anyway, if all this sounds like your cup of tea then APPLY! We look forward to hearing from you!

Contact: Dan Green <dgreen@vpofmarketing.com>