Channel Marketing Manager - Partner Readiness & Training

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 Windows, M365 and Surface. Together with our ecosystem partners, we strategize and implement plans for customer engagement and economic growth.

As a member of our 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.

In this role, you will develop our strategy and execution plan for building product knowledge and brand advocacy with retail sellers and driving conversion with consumers in-store and online through our key retail partners. You’ll work with channel marketers to understand product roadmaps, priorities and seasonal campaigns to activate and amplify through our 3rd party agencies and evangelism platforms. You’ll work with partner marketers to build a coverage strategy to drive partner readiness and create compelling partner experiences. You’ll facilitate a globally consistent, locally relevant approach to influence consumers and retail sellers in targeted areas of the consumer shopping journey. Success is measured by execution excellence, audience engagement & education, conversion, sell-through and brand love.

You will act as a trusted advisor to drive strategic decisions about partner experiences and readiness. In this role, you’ll be the voice of the consumer and the face of the brand at retail to support our business ambitions and business goals. A true omnichannel function, you will leverage the power of people to engage with our audiences across digital and physical channels, building a strong community of Microsoft representatives and trainers to expand the reach and impact of the brand.

There is an art and science to delivering great readiness and influence programs. We are looking for someone with a broad-based understanding of evangelism and influencer marketing, but also a data-driven mindset and operational expertise to optimize our coverage models to drive the highest ROI.

Working with the Worldwide Partner Experiences Team, you will shape the product storytelling, sales motion and in-store experience and how we humanize the shopper journey online. You’ll be joining a tight-knit global community with deep expertise and a passion for transforming traditional labor programs into omnichannel readiness and influencer marketing. Being a member of Consumer Channel & Partner Marketing team means you’ll be part of a cross-functional team focused on driving channel marketing for an exciting and growing ecosystem. You’ll have the opportunity to share feedback around store-level and market trends, product feedback and establish best practices for influencing retail sales professionals and consumers, 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.

Responsibilities

Leveraging global/regional guidance, build local strategy & execution plan and coverage. Manage agency teams, ensuring coverage effectiveness and execution excellence. Capture data and insights to meet target metrics and create feedback loops for CSO teams and broader stakeholders.

Partner Readiness & Store Execution

• Pipeline, plan and deploy in-store fixture programs.
• Drive sell in for in-store and retail staff-facing programs and platforms.
• Plan, Execute, Manage and Monitor third party field force teams including agency procurement, negotiations and performance management.
• Build a partner coverage strategy, including partner support model, reach and tactics.
• Capture execution data and insights, package trends and performance for partners around training proficiency, execution compliance and sales conversion.
• Plan and manage demo device and hardware security deployment.

Influence and Product Evangelism

• Develop and execute the vision and strategic plan for how we engage and influence our partners’ sellers and customers.
• Leverage worldwide assets, platforms and tools to develop local training content, sales tools and consumer-facing content.
• Use a blended learning model to build retail staff proficiency and drive completion of e-learning content, virtual event attendance and face-to-face training activations.
• Based on Global Editorial calendar, build local editorial content that leverages our people to deliver compelling content through social, video, livestreaming and in-person/virtual events.
• Manage and activate ExpertZone social channels, optimizing performance through content analytics, established frequencies and community management

Execution Excellence

• Ensure stores are “ready to sell” – merchandised, demo-ready and clean & uncluttered.
• Aggregate consumer, product and retail feedback leveraging data capture & reporting tools.
• Drive creation and review of monthly and quarterly feedback/reporting in support of regular business milestones.
• Analyze performance results against execution activities to identify opportunities and actions.
• Assess program impact via ROI and cost to serve analysis.
• Drive brand consistency and deep understanding of the retail, competitive and marketing landscape.

Qualifications

Required/Minimum Qualifications (RQs/MQs)

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, Public Relations or related field AND 8+ years' digital, retail, channel marketing, marketing, retail sales, or commercial sales experience OR equivalent experience.

Additional or Preferred Qualifications (PQs)

• 8+ years of retail or retail marketing experience, knowledge and experience working across digital and physical channels.
• 8+ years of execution management experience either with a brand or with an agency.
• Strong retail relationships, in depth understanding of store operations, readiness & in-store and digital selling motions.
• Ability to manage and inspire large, indirect teams through training, evangelism and targeted goals/priorities.
• Operationally savvy – a master project planner and time maximizer, passionate about metrics and insights.
• Proven management capability in driving exceptional business results within a positive work/health culture.
• 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.
• Experience managing ambiguity and rapid change – demonstrate agility and risk-taking.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.