Associate Marketing Manager, Direct Marketing

The Associate Manager, Direct Marketing serves as the strategic planning and governance lead within Direct Marketing. This role is responsible for developing enterprise communication strategies, campaign planning frameworks, customer journey orchestration, governance standards, and cross-channel communication plans that support enterprise business objectives while delivering consistent, customer-centric experiences across all direct marketing channels.

This position translates business priorities into integrated customer communication strategies and serves as the primary liaison between Direct Marketing and key business partners including Merchandising, Loyalty, Creative, Analytics, Digital, Marketing Technology, and IT. The Associate Manager is responsible for establishing strategic planning processes and governance frameworks that enable scalable, customer-led marketing and ensure all customer communications are aligned, coordinated, and measurable.

1. Marketing Strategy
• Develop enterprise direct marketing strategies supporting promotional, lifecycle, and customer engagement initiatives.
• Translate business objectives into integrated communication plans across email, SMS, push notifications, direct mail, and future engagement channels.
• Develop strategic recommendations that drive customer engagement, retention, and incremental sales.
• Create and maintain communication frameworks that support customer-led marketing.
• Recommend channel strategies and communication sequencing.
• Support annual and quarterly planning processes.
2. Campaign Planning & Orchestration
• Own the enterprise direct marketing calendar and communication planning process.
• Develop campaign briefs and strategic recommendations for all major initiatives.
• Lead customer journey planning and communication orchestration efforts.
• Partner with business stakeholders to prioritize marketing initiatives and communication requests.
• Develop modular communication strategies and reusable customer experience frameworks.
• Coordinate cross-channel communication strategies to ensure a consistent customer experience.
• Support always-on, lifecycle, and trigger-based marketing initiatives.
3. Governance & Operating Standards
• Establish and maintain enterprise communication governance standards.
• Develop and document campaign planning processes and best practices.
• Define standards for campaign prioritization, channel usage, and communication sequencing.
• Partner with Customer Intelligence & Personalization to support enterprise contact governance.
• Develop governance frameworks supporting testing, experimentation, and optimization.
• Ensure customer communications align with established standards and operating principles.
• Maintain campaign planning documentation and strategic standards.
4. Cross-Functional Leadership
• Serve as the primary strategic partner for Merchandising, Loyalty, Creative, and Analytics.
• Facilitate communication and alignment across cross-functional teams.
• Coordinate planning meetings and campaign intake discussions.
• Drive alignment on priorities, timelines, and strategic objectives.
• Provide thought leadership regarding customer communications and engagement strategies.
• Influence business partners toward customer-centric communication practices.
5. Performance & Optimization
• Review campaign performance and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Partner with Analytics to evaluate tests, experiments, and campaign results.
• Recommend strategic enhancements based on customer insights and performance trends.
• Identify opportunities to improve customer experiences and communication effectiveness.
• Evaluate channel performance and recommend optimization strategies.
• Support development of enterprise KPI frameworks and measurement approaches.
6. Innovation & Continuous Improvement
• Evaluate emerging marketing trends, technologies, and best practices.
• Recommend new communication strategies and capabilities.
• Support implementation of AI-enabled marketing capabilities.
• Identify opportunities to improve planning efficiency and campaign effectiveness.
• Champion continuous improvement across communication planning and governance processes.
• Support organizational readiness for new marketing technologies and capabilities.

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, related field, or equivalent years of experience.
• 5+ years of CRM, direct marketing, lifecycle marketing, or integrated marketing experience.
• Experience developing marketing strategies and communication plans.
• Experience leading cross-functional projects and initiatives.
• Strong project management and organizational skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to influence without direct authority.
• Strong analytical and strategic thinking capabilities.