CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager

Better Collective; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Better Collective is hiring an experienced CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager to establish and lead a group-wide CRM and lifecycle strategy across its global sports media brands. The role blends strategy, data, technology and operational leadership to turn first- and zero-party data into personalised experiences and measurable business value.

Collaborating with Product, Audience, Data, Commercial, Editorial, Technology and local brand teams, you will create frameworks, programmes and an operating

Qualifications

• Significant experience leading CRM, lifecycle or customer engagement programmes.
• Strong knowledge of email marketing and marketing automation.
• Experience developing sophisticated customer lifecycle strategies.
• Strong understanding of customer segmentation and personalisation.
• Experience working with large customer databases.
• Experience using behavioural and transactional data to improve communications.
• Strong understanding of CRM technology and platform capabilities.
• Experience working across Product, Data, Technology, Marketing and Commercial teams.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills.
• Experience managing CRM teams, agencies or specialist partners.
• Strong analytical and commercial mindset.
• Demonstrable experience connecting CRM activity to measurable business outcomes.
• Experience within digital media, subscriptions, publishing, sports, gaming or high-frequency digital consumer products would be particularly valuable.

Responsibilities

• Develop Better Collective's group-wide CRM and lifecycle strategy.
• Establish CRM principles, standards and best practices across brands.
• Create a scalable operating model balancing central CRM expertise with local brand execution.
• Identify where CRM can deliver the greatest audience and commercial impact.
• Build CRM roadmaps for priority Better Collective brands.
• Act as the senior CRM subject-matter expert across the organisation.
• Design Lifecycle Strategies Covering Acquisition → Registration → Onboarding → Engagement → Conversion → Retention → Reactivation.
• Develop Automated Programmes including Welcome and onboarding journeys, Profile completion, Content discovery, Personalised sports and player updates, Newsletter engagement, Subscription conversion, Premium product promotion, Renewal, Retention, Churn prevention, Lapsed-user reactivation, Win-back programmes.

Skills

CRM leadership

Lifecycle marketing

Email marketing

Marketing automation

Stakeholder management

Data-driven

Job description

Job Description

Better Collective is looking for an experienced CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager to establish and lead a group-wide approach to customer relationship management across our portfolio of global sports media brands.

This is a senior role combining CRM strategy, customer lifecycle management, technology, data, commercial thinking and operational leadership.

The successful candidate will move CRM beyond campaign execution and develop it as a strategic capability that helps Better Collective build deeper, more valuable relationships with its audiences.

Working across Product, Audience, Data, Commercial, Editorial, Technology and local brand teams, the CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager will create the frameworks, programmes and operating model required to turn first- and zero-party audience data into personalised customer experiences and measurable business value.

The Opportunity

Better Collective reaches millions of sports fans across a diverse portfolio of digital brands.

The next stage of our audience strategy is to develop stronger direct relationships with those users — moving from anonymous audiences → known users → understood customers → engaged and valuable relationships.

CRM will be central to that transformation.

The CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager will establish the strategy, capabilities and standards that allow Better Collective brands to acquire, activate, engage, retain and monetise audiences across the customer lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

CRM Strategy & Leadership

• Develop Better Collective's group-wide CRM and lifecycle strategy.
• Establish CRM principles, standards and best practices across brands.
• Create a scalable operating model balancing central CRM expertise with local brand execution.
• Identify where CRM can deliver the greatest audience and commercial impact.
• Build CRM roadmaps for priority Better Collective brands.
• Act as the senior CRM subject-matter expert across the organisation.

Customer Lifecycle Management

Design Lifecycle Strategies Covering

Acquisition → Registration → Onboarding → Engagement → Conversion → Retention → Reactivation

Develop Automated Programmes Including

• Welcome and onboarding journeys
• Profile completion
• Content discovery
• Personalised sports and player updates
• Newsletter engagement
• Subscription conversion
• Premium product promotion
• Renewal
• Retention
• Churn prevention
• Lapsed-user reactivation
• Win-back programmes

The objective is to create relevant, personalised experiences rather than simply increase communication volume.

First & Zero-Party Data Activation

Work closely with Audience, Product and Data teams to translate Better Collective's growing first- and zero-party data capabilities into meaningful customer experiences.

Use Behavioural, Declared And Transactional Data To Improve

• Audience segmentation
• Personalisation
• Content recommendations
• Lifecycle triggers
• Subscription propensity
• Retention
• Cross-sell opportunities
• Audience insight

Help establish the connection between data capture, customer understanding and CRM activation.

