Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Growth Marketing Director
💰 $150,000 - $220,000
MarketingLeadershipGrowth HackingDigital MarketingSEOPerformance Marketing
🎯 Role Definition
The Growth Marketing Director is a pivotal leadership role, acting as the engine for sustainable business growth. You are both a strategist and a player-coach, responsible for architecting and executing a comprehensive plan to attract, convert, and retain customers. This role requires a deep understanding of the entire customer lifecycle, a relentless focus on data and experimentation, and the ability to lead a high-performing team. You'll work at the intersection of marketing, product, and data to unlock new growth levers and build a predictable revenue machine.
📈 Career Progression
Typical Career Path
Entry Point From:
- Senior Growth Marketing Manager
- Head of Performance Marketing
- Senior Digital Marketing Strategist
Advancement To:
- VP of Marketing
- VP of Growth
- Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
Lateral Moves:
- Director of Product Marketing
- Director of Brand Strategy
Core Responsibilities
Primary Functions
- Develop, own, and execute the company's overarching growth marketing strategy, aligning with executive leadership on goals for user acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue.
- Lead, mentor, and scale a multi-disciplinary team of marketers (including performance, SEO, content, and lifecycle), fostering a culture of high performance, accountability, and rapid experimentation.
- Own and manage the entire marketing budget, including allocation, forecasting, and performance analysis, to ensure maximum ROI and efficient CAC across all channels.
- Architect and oversee the full marketing funnel, implementing strategies to optimize conversion rates at every stage from awareness to advocacy.
- Drive the strategy and execution of all paid acquisition channels, including SEM, paid social (LinkedIn, Meta, etc.), display advertising, and retargeting campaigns.
- Spearhead the organic growth strategy, overseeing SEO, content marketing, and link-building initiatives to increase domain authority and drive qualified organic traffic.
- Develop and manage a sophisticated lifecycle marketing program using email, in-app messaging, and other channels to improve user onboarding, engagement, and retention.
- Establish and lead a rigorous A/B testing and experimentation framework across all channels and user touchpoints to identify and scale growth opportunities.
- Define, monitor, and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) to the executive team, providing clear insights into performance, trends, and strategic recommendations.
- Collaborate closely with Product and Engineering teams to identify growth opportunities within the product, such as viral loops, referral programs, and onboarding optimizations.
- Partner with the Sales team to ensure a seamless lead handoff process, improve lead quality, and build a cohesive strategy for MQL-to-SQL conversion.
- Champion the use of data by creating and maintaining dashboards and attribution models (e.g., multi-touch attribution) to understand the impact of all marketing activities.
- Identify, test, and scale new, unconventional marketing channels and tactics to create a competitive advantage and diversify our acquisition portfolio.
- Own the marketing technology (MarTech) stack, ensuring we have the right tools for automation, analytics, and execution, and managing vendor relationships.
- Conduct in-depth market research and competitive analysis to stay ahead of industry trends and identify new opportunities for growth.
- Refine and communicate our customer personas and ideal customer profile (ICP) to ensure all marketing efforts are highly targeted and relevant.
- Oversee the creation of compelling and high-performing ad copy, landing pages, and creative assets tailored to different channels and audience segments.
- Build and optimize lead scoring models in collaboration with sales operations to prioritize the best leads for the sales team.
- Act as a key stakeholder in website strategy, working with web developers and designers to improve user experience, conversion paths, and on-site SEO.
- Foster strong cross-functional relationships with Finance, Operations, and Customer Success to ensure marketing initiatives are aligned with broader business objectives and customer needs.
Secondary Functions
- Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to uncover new growth levers.
- Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap by providing a marketing perspective.
- Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements for better marketing intelligence.
- Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team when marketing data projects are prioritized.
- Manage relationships and contract negotiations with external agencies, vendors, and technology partners.
- Partner with the finance team on LTV/CAC modeling, budget forecasting, and long-range planning.
Required Skills & Competencies
Hard Skills (Technical)
- SEO/SEM Mastery: Expert-level proficiency in search engine optimization and marketing strategies, with hands-on experience using platforms like Google Ads, Search Console, and tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
- Marketing Automation: Deep experience with platforms like HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot to build sophisticated lead nurturing, scoring, and customer lifecycle campaigns.
- Web & Product Analytics: Advanced skills in Google Analytics (GA4), Mixpanel, or Amplitude to track user behavior, define events, build funnels, and analyze cohorts.
- A/B Testing & Experimentation: Proven ability to design and implement rigorous A/B and multivariate tests using tools like Optimizely, VWO, or Google Optimize.
- Data Analysis & Visualization: Proficiency in using data to drive decisions, including strong Excel/Google Sheets skills and experience with data visualization tools like Tableau, Looker, or Power BI.
- Paid Social & Display: Hands-on experience managing significant budgets and optimizing campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn Ads, Meta Ads, and the Google Display Network.
- CRM Systems: Strong working knowledge of CRM platforms, particularly Salesforce, and the integration between CRM and marketing automation systems.
- SQL for Marketing: Foundational to intermediate SQL skills to query databases for deeper analysis and segmentation is a significant plus.
- Content Management Systems (CMS): Familiarity with CMS platforms like WordPress, Contentful, or Webflow for managing website content and landing pages.
- Attribution Modeling: Solid understanding of different marketing attribution models (first-touch, last-touch, multi-touch) and the ability to implement or analyze them.
Soft Skills
- Strategic & Analytical Thinking: A highly analytical and data-driven mindset, with the ability to translate complex data into actionable insights and strategic decisions.
- Leadership & Mentorship: Exceptional leadership skills with a proven ability to mentor, develop, and inspire a high-performing and collaborative marketing team.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: The ability to build strong relationships and work effectively with other departments, particularly Sales, Product, and Engineering.
- Communication & Storytelling: Outstanding verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to present complex ideas and performance data clearly to executive audiences.
- Results-Oriented: A relentless focus on achieving measurable results and a track record of meeting or exceeding growth targets.
- Adaptability & Agility: Thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and can pivot strategies quickly in response to data and market changes.
- Creativity & Innovation: A creative thinker who is always looking for new and innovative ways to grow the business.
- Project Management: Excellent organizational and project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple complex projects simultaneously.
Education & Experience
Educational Background
Minimum Education:
- Bachelor's Degree
Preferred Education:
- Master's Degree or MBA
Relevant Fields of Study:
- Marketing
- Business Administration
- Economics
- Statistics
Experience Requirements
Typical Experience Range:
- 8-12+ years of progressive experience in marketing.
Preferred:
- Demonstrated experience in a senior growth marketing role, preferably within a B2B/B2C SaaS, tech, or high-growth startup environment. A proven track record of successfully scaling user acquisition and revenue. At least 4-5 years of direct people management experience is highly preferred.