Sr. Manager, Email & SMS (Hybrid)

The Sr. Manager, Owned Acquisition & Channel Activation will lead customer acquisition, contactability, list health and batch communication strategy across Email, SMS and Push. This role will be responsible for growing Belk’s addressable customer base across stores and eCommerce while ensuring high-quality, effective execution of high-volume owned communications.
This leader will bring strong retail and business acumen, cross-platform expertise and operational leadership. They will anticipate business needs, continuously improve performance, and build an operating model that can flex with the pace and volume of retail. The Sr. Manager will partner deeply with cross functional partners in Creative, Ecommerce, Marketing, Technology, and Customer Analytics to ensure the strategy is executed with a personalized Belk customer lifecycle experience.
Job Functions:
Acquisition, Contactability & List Health
• Own acquisition and list growth strategy across Email, SMS and Push, establishing goals and identifying opportunities across all customer contactability touchpoints.
• Lead preference center strategy and projects, creating a more connected approach to customer preferences, consent and cross-channel contactability.
• Build strong partnerships with Store Operations and eCommerce to champion acquisition across the enterprise, developing programs and experiences that increase identification and opt-in.
Batch Communications & Channel Performance
• Lead strategy, planning and execution of batch Email, SMS and Push, ensuring communications support business priorities while continuously optimizing content, cadence, channel mix and customer engagement.
• Develop a deep understanding of Belk’s promotional events and prior-year performance to anticipate upcoming needs, comp events, and proactively identify opportunities and risks.
• Partner closely with Merchandising, Creative and Marketing Planning to translate business priorities into effective customer communications and continually improve channel performance.
Operating Model & Executional Excellence
• Develop and establish an operating model that enables the team to flex capacity and priorities as business needs and volume increase.
• Establish rigorous QA, governance and execution standards across Email, SMS and Push to ensure accuracy of audience, offer, content, links, timing and customer experience.
• Continuously improve workflows, processes and ways of working to increase speed and capacity.
Leadership
• Bring strong cross-platform expertise across Email, SMS and Push, understanding the role of each channel and opportunities to optimize how they work together.
• Partner with internal and external partners to identifying capability needs, platform improvements and opportunities to create efficiency, acquisition and channel performance.
• Lead and develop a high-performing team capable of balancing planned work with changing business priorities in a fast-paced retail environment.
• Build strong partnerships across Creative, eCommerce, Marketing, Technology, and Customer Analytics to drive acquisition and executional excellence.
• Proactively identify upcoming business needs, capacity constraints, performance opportunities and dependencies before they impact execution.
Education & Experience:
7+ years of experience in CRM, lifecycle marketing, owned media, digital marketing or related roles with strong experience across Email, SMS and Push.
4+ years of experience of leadership
Demonstrated experience driving subscriber acquisition, list growth, preference management and channel health across multiple customer touchpoints.
Strong retail and business acumen with experience operating against promotional calendars, sales goals and high-volume retail rhythms.
Experience leading CRM, marketing automation or customer engagement platforms and partnering with Technology on platform capabilities and roadmaps.
Exceptional operational leadership, project management and QA discipline, with experience managing significant campaign volume and changing priorities.
Strong cross-functional leadership with demonstrated ability to partner across eCommerce, Merchandising, Creative and Technology.
Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:
Strong leadership and team development skills
Proven experience with customer-centric design and personalization strategy
Experience developing personalization roadmaps and trigger-based journey frameworks
Experience managing Email, SMS, Push Notification, Website Personalization, and Customer Data Platform ecosystems
Technical knowledge with the ability to translate technical concepts into business terms for stakeholders
Experience using customer analytics and AI-driven capabilities to improve personalization relevance and business outcomes
Track record of gaining collaboration and alignment across diverse, cross-functional teams
Experience balancing promotional, loyalty, lifecycle, and personalized communications within a unified customer contact strategy