Director of Customer Acquisition – Once Like A Spark Photography and Videography

We’ve spent the last 11 years building a company that thinks differently about wedding photography and videography. There’s a lot that goes into giving clients meaningful photos and videos, while making sure their experience is excellent along the way. We’ve shown that when you can modernize and streamline the process, everyone wins.  Our artists are able to focus on what they do best: create art. Our customers are guided through a stressful time of their lives by a highly personable team of experts at a surprisingly reasonable price point. And we’ve built a business that’s proven to be profitable and repeatable in multiple markets throughout the country. 

Founders and sisters, Ashley and Cali, here. We’re serial entrepreneurs who have founded multiple, national, scalable businesses in the wedding industry. We’ve learned from some of the best-of-the-best and participated in Techstars Boulder as founders of one of those businesses. We’ve bootstrapped  Once Like A Spark with no significant investment, and oftentimes in the background of other projects. Our team of 7 keeps the wheels turning from our base in Athens, GA, and we currently work with hundreds of photographers and videographers across the country. We’re in 10 national markets and we are a 7-figure revenue business, but we’re now ready to focus fully on this company, accelerate our growth, and take it to its full potential. 

Bottom line: We’re looking for an all-star Director of Customer Acquisition to work alongside us to make it happen 

**LOCATION**

Although we do offer a flex, remote work schedule and environment (see more under benefits!), we strongly prefer that our Director of Customer Acquisition is located in or around Athens, GA. We are open to a candidate within commuting distance, with the expectation that they would be willing to travel to Athens 1-2 times a week to meet collaboratively with their team.   Our team is deeply invested in the community of Athens, and if you are looking for an ideal place to live (No traffic! Tons of culture! Incredible food and music!), you may just want to check it out. 

**OUR DREAM CANDIDATE**

Our dream candidate has the hunger to achieve something great, and also has experience strategically navigating a B2C start-up or small/medium-sized business through a growth phase. Drive and a hunger for excellence is a must. You’ll be joining an established company that will soon be acting as a start-up again as we accelerate growth –  a situation that will present many opportunities and many challenges. Our dream candidate finds value in making a measurable impact, quickly.  

Beyond that, our dream candidate can operate in the chaos of a flexible “startup” environment, by re-prioritizing tasks daily to keep all the balls in the air. You’ll also need to re-evaluate strategy consistently, to ensure our company is staying as agile as possible. We’re growing, changing fast, and are *always short of resources* – it will be your job to manage the ambiguity.  You’ll also be managing a small team of people (likely 2-3), so experience with collaborative team management is strongly desired. 

Our dream Director of Customer Acquisition is savvy to the decision making process of the modern consumer, is data driven, and KPI motivated. You have a keen understanding of digital marketing, the psychology of sales, and branding. Just as importantly, you understand how to create systems, processes, and procedures to measure the effectiveness of all marketing and sales efforts.  Our dream candidate uses both left and right brain thinking. You aren’t afraid to stretch boundaries and think outside the box to get results. If you equally love off-the-wall creative brainstorming AND strategic planning, tactical executing, and data analysis, this may be for you. 

**RESPONSIBILITIES**

Whether it’s generating new leads through various marketing channels, nurturing those leads through the sales process, and turning leads into paying customers as we close deals – you’ll be overseeing the strategy of it all. You’re a master of big, new, creative ideas, but also of making tweaks and adjustments to get results.  You constantly analyze data, reach out to customers, consider trends, and ask important questions about what we can do that’s never been done before, or how we can build upon what’s already happening. You use data to create customer personas and explore the most efficient ways for us to find our target customers, growing revenue and decreasing costs wherever possible. You’ll be reporting directly to our CEO (who has a marketing background), will be working alongside a Director of Logistics and a Director of Product, and you will be managing an already established team which includes a marketing coordinator and a sales manager (who oversees a small team of sales reps). 

Simply put:  You’re in charge of acquiring customers as efficiently and effectively as possible through the marketing and sales process.

