Sr. Manager, CRM Marketing

Position Overview 

The Guitar Center Company is seeking a bold, technically fluent, and strategic Sr. Manager CRM Marketing to lead the next chapter of lifecycle marketing across Guitar Center and Musician’s Friend. This is a strategic leadership role at the center of a rapidly evolving CRM organization—where innovation, personalization, and intelligent automation drive the future of customer engagement. 

Reporting to the Sr. Director of CRM, this leader will oversee a large team responsible for designing and delivering customer-centric email and SMS marketing programs. You’ll champion the shift from traditional batch messaging to scalable, real-time, data-driven journeys powered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SFMC), while partnering closely with our CRM Solutions Architect and Customer Data team to bring disruptive, AI-enabled experiences to life. 

This is a rare opportunity for a marketing leader who thrives at the intersection of campaign execution, automation architecture, and creative solutioning—and who’s passionate about building CRM that truly speaks to the musician. 

 Key Responsibilities 

• Lead email & SMS marketing strategy & daily operations of the CRM marketing team—ensuring timely execution of promotional, lifecycle, and triggered communications across channels. 

• Architect and implement next-generation CRM strategies that go beyond calendars—using behavior, data, and personalization to deliver timely, relevant messages at scale. 

• Serve as the team’s SFMC expert, driving advanced use of Journey Builder, Automation Studio, AMPscript, dynamic content, and SQL-powered segmentation. 

• Identify high-volume or repetitive campaigns with automation potential, and lead their evolution into efficient, scalable, always-on journeys. 

• Champion the use of agentic AI and intelligent automation to generate, iterate, or optimize customer journeys—pushing the boundaries of what CRM can achieve in a creative retail environment. 

• Partner closely with the CRM Solutions Architect to align technical execution with marketing vision and campaign logic, ensuring platform performance and scalability. 

• Collaborate deeply with the Customer Data team to activate segmentation, triggers, and real-time data signals that power smarter customer communications. 

• Build and refine testing and experimentation frameworks to continually improve performance, personalization, and channel effectiveness. 

• Monitor campaign and journey performance using SFMC dashboards, Adobe Analytics, and other measurement tools—translating data into action. 

• Foster a culture of continuous learning and innovation across the CRM team, coaching team members on marketing best practices and emerging capabilities. 

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in CRM, lifecycle marketing, or marketing automation, with 2+ years leading cross-functional teams or departments. 
• Expert-level proficiency in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, including: 
  • Journey Builder, Automation Studio, Email Studio 
  • AMPscript, dynamic content, SQL, and data extensions 
• Demonstrated success designing and deploying automated, behavior-triggered journeys at scale. 
• Familiarity with agentic or generative AI tools, with a passion for applying them to real-world marketing use cases. 
• Strong understanding of campaign architecture, personalization logic, and QA/testing workflows. 
• Analytical thinker with experience using Adobe Analytics, Omni Analytics, or equivalent reporting tools to drive CRM insights. 
• Excellent cross-functional collaboration skills; capable of aligning with technical, analytical, and creative stakeholders to deliver cohesive solutions. 
• Bonus: A background or passion for music, gear, or creative culture, whether as a musician, hobbyist, or fan. 

Why Guitar Center? Here's just some of the rewards: