Senior Manager Brand & Marketing Strategy

Alabama Outdoors•Birmingham, AL

About The Position

Alabama Outdoors is looking for a hands-on marketing leader who can build, not just manage. This role owns the marketing function — brand direction, campaign planning, marketing calendar, agency management, merchant-marketing alignment, customer segmentation, and team leadership — across five retail stores and a growing ecommerce channel. The Senior Manager, Brand & Marketing Strategy will step into a leadership role within the marketing team from day one, while being supported through an intentional onboarding and transition period. The first phase of the role will focus on learning the business, building trust with the team, understanding AO’s current marketing rhythm, and partnering closely with leadership. As that foundation is established, this person will help lead brand direction, direct all digital strategy, campaign planning, marketing calendar ownership, agency coordination, photo shoot coordination, customer segmentation, performance accountability, and cross-functional alignment across merchandising, ecommerce, store operations, community, and external partners. The title is Senior Manager, but the scope is intentionally broad. We are looking for someone with the experience, maturity, leadership instincts, and builder’s mindset to help guide the full marketing function while staying close to the work. AO is a business in active transition, and this person is coming in to help build a stronger marketing operating system, not simply inherit a finished machine. This is not a role where creativity alone is enough. Marketing at AO must be clear, measurable, executable, and accountable. This person must be able to think strategically, lead people well, stay close to the details, and make sure the work actually gets done.

Requirements

6+ years of marketing experience, preferably in retail, apparel, footwear, active lifestyle, specialty retail, ecommerce, hospitality, local/regional consumer brands, or premium consumer brands.
Proven leadership experience in marketing, with a track record of leading, developing, and holding teams accountable.
Strong strategic thinking paired with a hands-on, execution-first mindset.
Deep understanding of brand marketing, campaign management, digital performance, and retail customer behavior.
Comfortable with paid media, analytics, email platforms, SMS platforms, web content tools, customer segmentation, and performance reporting.
Exceptional communicator: clear, direct, practical, and effective at every level of the organization.
Highly organized, with the ability to manage multiple campaigns, channels, deadlines, and priorities without losing momentum.
Data-informed without being paralyzed by it — able to turn insights into decisions quickly.
Self-starter who takes ownership, follows through, and sets the bar for those around them.
Collaborative partner who builds strong relationships across departments and brings the team along.
Passion for leading people, developing talent, building team capability, and creating a high-accountability marketing culture.
Genuine belief in the mission, customer, team, and active lifestyle positioning of Alabama Outdoors.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute an integrated marketing strategy that drives brand awareness, store traffic, ecommerce traffic, conversion, AOV, revenue, customer engagement, and loyalty.
Own the marketing calendar across seasonal campaigns, promotional events, product stories, community activations, vendor moments, and brand initiatives.
Help shape the marketing direction for the company in partnership with the President and leadership team.
Set clear campaign goals, track results, and make data-informed decisions that improve marketing effectiveness and return on investment.
Partner with the President, Director of Merchandising, ecommerce, and store teams to align marketing priorities with product push timelines, seasonal plans, inventory opportunities, margin considerations, and revenue goals.
Build marketing plans that balance brand strength, customer relevance, traffic growth, profitable sales, and executional reality.
Identify growth opportunities across digital, store, community, local market, and experiential channels.
Lead the development of campaign briefs that define objectives, customer insights, offers, audience strategy, creative direction, channel plans, required assets, ownership, timing, and success metrics.
Ensure campaigns are ready before launch across stores, ecommerce, email, SMS, paid media, organic social, signage, direct mail when applicable, and internal communication.
Create repeatable processes for campaign planning, approvals, launch readiness, execution, reporting, and post-campaign recap.
Maintain campaign discipline so AO is planning ahead, not reacting in the current week.
Ensure every campaign has clear messaging, clear ownership, clear deadlines, clear channel responsibilities, and clear measurement.
Move campaigns from idea to execution with urgency, organization, and accountability.
Partner with buyers to align marketing priorities with product focus, inventory depth, margin opportunities, vendor requirements, and seasonal demand.
Translate weekly brand and category priorities into customer-facing campaigns that drive product discovery and sales.
Ensure marketing supports what the business needs to sell, not just what looks good creatively.
Partner with ecommerce to ensure landing pages, product collections, promo mechanics, cart messaging, website content, and digital merchandising are ready and accurate.
Partner with Store Operations to ensure stores have the signage, displays, talking points, product direction, and campaign understanding needed to execute well.
Help connect digital marketing, store experience, and product storytelling so the customer sees one clear AO message.
Protect and strengthen the AO brand voice, visual identity, and positioning across all channels and markets.
Ensure every customer touchpoint — digital, in-store, community, print, email, SMS, paid media, organic social, and signage — reflects a consistent, compelling, and authentic AO story.
Champion the brand internally, aligning marketing strategy with the AO Way, mission, values, and active lifestyle positioning.
Help continue AO’s evolution from a traditional outdoor retailer into a broader active lifestyle brand.
Stay ahead of cultural trends, customer behavior, competitor activity, and retail marketing trends to keep AO’s brand sharp and relevant.
Balance promotional urgency with brand integrity so campaigns feel energetic, premium, clear, and commercially effective.
Lead the marketing team’s day-to-day direction, priorities, planning rhythm, and accountability from day one.
Lead, develop, and hold accountable the Digital Marketing Manager and Senior Manager of Marketing Execution.
Set clear expectations, build a culture of ownership and excellence, and create space for the team to grow.
Develop the people on the marketing team by setting clear standards, coaching consistently, and helping them understand both the strategy and the execution.
Build a marketing operation that is organized, repeatable, scalable, and accountable without becoming overly complicated or bureaucratic.
Create a team culture where people move quickly, communicate clearly, and take pride in excellent execution.
Oversee paid media, email, SMS, web, organic social, print, direct mail, signage, physical marketing channels, and local store marketing support.
Review and approve campaigns before launch to ensure alignment with brand standards, business objectives, budget, channel best practices, and execution requirements.
Manage external agency and creative partners with clear briefs, timelines, feedback, approvals, and performance expectations.
Monitor campaign performance and guide the team and external partners in making adjustments that improve results.
Ensure co-op marketing programs are managed with precision and meet vendor requirements.
Hold external partners accountable to business outcomes, not just deliverables.
Lead customer segmentation and lifecycle marketing efforts, building and maintaining audience segments that improve retention, repeat purchase, reactivation, and customer engagement.
Use customer data to inform campaign strategy, email/SMS segmentation, paid media audiences, direct mail when applicable, and customer messaging.
Build and maintain performance reporting that gives leadership clear visibility into marketing effectiveness, including traffic, conversion, revenue attribution, engagement, AOV, customer count, gross profit awareness, and campaign performance by channel.
Identify trends in customer behavior and bring forward recommendations that improve acquisition, retention, reactivation, and lifetime value.
Use reporting to make decisions, not just summarize activity.
Partner with the Community Events Manager and store teams to ensure AO’s presence in local markets is meaningful, authentic, and brand-aligned.
Champion grassroots marketing efforts that deepen community relationships and build long-term loyalty.
Elevate AO’s identity as an active lifestyle brand that is genuinely rooted in the communities it serves.
Help connect community, store experience, and marketing campaigns so local activations support the broader business strategy.