Even companies that are not-plant touching — like FlowerHire — face ongoing challenges like shadow bans, account deletions and blocks from popular social media sites like Google, Instagram and Facebook.
This week on Inside the Org Chart, we‘re talking about the role of the Director of E-Commerce – an increasingly important leadership role in the marketing department of modern cannabis and hemp companies.
What They Do:
A Director of e-Commerce, sometimes alternatively called a Head of Growth, is responsible for owning the entire D2C (direct to consumer) experience and digital product lane. This person will create a digital roadmap for the company, with a deep understanding of business strategy for the different channels within the category.
This Director of e-Commerce is a data driven marketer; analytical and numbers driven, with expertise in all social insight tools like Google Analytics and digital advertising, paid and social, programmatic, display, SEM, SEO, content marketing, and affiliate marketing applications.
They must have experience setting up and managing an e-Commerce store, and third party relationships like Amazon. This person is a whiz at scaling and executing email marketing campaigns, including audience segmentation, targeting and A/B testing. Web design experience is very important, and he/she will need to review design with the UX designer and brand team, support landing pages, branding efforts and create key page templates. This person will work closely with the IT team on managing the CRM ecosystem and API integrations with various tools and apps. They will have experience launching new products, setting up promotion and loyalty programs, and making sure all content is updated on the various sites, landing pages and blogs that support the company’s online presence.
Reporting Structure
The Director of e-Commerce is a key part of the revenue operations and will report to either a Director, VP of Marketing, CMO, or the Chief Revenue Officer, depending on the size of the organization.
In markets where licensed THC companies have delivery as part of their models, this person will work closely with the Director of Home Delivery to partner with companies like Eaze (or the local equivalent) to manage the logistics of order fulfillment and customer service.
Prior Work Experience Requirements
At this point in the industry’s evolution, people at the Director or even Coordinator level MUST have had prior experience managing digital campaigns or selling products online specifically for the CBD/ hemp or legalized cannabis industries.
We’ve found that even the most senior level marketers coming from traditional industries do not understand the state by state regulations and limitations that cannabis companies face daily in their marketing efforts. Even companies that are not-plant touching — like FlowerHire– face ongoing challenges like shadow bans, account deletions and blocks from popular social media sites like Google, Instagram and Facebook.
In order to advertise online and make use of the major search engines, cannabis and hemp operators must utilize cannabis-specific programmatic ad platforms in order to ensure that their online advertisements are compliant – the Director of eComm must be a “best practices” expert in these constantly changing set of rules and regs.