Senior Channel Marketing Manager - CSO

Share job

In Consumer Sales Organization (CSO) our purpose is to earn fans and drive growth by building emotional connections to delight and empower everyone. We engage with consumers globally throughout their shopping journeys, navigating both physical storefronts and digital visits across Direct and Partner Channels in Gaming, Windows, M365 and Surface. Together with our ecosystem partners, we strategize and implement plans for customer engagement and economic growth.

As a member of the team, you’ll be part of growing a multi-billion-dollar business, charting new areas of innovation, and impacting billions of lives around the world. You also will be a part of a culture centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. If that appeals to you, it’s an exciting time to be here in CSO.

In this role, is part of the Consumer Channel and Partner Marketing team within the CSO organisation. This role is responsible for driving and partnering with Distribution partners, to build and execute marketing plans, and relevant consumer experiences through a portfolio of distributor-managed retailers. You’ll be a subject matter expert for our Devices and Creativity solution area which includes our Windows, Surface and M365 products and services. You’ll work with channel sales teams and the distribution partner to influence the design of unique Microsoft experiences , activating an omnichannel strategy, building partner capability and delivering joint value with our distributor managed retail partners. Success is measured by marketing execution excellence, partner satisfaction, conversion, sell-through and brand love.

You will act as a trusted advisor to drive strategic decisions about our marketing investment strategy and marketing mix at the distribution partner level. Our Distribution partner marketers have deep relationships with our Distributor partner’s teams and are responsible for driving distributor negotiations and maximizing impact across thru-disti marketing vehicles, programs and platforms. Distribution Partner Marketers are also responsible to upskill and enable the Distributor marketing teams for campaign planning & execution, including the marketing calendar, negotiating in-store experiences/platforms and enabling digital marketing & transformation thru Disti-managed retail partners. You will also work closely with Partner Readiness & Influence Leads to drive marketing execution excellence through training and evangelism.

By joining the Consumer Channel & Partner Marketing team, you’ll be part of a cross-functional team that’s focused on driving full-funnel marketing for an exciting ecosystem that continues to grow. As the owner of distribution partner engagement, you’ll have the opportunity to share feedback around the partner trends, capture learnings and establish campaign best practices, leveraging the global infrastructure for support and shared platforms.

This role is flexible in that you can work up to 50% from home based on proximity to a Microsoft office.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Required/Minimum Qualifications (RQs/MQs)

• (IC5) : Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Public Relations or related field AND 4+ years' digital, retail, channel marketing, marketing, retail sales, or commercial sales experience OR equivalent experience.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• 3-5+ years relevant experience in Retail/Distribution /Channel Marketing/Marketing/Retail Sales.
• Proven success at marketing and execution planning – particularly Retail Marketing with Consumer Technology products.
• Adept at building integrated partner marketing plans and campaigns across multiple marketing disciplines.
• Direct experience interfacing with partners and a proven track record delivering growth/performance metrics.
• Understand the digital and physical buying journey (omni channel), well-versed in sales channels, commerce platforms. Expertise landing and coordinating cross-discipline marketing programs and sales programs.
• Track record of marketing execution excellence and ROI through planning, operations-savvy, creative execution, readiness and analytics/insights.
• New product launch experience.
• Experience managing ambiguity and rapid change – demonstrate agility and risk-taking.

Partner Planning & Management

• Work with channel sales and category management, to develop a distribution partner planning framework that drives long-term planning and joint marketing initiatives, which meet our product and revenue priorities.
• Act as a trusted advisor and thought leader to the distributor building credibility and impact and influence to help land key seasonal and product priorities.
• Leverage Distributor POCA to assess capabilities to identify opportunities and sell in global programs and platforms.
• Upskill and enable the distributor to create short, medium and long-term full-funnel partner marketing plans that drive omnichannel sales motions and maximize sell-through & ROI.
• Upskill and enable the distributor to establish a partner marketing calendar, pulling through product campaigns and optimizing seasonal beats/product launches.

Campaign Execution

• Leverage global campaigns and creative to land partner-specific campaigns.
• Negotiate with partners for in kind marketing to amplify campaigns and maximize investments.
• Build brand advocates among distribution sellers through training, evangelism and community engagement platforms.
• Upskill and enable the distribution partner to activate eCommerce sales motions through digital marketing excellence, mobile-first executions and social commerce on the disti-led retailer network
• Upskill and enable the distribution partner to Influence conversion in-store and online through seamless and connected experiences on the disti-led retailer network.
• Upskill and enable the distribution partner to optimize in-store presence and deliver compelling demo experiences through our Retail Demo Experience platforms on the disti-led retailer network.

Execution Excellence

• Create strong partner relationships as measured through our Microsoft feedback forums and surveys.
• Set campaign performance metrics and secure partner reporting to validate proof of execution and assess campaign performance.
• Analyze usage of market development funds, aligning spends to global guidance and initiatives.
• Drive creation and review of monthly and quarterly feedback/reporting in support of regular business milestones.
• Analyze performance results against execution activities to identify causals, opportunities and action plans.
• Drive brand consistency and deep understanding of the distribution, retail, competitive and marketing landscape.