“VP, Direct Marketing”

(Venice, CA)

Company Overview

Dollar Shave Club (DSC) is a fast-growing, privately-held men's lifestyle brand and e-commerce company, on a mission to change the way men address their shaving and grooming needs.From theirhassle-free razor subscription, to their Shave Butter chemistry, to tomorrow’s cutting edge user experience—Dollar Shave Club is dedicated to inventing smart products to make guys’ lives better and easier. They have an exploding member base to show for it and are backed by top tier VC funds (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Andreessen Horowitz, Venrock, and the Pritzker Group, to name a few). Employees work in an open-air historical building in sunny Venice, CA—minutes from the beach. Their culture is original, creative, and pretty cool. For more information on the company, visit their web site at dollarshaveclub.com.

Position Overview

The “VP, Direct Marketing” will oversee all acquisition, loyalty, and cross-sell/up-sell efforts for Dollar Shave Club, which effectively makes this senior-level position the principal driver of growth for the company, both in terms of customer count, and revenue.To-date, DSC has done an excellent job driving customer acquisition, and the rate of acquisition continues to accelerate.The new VP will need to work closely with the Sr.Director, Acquisition, to help identify ways to accelerate acquisition growth even further.Asthe installed base of customers grows, it will be critical to expand LTV by Marketing andselling a broader basket of personal care and grooming products, to already-loyalcustomers.

Scope of Responsibilities

  • Engagement Strategy – With input from colleagues (e.g., Brand Marketing, Research/Insights), and with activation support from both Acquisition and CRM teams below, lead definition of the optimal contact strategy to help determine “who gets what, when and how” in order to maximize customer LTV. Continually help define customer segmentation (demographics, psychographics, buying behavior and motivations, etc.) and optimize for each critical customer segment product/solution, and channel (Email, Direct Mail, In-Box, Mobile App, Web Site). In short, design the optimal contact strategy based on Research, Insights & Marketing Analytics.
  • Strategic Targeting – The new VP, Direct Marketing will be responsible for helping identify the highest potential customers who offer the greatest lifetime value (LTV) and appropriately allocate Marketing resources (both online and offline resources) in order to capitalize on these segments and prospects. This individual will help improve and oversee various analytics and customer dashboards to provide insight into current and future customer behaviors and buying decisions.The key to driving long-term, profitable (LTV) retention, is to acquire the “right” customers in the first place.

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Dollar Shave Club -- “VP, Direct Marketing”Page 1 of 5

Scope of Responsibilities continued

  • Customer Acquisition – As a top priority for the company, and critical to maintaining the long-term health of the business and its portfolio of Brands, drive profitable Customer Acquisition to ensure DSC meets its “net add” customer goals, across all brands, sub-brands and products. The VP, Direct Marketing will work to optimize testing capabilities (A/B) and protocols, across the multi-channel Marketing mix (TV, Radio, Print, Direct Mail, Social Media, Referral Programs, Display, SEO/SEM, EmailMarketing, Retargeting, Outdoor, and Mobile Media). They will develop and monitor performance of all Marketing activities against business goals and metrics, defining which channels and tactical programs drive the optimal CPA.
  • Retention & Loyalty – Continue to develop, test, learn, implement and measure, the optimal contact and segmentation strategy to determine “the right message to the right customer through the right channel at the right time” in order to increase loyalty, maximize retention, and enhance LTV. Deliver these goals by utilizing relevant, targeted communications, life-cycle management and other CRM tactics.
  • Cross-Sell & Up-Sell – Work closely with the CRM team to develop a targeted effort to encourage customers to upgrade or enhance their current membership (e.g., upgrading to a high-margin razor, increasing purchasing frequency, buying extra cartridges), and develop programs to encourage customers to buy other (non-razor) products (e.g., post-shave cream, personal wipes, etc.). As the company grows, and extends into other product segments, this effort will be critical to enhancing customer LTV, as well as overall company profitability and valuation.
  • Referrals & Endorsements – Working collaboratively with the Sr. Director, Acquisition, and the Director, CRM, help drive new customer growth by leveraging the power of the installed, loyal, and vocal DSC customer base, as a source of highly qualified and potent endorsements for the brand and its unique subscription-based service.
  • Financial Delivery – Play a key role in the definition and delivery of agreed-to financial goals, including Revenue, Margin, Market Share, EBITDA, CPA, LTV and MROI. Effectively manage and “own” the DSC Direct Marketing budget and related P&L.
  • Brand Stewardship – While not directly responsible for managing the Dollar Shave Club brand, this individual will be a senior Marketing leader for the company, and as such, should collaborate and interact with all the Marketing leaders, internal creative personnel, as well as with external agency partners, to ensure all DSC acquisition and loyalty programs differentiate and enhance the DSC corebrand—while reflecting its strategic position and essence—across all customer touch-points, and all relevant channels.
  • Analytics & Insights – This VP, Direct Marketing will play a leadership role in evolving and enhancing the company’s Analytics ecosystem.This blueprinting will include identifying and defining critical information needs across the Marketing operation, and developing a suite of platforms, tools and data sources which will provide the information required to inform better decision-making.This work will include close collaboration with Business Intelligence, Engineering and Digital Product teams to: 1) capture, analyze, and make actionable, comprehensive consumer & marketplace data; 2) build predictive analytics capabilities; 3) enable personalization across the consumer contact experience (Marketing channels, website, etc.) algorithmically and with automation; and 4) feed other Marketing functions & departments (i.e., NPD, Brand Marketing, Digital Product, Member Services) with rich consumer insights based on data infrastructure.

