DTC eCommerce Growth Marketing Lead — Launch & Scale a New Consumer Brand

eCommerce Growth Marketing Lead for New Consumer Product Launch trueNorth is an emerging consumer products brand preparing to launch a custom engineered magnetic hat platform featuring interchangeable wooden “planks.” Our initial collection combines craftsmanship, customization, and American pride in a product that allows customers to change the look of their hat by swapping magnetic wood designs. We are looking for an experienced eCommerce growth marketer / fractional marketing lead who can help us build, launch, manage, and optimize our customer acquisition strategy. This is a hands-on role. We are not looking for someone who only develops a marketing plan and hands it back to us. We want a partner who can execute, test, measure results, and continuously improve performance. Scope of Work The engagement will focus on the following areas of our go-to-market strategy. We understand that one individual may not personally execute every specialty below. If you work with a team or trusted specialists, please explain that in your proposal. 1. Brand Strategy & Positioning Review the existing trueNorth brand, positioning, messaging, and competitive landscape. Identify opportunities to improve brand clarity and consistency. Recommend refinements to brand messaging, copy, visual identity, website presentation, and overall customer experience. Ensure our brand story and value proposition translate effectively across advertising, social media, website, and other customer touchpoints. 2. Photo & Video Content Help plan and coordinate creation of launch-ready product and lifestyle content, including: Approximately 20 edited product/lifestyle photos. One approximately 90–120 second edited brand/product video. Approximately 5–7 vertical short-form videos suitable for paid social, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and organic content. Ongoing recommendations for creative concepts based on advertising and organic performance. Repurposing and editing existing creative into channel-specific formats. Please indicate whether photo/video production is something you personally provide, coordinate through a team, or would recommend sourcing separately. 3. Shopify Website & Conversion Optimization Review and continuously improve our Shopify site to support paid and organic marketing. Responsibilities include: Improve the customer path from landing page to purchase. Recommend and implement changes to layout, navigation, messaging, imagery, and calls to action. Align landing pages with advertising campaigns and offers. Create promotional codes and campaign-specific offers. Create/update banners and promotional graphics. Optimize the mobile shopping experience. Implement email/SMS capture opportunities. Incorporate high-performing advertising creative and social proof into the website. Monitor conversion performance and recommend CRO improvements. We want the website treated as part of the marketing funnel—not simply as a static storefront. 4. Meta Advertising — Facebook & Instagram Manage the setup, launch, testing, and optimization of Meta advertising. Responsibilities include: Audit or configure Meta Business Suite and Ads Manager. Verify account structure, billing, Facebook/Instagram connections, Meta Pixel, and conversion tracking. Develop and launch initial campaigns across appropriate objectives. Build targeting strategies using interests, demographics, custom audiences, retargeting, and lookalikes where appropriate. Develop and test advertising creative, copy, audiences, offers, and campaign structures. Monitor CAC, ROAS, conversion performance, spend efficiency, and other key metrics. Continuously shift spend toward the highest-performing campaigns, audiences, and creative. We are particularly interested in someone experienced in taking a new DTC product from little or no historical advertising data through initial testing and into scalable customer acquisition. 5. Organic Instagram & Facebook Build a repeatable organic social strategy that supports brand awareness and customer acquisition. Responsibilities include: Audit and optimize social profiles. Establish approximately 3–5 core content pillars. Develop a monthly content calendar. Establish an appropriate posting cadence. Recommend educational, promotional, product, lifestyle, behind-the-scenes, UGC, founder-story, and other content. Develop guidelines for responding to comments and DMs. Identify opportunities to drive social traffic to Shopify. Incorporate social proof and email/SMS capture into the strategy. Track engagement, reach, follower growth, traffic, and content performance. 6. TikTok — Paid & Organic Develop both paid and organic TikTok strategies. Paid TikTok Audit or establish TikTok Business Center and Ads Manager. Configure and verify TikTok Pixel/conversion tracking. Develop and launch initial campaigns. Establish audience targeting and testing strategies. Launch campaigns using multiple TikTok-native video creatives. Continuously introduce and test new creative based on performance. Optimize landing pages for mobile/TikTok traffic. Track CAC, conversions, creative performance, and ROAS. Organic TikTok Optimize the brand's TikTok profile. Establish 3–5 core content pillars. Build a monthly content calendar and posting cadence. Develop concepts around trends, product demonstrations, founder/brand story, behind-the-scenes content, UGC, educational content, and product highlights. Develop an engagement strategy for comments, creator collaborations, duets/stitches, and other TikTok-native opportunities. Track views, engagement, follower growth, traffic, and top-performing content. 