Senior Product Marketing Manager

Founded in 1995, The Cobalt Group is North America’s leading provider of automotive marketing services, offering automotive dealers and manufactures the industry’s best online retailing, CRM, fixed operations and search engine marketing solutions. For more than a decade, Cobalt’s exclusive mission has been to help automobile dealers and manufacturers increase their retailing effectiveness and profits. Cobalt provides marketing services to more than half the automotive dealerships in the United States, Canada and Mexico and is endorsed by more than two-thirds of the world’s major automotive manufacturers. Cobalt is endorsed by the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA).We are currently seeking a Senior Product Marketing Manager. This position is responsible for performing end-to-end product marketing functions for Cobalt’s products. This would include: Working with the product management team, as they define / implement key features and upgrades to new and existing products.
Working with Cobalt customers – via the Customer Advisory Board, customer focus groups, customer research using questionnaires and individual interviews – to identify key unmet needs, market requirements and ‘test market’ product positioning and messaging.
Defining and improving key positioning and key messages for Cobalt products; working with the Marketing Communications team to ensure that individual product messages support Cobalt’s overall positioning and messaging.
The Product Market Manager coordinates all activities relating to market opportunity analysis, product promotion, distribution and pricing strategies, life cycle market management, message development and execution, and channel management for the assigned product.The Product Marketing Manager works very closely with Product Management and Enterprise teams to ensure that developed products meet the market requirements, and with Field Marketing and Sales, to ensure that the sales team is well prepared to sell products.Knowledge Areas Expert knowledge of product marketing concepts and techniques, especially as applied to Internet, Search, CRM, enterprise software or operating systems.
Experience in an Internet environment, or automotive marketing experience.
Superior written and oral communications skills, for use in preparing marketing plans, presentations and effective meeting management.Comfort with the strategic and tactical aspects of products and markets – ability to understand and "grok" technical communication and then distill that into clear, simple messages for non-technical audiences.
Strong collaboration and project management skills – an ability to work effectively with different people within an organization (technicians, salespeople, strategists). Comfort in working within a hierarchy.
Demonstrated expertise in negotiating competing priorities from multiple internal and external stakeholders.
Proven market and competitive analysis ability that results in understanding and prioritizing customer needs to map to product positioning, pricing, messaging and functionality.
A passion for excellence – of work output, collaboration, communication and overall business results.Essential Functions Product Marketing and Positioning: Develops and executes strategic marketing plans via customer needs analysis, initial positioning and messaging, resulting testing and analysis and refinements. Works closely with the Product Management organization to ensure that key features and functionality maps to customer requirements and priorities.
Work closely with the Marketing Communications team to define product positioning and key messages, to develop product brochures, sell sheets, sales aids and key messages to external stakeholders.
Product Life Cycle Communication: Drive creation of sales and customer facing messaging and communication throughout product life cycles. Manage product launch, point release and product sunset communications.
Product Marketing Tactics: The Product Marketing Manager collaborates with Enterprise and Field Marketing to develop tactical product marketing plans including product positioning and pricing. Formulates forecasts for market penetration and order acquisition.
Product Communications: In cooperation with Marketing Communications, the Product Marketing Manager leads all creative strategy in developing effective communications activities and programs including advertising, events management, and collateral development for assigned products.
Sales Training: Ensures the sales force, including Enterprise and Field Sales, receives sufficient training to properly present and position assigned product to customers and prospects.Account Management/Sales: Works with Enterprise and Field Sales to help in the sale of Cobalt products to major accounts (OEMs as well as Dealers).Required SkillsBachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or technical field, or equivalent work experience.
MBA strongly preferred, but not required.
5 to 7 years of progressively responsible market development experience, including direct responsibility for: Product marketing strategy and execution
Product pricing strategy development with specific, previous experience in product pricing.
Promotion development and execution.Based in Seattle, Cobalt has offices in Detroit; Columbus, Ohio; Redwood City, California; and Bangalore, India. In addition, Cobalt hires all over the US for positions in the field. Automotive retailing solutions continue to be a growth industry as more and more dealerships and manufacturers recognize the operational efficiencies and the extraordinary marketing potential of Cobalt’s technology. Accordingly, Cobalt’s customer base and its need for talented, creative and hardworking individuals continue to grow. The Cobalt work environment is fast-paced, energized, informal and fun, but with a serious focus on quality, customer service, innovation, and an ongoing commitment to excellence. Benefits include medical, dental, and vision for employee and dependents (including domestic partners), life insurance, paid vacation time, personal days, sick leave and paid holidays, 401K with match, employee referral bonuses, stock option plan, subsidized parking and free bus pass, onsite gym, and more. For more information, go to www.cobaltgroup.com.
REQUIREMENTS
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