Multi-Channel CRM

Develop a Coordinated CRM Approach Across

• Email
• Newsletters
• App push
• Web push
• In-app messaging
• On-site messaging
• Emerging direct audience channels

Establish channel roles, contact strategies, frequency management and customer communication principles.

Ensure customers receive coordinated experiences rather than disconnected messages from individual channels.

CRM Technology & Automation

Partner with Product and Technology teams to maximise Better Collective's CRM technology stack.

Responsibilities Include

• Marketing automation
• Journey orchestration
• Audience segmentation
• Triggered communications
• Dynamic content
• Personalisation
• CRM/CDP integration
• Data flows
• Preference management
• Testing frameworks
• Reporting requirements

Help translate business and customer requirements into practical technology capabilities.

Measurement & Optimisation

Create a consistent CRM measurement framework across Better Collective.

Core Metrics Should Include

• Known-user growth
• Registration conversion
• Newsletter acquisition
• Email engagement
• Push engagement
• Active-user frequency
• Subscription conversion
• Renewal
• Retention
• Reactivation
• Revenue per known user
• Customer lifetime value

Move CRM measurement beyond opens and clicks toward customer behaviour and commercial outcomes.

Experimentation

Establish a Structured CRM Experimentation Programme Covering

• A/B testing
• Send frequency
• Timing
• Content
• Segmentation
• Personalisation
• Offers
• Lifecycle triggers
• Channel combinations

Create mechanisms for successful experiments to be documented and scaled across Better Collective brands.

Stakeholder Leadership

CRM at Better Collective sits across multiple disciplines.

The CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager will therefore work closely with:

• Audience — audience strategy, segmentation and zero/first-party data
• Product — registration, logged-in experiences and product journeys
• Data & BI — customer data, segmentation and measurement
• Technology — CRM platforms, integrations and automation
• Editorial — content propositions and newsletters
• Commercial — monetisation and customer value
• Subscription Teams — acquisition, renewal and retention
• Compliance — consent, GDPR, PECR and data governance

Strong stakeholder leadership will be critical to the success of the role.

Job Requirements

We are looking for an experienced CRM leader who combines strategic thinking with the ability to turn strategy into operational programmes.

The Successful Candidate Will Ideally Have

• Significant experience leading CRM, lifecycle or customer engagement programmes.
• Strong knowledge of email marketing and marketing automation.
• Experience developing sophisticated customer lifecycle strategies.
• Strong understanding of customer segmentation and personalisation.
• Experience working with large customer databases.
• Experience using behavioural and transactional data to improve communications.
• Strong understanding of CRM technology and platform capabilities.
• Experience working across Product, Data, Technology, Marketing and Commercial teams.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills.
• Experience managing CRM teams, agencies or specialist partners.
• Strong analytical and commercial mindset.
• Demonstrable experience connecting CRM activity to measurable business outcomes.

Experience within digital media, subscriptions, publishing, sports, gaming or high-frequency digital consumer products would be particularly valuable.

Leadership Profile

The role requires someone who can operate at both strategic and practical levels.

You Should Be Comfortable Moving Between

Strategy Execution

Customer Commercial

Data Communications

Technology Marketing

Central Strategy Local Brand Requirements

You will need to influence senior stakeholders while also being comfortable working directly with teams responsible for delivering CRM programmes.

What Success Looks Like

First 3 Months

• Audit CRM capabilities across priority Better Collective brands.
• Establish baseline CRM KPIs.
• Map existing lifecycle communications.
• Identify immediate optimisation opportunities.
• Define the group CRM strategy and operating principles.
• Prioritise brands and lifecycle use cases.

3–6 Months

• Launch priority automated lifecycle programmes.
• Establish group segmentation principles.
• Introduce a structured CRM experimentation framework.
• Establish CRM dashboards and commercial measurement.
• Develop CRM playbooks that can be reused across brands.

6–12 Months

Better Collective Has a Scalable CRM Capability Connecting Audience Data → Customer Insight → Segmentation → Personalisation → Activation → Measurement → Commercial Value

CRM Becomes a Measurable Growth Engine Supporting Audience Engagement | Registration | Subscription | Retention | Revenue | Customer Lifetime Value

Why This Role Matters

Better Collective already has significant global audience scale.

The opportunity is to build stronger direct relationships with those audiences.

This role will help Better Collective transition from primarily understanding what audiences consume to understanding who our customers are, what they value and how we can build longer-lasting relationships with them.

The CRM & Lifecycle Senior Manager will be central to making that transition happen.