• Create and deliver a budgeted strategic marketing plan developed toward specific benchmarks and KPI’s that should include organic and paid social, PPC, SEO, content marketing, partnership marketing, platform marketing, event marketing, email marketing, referral marketing, etc
• Work closely across the marketing and sales functions to ensure an integrated and frictionless customer journey
• Lead initiatives with team to develop a strong brand voice through consistent messaging, storytelling, and points of differentiation
• Consistently evaluate and adjust all customer-facing brand resources  
• Work closely with sales team to evaluate data, and tweak processes, resources, and messaging accordingly
• Keep your team happy, motivated,  & collaborative. We’re looking for someone who will proactively figure out how to make the team around them the absolute best they can be 

**SKILLS & EXPERIENCE**

We’re equally concerned with your drive and hunger AND your experience, and we’d like to see that you’ve navigated a B2C start-up or small/medium-sized business through a growth phase.   Wedding or photography experience is not necessary, but would be helpful. If you have experience with in an industry with high-value purchase decisions for our target market (professionals, averaging  25-35 years old) we want to hear about it.

Here are some skills we think are important:

• A strong understanding of digital marketing strategy, tactics,  and sales principles
• We’d ideally love to see experience or understanding of most of the following: product design and UX,  analytics, behavioral and sales psychology, branding/positioning/storytelling, copyrighting, funnel marketing, a/b testing, viral/WOM marketing, copyrighting, mobile. Any design experience (Canva, Photoshop, etc) a plus.
• Data driven. You set and track measurable goals.  Cannot emphasize this enough. 
• Curiosity. You’ll be looking at an endless amount of data points. We’d like to see that you have an innate curiosity about the data, our customers, the way they think, and how we can make adjustments to better reach our customers 
• Ability to switch between left and right brain thinking often. We want you to dream big, and then we want you to plan how to make it happen.
• Ability to switch between a macro and micro perspective often.  This is just a reality of a startup mindset. 
• Independent problem solver. We want someone who’s able to tackle difficult problems on their own and proactively looks for new ways to improve. In other words, you can just figure it out.
• Take initiative. You are invigorated by the idea of taking ownership over a department and advocating for what you think is most important. 
• Prioritize efficiently. You’ll be juggling a thousand projects at once. Be able to recognize which tasks are most important and get those done.
• Learn quickly. There are tons of details to learn, including nuances of the wedding industry. 
• Responsible & accountable. If you say you will do it, you do it.
• Resourceful. You don’t get crippled by a perceived lack of resources; instead, you get creative. You use software, tools, and hacks to get the job done in the best way.
• Bonus. Extra points for humor; speed of execution at ramp-up; willingness to slog through the mud for up to a few months; and an overarching desire to crush it alongside us 

**BENEFITS**

• Flex, remote work schedule. We’re big believers that the best team members are the ones who know how to make their work-life balance work for them. We’re a company that puts emphasis and value in creating family-friendly environments and schedules.   As such, we have no set work hours – work however you need to, when you need to, where you need to. As a lean business, we can’t always offer the biggest salary, but we can offer the flexibility to design your life as you see fit. You will be expected to participate in-person for team meetings and meet collaboratively with your team as you see fit during normal work hours. 
• Unlimited vacation days 
• Medical insurance
• Bonus opportunities based on mutually-agreed upon KPI’s
• Computer/other equipment as needed
• Reimbursement for classes and conferences
• Yearly out-of-town team retreats, with expenses paid
• Free photo sessions

**TO APPLY**

To apply, please send an email to ashley@oncelikeaspark.com with the subject line YOUR NAME – DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER ACQUISITION. Please include a resume, your salary requirements, and in the body of the email, we’d like to hear about your experience why you feel like you’re a fit, and why you are interested in this position. We are hoping to find a great fit for this position as quickly as possible. If you are interested and have aligned experience and skillsets, please apply as soon as possible.

Non-Discrimination: In all matters related to employee hiring or status – including but not limited to: advertising, recruitment, selection, employment, placement, compensation, benefits, upgrading, training, transfer, promotion, demotion, realignment, and termination – it is the policy of Once Like A Spark Photography to provide equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by institutional policy or by federal, state, or local laws, unless such distinction is required by law.