Scope of Responsibilities continued

  • Organizational Development – Review and enhance, where necessary, all acquisition, loyalty and CRM processes, measurements, information systems, etc., that are needed to enable the DSC Marketing team to operate efficiently and effectively in pursuit of its CPA and LTV objectives. The new VP, Direct Marketing will be responsible for hiring, developing and promoting talent, as needed.
  • Agency/Supplier – Seek, develop and manage external relationships, seeking “Best Practices,” as well as a value-added approach whereby external resources are viewed as “partners” vs. merely “vendors” or “suppliers.”

Performance & Success Measures

  • Financial – Revenue, EBITDA and Profit
  • Customer – Customer Count (#), CPA ($) and LTV ($)
  • Brand - Brand Health Measures, Customer Sat (NPS), Social Engagement
  • Increase Marketing Effectiveness (ROI)
  • Feedback from key internal and external work partners

Reporting Relationships

The new “VP, Direct Marketing” will report to Mr. Adam Weber, SVP, Marketing. Adam joined Dollar Shave Club in 2012, after leaving Procter & Gamble Co.'s high-end The Art of Shaving retail brand to become Marketing Director of Gilt Groupe, a discount E-tailer of high-end designer goods. As Senior Brand Manager at P&G, Mr. Weber worked on The Art of Shaving from the outset of P&G's acquisition of the brand in 2009. Before that he was Brand Manager on Gillette Male Personal Care, where he oversaw Marketing of deodorants and the launch of Gillette body wash. Prior to that, he was Assistant Brand Manager on P&G's now-discontinued Axe-fighter, Tag, where he led a brand re-design and launch of Tag Records, a branded-entertainment program in partnership with Island Def Jam. Adam earned his BS in Marketing from the University of Dayton. He may look young, but Adam shaves once/day.

Staff & Resources

Acquisition Team

  • Sr. Director, Acquisition
  • Sr. Manager, Media Strategy & Planning
  • Marketing Manager, SEM, Online
  • Marketing Manager, Facebook
  • Associate Marketing Manager, Analytics

CRM/Loyalty Team

  • Director, CRM (TBH)
  • Sr. Mktg. Manager, Loyalty & Retention
  • Sr. Mktg. Manager, Owned Channels (TBH)
  • Mktg. Manager, Analytics (TBH)

Key Internal Operating Relationships

  • SVP, Marketing
  • Director, Brand Marketing
  • Director, Marketing Ops

Compensation & Benefits

  • Competitive base salary
  • Annual performance bonus
  • Stock options
  • 401K
  • PTO/Vacation, Health/Dental Care
  • Relocation assistance (as needed)

Candidate Profile

Experience Base

  • Direct Marketing – Candidates must be highly analytical and have current experience leading a multi-channel Acquisition/Retention-based Marketing operation in a Direct Marketing-driven sector.
  • E-commerce & Digital – Candidates should ideally have recent experience managing Customer Acquisition and/or CRM/Loyalty for an online business (actually selling products or services) or an online retail channel (for a business selling in other channels, too). Must be familiar with a variety of Interactive/Digital Marketing tools, including Email, Retargeting, Display, Affiliate/Partnership, SEO/SEM, Social Media, and Mobile.
  • Recurrent Model – Experience in member-based or subscriber-based business models that are highly commoditized and recurring (Wireless, Cable/Sat-TV, Insurance, Consumer Credit, Media/Publishing/Content, Home Services, etc.), would be highly-valued and highly relevant to DSC.
  • Entrepreneurial Experience – Ideally, secondary experience in a smaller, more entrepreneurial, brand-driven, consumer-facing company. Of particular interest, experience in lean businesses within industries with multiple communication and distribution channels. Key here is learning how to be resourceful, adaptive, and moving to market with urgency.
  • Vendor/Agency/Functional Management – Serve as the key liaison between DSC and its roster of external Direct Marketing supplier and Agency partners, and lead the Scope of Work (SOW), compensation, negotiation, and process optimization processes, Demonstrated success building organizational capabilities through process design, organizational development, recruiting and training.

Skill Set

  • World-class Direct Marketing skills and execution abilities (technically proficient)
  • Innovative and creative thinking balanced with pragmatism (fresh, big-picture thinking)
  • Organizational leadership and team development (leads through influence)
  • Intellectual horsepower (highly analytical & strategic)
  • Drives for results in prioritized manner (balanced sense of urgency)
  • Listening skills, minimal ego (listen first, then respond)
  • Complex problem-solving, with hands-on ability (create options, then converge)
  • Organized and attention-to-detail approach (strong tactical execution)
  • Highly resourceful (stretches people and money; compresses time)
  • Collaborative (works with peers across many functionalities within the company)
  • Financially minded (complete P&L responsibility)

Personality Profile

  • Strong leadership skills
  • High degree of emotional intelligence
  • Self-directed/motivated
  • Flexible and adaptable
  • Results orientation with keen commercial mentality
  • Enthusiastic with pride and passion for winning
  • Blue-collar work ethic
  • Frugal – treats company resources as his/her own
  • High integrity and trustworthy
  • Flexible intellect and highly flexible work style
  • Comfort working in a fast-paced, highly dynamic work environment

Search Contact

David Wiser

Principal Partner – Cincinnati, OH Office

513.919.4000 (M)

File: Position Specification/DollarShave/DSC VP, Direct Mktg. Spec (01 20 15-F)

© 2015 Wiser Partners, LLC