7. Influencer & Creator Marketing Develop and execute an influencer/creator strategy focused initially on relevant micro-influencers and content creators. Responsibilities include: Develop influencer identification and vetting criteria. Identify creators whose audiences align with our target customer. Evaluate audience quality, engagement, niche relevance, content quality, and brand fit. Develop outreach templates. Create campaign briefs covering objectives, messaging, deliverables, usage rights, and disclosure requirements. Develop an initial shortlist of approximately 5–10 potential creators/influencers. Conduct outreach and help coordinate collaborations. Develop methods to track influencer performance using unique codes, URLs, UTMs, landing pages, or similar methods. Identify high-performing influencer/UGC content that can be repurposed for paid advertising, organic social, and Shopify. 8. Email & SMS Marketing Build email and SMS into important conversion and retention channels. Responsibilities include: Audience segmentation. Welcome flows. Abandoned cart/browse flows. Lead nurture. Post-purchase sequences. Re-engagement campaigns. Promotional campaigns. Copywriting and creative. Automation setup. A/B testing. Send-time and messaging optimization. List-growth strategies across Shopify, social media, paid campaigns, and influencer traffic. The goal is to develop lifecycle marketing that converts prospects and increases repeat customer value—not simply send promotional emails. 9. Creative Testing & Optimization We will provide existing brand assets, product imagery, logos, copy, and other creative materials. The marketing lead should be able to: Repurpose existing assets into advertising and social creative. Crop/edit video for channel-specific formats. Add graphics, text, headlines, and calls to action. Develop advertising variations for testing. Write and iterate advertising copy, headlines, product descriptions, and promotional messaging. Identify creative winners and losers based on actual performance. Develop new creative briefs based on campaign learnings. We expect rapid testing and iteration rather than waiting for every individual creative asset to go through a lengthy approval process. Reporting & Performance Management We want clear, decision-oriented reporting—not vanity metrics. Regular reporting should cover: Marketing/ad spend. Revenue attributable to campaigns. Customer acquisition cost (CAC). Return on ad spend (ROAS). Conversion rate. Cost per click and click-through rate. Creative performance. Audience performance. Units/orders generated. Email/SMS performance. Organic social performance. Influencer/creator activity and results. More importantly, we want someone who can answer: What worked? What didn't? What did we learn? What should we test next? Where should we put the next marketing dollar? Who We're Looking For The ideal candidate has meaningful experience launching and scaling DTC/eCommerce consumer products. Strong candidates will have experience with several of the following: Shopify and conversion-rate optimization Meta Ads Manager Facebook & Instagram advertising TikTok Ads Organic TikTok and Instagram Email/SMS lifecycle marketing Influencer/creator marketing Advertising creative development and testing Analytics and attribution New consumer product launches Experience with apparel, hats/headwear, accessories, lifestyle brands, outdoor brands, patriotic/Americana brands, customizable products, or other visually driven consumer products is especially relevant. What Matters Most to Us We are looking for someone who: Thinks like an owner. Is highly accountable. Can execute rather than just advise. Understands startup budgets and knows how to prioritize. Uses data to make decisions. Tests before aggressively scaling. Understands the relationship between CAC, gross margin, ROAS, conversion rate, and profitability. Communicates clearly with founders. Is willing to tell us when an idea isn't working. Can identify where our marketing dollars have the highest probability of generating profitable growth. We would rather do fewer things extremely well than spread money across every channel simply because the channel exists. To Apply Please address the following in your proposal: Tell us about 2–3 DTC/eCommerce brands you have personally helped launch or scale. What did you actually do? What measurable results can you share—revenue growth, CAC, ROAS, conversion rate, or other relevant KPIs? Which parts of the scope above do you personally execute? Which parts would require another member of your team or an outside specialist? Describe a product launch where you started with little or no customer/advertising data. How did you determine what to test first? How do you determine when a paid campaign is ready to scale versus when it should be stopped? What is your strongest paid acquisition channel? Describe your experience with Shopify conversion optimization. Describe your experience with email/SMS lifecycle marketing. Describe your influencer/creator marketing experience. Please begin your proposal with the words “TRUE NORTH” so we know you've read the full scope. Engagement We are looking for someone who can help us through launch and, if the relationship and results are strong, continue working with trueNorth as the brand grows. Our objective isn't simply to generate traffic or social engagement. We want to build a repeatable and profitable customer acquisition engine where we understand what it costs to acquire a customer, what that customer is worth, which creative and offers convert, and which marketing channels deserve additional investment. If you've helped build that kind of growth engine for an early-stage consumer brand, we'd like to hear from you.