Description
Grunt Style is seeking a Director of CRM and Lifecycle Marketing to drive customer retention and own how we communicate with our customers across every direct channel, including email, SMS, push notifications, loyalty, and subscription programs. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for building a cohesive, revenue-driving customer retention strategy that ties product launches, brand storytelling, and growth initiatives into a unified customer experience. The Director serves as the central orchestrator of how the Grunt Style brand shows up to the customer, owning the full communication calendar, defining engagement strategy across channels, and driving repeat revenue and lifetime value. This role manages a team and operates with significant independence and authority across marketing functions. Success requires equal parts strategic vision and disciplined execution.
Essential Functions
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
- Customer Communication Strategy: Ability to build and govern a multi-channel communication framework that balances revenue generation, brand consistency, and customer experience across email, SMS, and push.
- Lifecycle Marketing Ownership: Demonstrated expertise designing and scaling end-to-end lifecycle programs that move customers through acquisition, onboarding, retention, and win-back stages.
- CRM Channel Performance: Proficiency analyzing campaign performance, customer cohorts, segmentation effectiveness, and send frequency to continuously improve results.
- Loyalty and Subscription Management: Experience managing loyalty and subscription programs, including driving program acquisition and minimizing churn.
- Cross-Functional Orchestration: Skill in leading weekly planning across marketing, merchandising, brand, and growth teams to align all customer-facing initiatives into a single, prioritized plan.
- Creative Direction for CRM Channels: Ability to translate business priorities into clear creative briefs for email, SMS, and push that drive both brand consistency and revenue performance.
- People Leadership: Proven track record managing and developing CRM team members, setting expectations, and building scalable processes for campaign planning, execution, and calendar management.
- Analytical Acumen: Comfortable working with revenue data, cohort analysis, LTV modeling, and segmentation reporting to inform calendar decisions and lifecycle improvements.
Job Duties
- Own the customer communication calendar: Build and manage a 30/60/90-day communication calendar across email, SMS, and push; translate product launches, campaigns, and business priorities into structured, sequenced communication plans that define who receives what, when, how often, and how messaging ladders across channels.
- Lead email, SMS, and push strategy: Own the strategy and performance of all direct channels; define campaign cadence, segmentation strategy, testing roadmap, and channel mix; continuously optimize revenue per send, conversion rates, engagement, and list health.
- Build and scale lifecycle marketing: Own end-to-end lifecycle strategy across the full customer journey; audit and evolve all lifecycle touchpoints including welcome, post-purchase, win-back, reactivation, and VIP journeys; prioritize initiatives based on revenue impact and customer behavior.
- Manage loyalty program: Manage the loyalty program as a core component of the broader customer retention strategy; drive improvements in engagement, redemption, repeat purchase, and customer tiering; ensure loyalty is fully embedded in the communication calendar and customer journey.
- Oversee subscription program: Develop and optimize subscription program, including onboarding, retention, churn reduction, and upsell; integrate subscription programs into the broader CRM infrastructure.
- Lead integrated marketing coordination: Own weekly cross-functional planning across marketing, merchandising, brand, and growth teams; act as the central owner of how all initiatives show up to the customer; align stakeholders around a single, unified plan.
- Own creative briefing for CRM channels: Translate business priorities into prioritized creative briefs for email, SMS, and push; define messaging direction, sequencing, and channel execution; partner with brand and creative teams to ensure output delivers on both brand and revenue goals.
- Drive performance and insights: Own CRM channel revenue and forecasting; analyze campaign performance, customer cohorts, segmentation effectiveness, and send frequency impact; use findings to inform calendar decisions, lifecycle improvements, and messaging strategy. Own customer retention analytics, including LTV, retention rates, etc.
- Build and lead CRM operations: Manage and develop team members including email and SMS specialists and loyalty program staff; build scalable processes for campaign planning, calendar management, creative intake, and execution workflows.
- Manage the MarTech stack for CRM channels: Partner with Analytics and IT to evaluate and optimize CRM and marketing automation platforms; ensure the tech stack supports personalization, segmentation, and multi-channel execution at scale.
- Other duties as assigned.
Competencies
- Strategic thinker who can translate business priorities into customer communication plans with clear sequencing and measurable outcomes
- Highly analytical; comfortable with revenue data, cohort analysis, LTV modeling, and segmentation reporting
- Strong cross-functional leader who builds alignment across merchandising, brand, growth, and creative teams
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to brief creative teams clearly and present performance to senior leadership
- High ownership mentality with the ability to operate independently and make decisions in a fast-paced environment
- Skilled people manager who develops talent and holds teams accountable to results
- Detail-oriented and operationally disciplined in managing complex, high-volume communication calendars
Required Education and Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field.
- 7 to 10 or more years of experience in CRM, lifecycle marketing, or retention marketing, with DTC or e-commerce experience strongly preferred.
- Proven experience owning email and SMS programs at scale, including strategy, segmentation, testing, and performance optimization.
- Demonstrated ability to build and manage a multi-channel communication calendar across a complex product and campaign environment.
- Experience managing or integrating loyalty and subscription programs as part of a broader CRM strategy.
- Strong analytical background; comfortable building and interpreting cohort analyses, LTV models, and campaign performance reports.
- Experience managing and developing a team, including setting direction, coaching, and holding team members accountable to goals.
- Platform experience with Klaviyo, Shopify, and mobile engagement tools preferred.
- Experience leading cross-functional planning processes across merchandising, brand, and growth teams.
- Alignment with the Grunt Style brand and the Veteran community is a plus.
Supervisory Responsibility
This role manages direct reports within the CRM and Lifecycle Marketing function, including email and SMS specialists and loyalty program staff. The Director holds full authority for personnel actions, is responsible for team performance and development, and ensures departmental goals and budgets are met.
Work Environment
This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, and printer/copiers.
Physical Demands
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the functions.
- Extended periods of computer work and phone communication.
- Must be able to move about the office and attend meetings.
- Regularly required to communicate verbally and understand conversation.
- May occasionally lift and/or move up to 20 pounds.
- Specific vision abilities required include close vision, distance vision, and the ability to adjust focus.
- The noise level in the work environment is typically low.
Position Type/Expected Hours of Work
This is a full-time, exempt position. Core hours are Monday through Friday. Extended hours may be required based on business needs, including occasional evenings or weekends.
Travel
Occasional travel may be required for vendor meetings, industry events, or cross-location business needs.
EEO Statement
Grunt Style provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Grunt Style complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
