Product Marketer

Sanlam SFTx is looking for a Product Marketer to join the Sanlam app product team, reporting to the Head of Product. 

The Sanlam app is being built as a unified Sanlam experience and cross-product digital engagement channel. This role will help customers get more value from the app and from the Sanlam products and services they already use, while supporting the Group’s broader digital customer lifecycle strategy. 

The Product Marketer will form part of the cross-functional product team working on the Sanlam app. The role will own digital journeys in app-adjacent channels such as email, SMS and WhatsApp, and will work closely with Product Managers, UX Designers, UX Researchers, UX Writers, Data Science, business owners, journey owners, marketing teams and CRM execution partners. 

A key focus of the role will be to shape and execute always-on, trigger-based customer journeys that guide customers towards meaningful conversion outcomes. These journeys may include onboarding nudges, activation prompts, product usage reminders, servicing communications, retention journeys, feature adoption journeys and cross-product engagement journeys. 

This is not a traditional campaign marketing role. It is a product-embedded lifecycle and journey orchestration role. The successful candidate will need to understand customer behaviour, product journeys, business goals, data triggers, channel constraints and the overall customer experience, and then translate that understanding into clear journey strategies and execution briefs. 

The role will help define where customers need to convert, what behaviour needs to change, what interventions are appropriate, and how best to orchestrate nudges across app-adjacent channels without creating customer fatigue or damaging the app experience. 

As Product Marketer for the Sanlam app, you will: 

• Own the strategy and execution approach for digital lifecycle journeys in app-adjacent channels, including email, SMS and WhatsApp. 
• Work with Product Managers and business owners to define key customer journey conversion points across the Sanlam app experience.
• Partner with journey owners across the Sanlam Group to understand their customer, commercial and lifecycle objectives.
• Translate business goals, customer needs and product context into clear journey strategies that can be executed through CRM and lifecycle channels.
• Design always-on, trigger-based lifecycle journeys that use behavioural signals, customer segments and product events to guide customers towards desired outcomes.
• Define when, where and how customer nudges should be used to improve onboarding, activation, engagement, retention, servicing and cross-product engagement.
• Build and manage the roadmap and prioritisation of lifecycle and app-adjacent journey work in partnership with the Head of Product, Product Managers and business stakeholders.
• Protect the customer experience by managing message relevance, sequencing, frequency, timing and channel appropriateness.
• Work closely with Data Science and analytics teams in hypothesis-led discovery, to identify opportunities, customer segments, behavioural triggers, lifecycle states and intervention opportunities.
• Use journey performance data to optimise lifecycle communications and improve conversion, engagement and retention outcomes.
• Partner with Product UX Designers, UX Writers and Product Managers to ensure lifecycle messaging is aligned to the broader app experience.
• Work with Brand, business unit marketing teams and product teams to ensure communications are aligned to Sanlam’s tone of voice, value proposition and customer experience standards.
• Brief execution teams clearly so that journeys can be configured, tested, launched and optimised effectively.
• Collaborate with execution partners on journey QA, performance review, experimentation and continuous improvement.
• Support feature launches by defining the customer communication and adoption journey around new app capabilities.
• Help establish scalable ways of working between business units, product teams, data teams and execution teams.
• Contribute to a strong lifecycle marketing and product marketing capability within the Sanlam app team. 

A successful candidate will have:

• 7+ years of experience in product marketing, lifecycle marketing, growth marketing, digital marketing, customer engagement or a closely related role in the digital product space.
• Experience designing or managing customer lifecycle journeys across digital channels such as email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, in-app messaging and marketing automation platforms.
• Experience working on customer-facing digital products, mobile apps, digital platforms or digital customer journeys.
• Experience using customer data, behavioural triggers, segmentation and performance metrics to shape experimentation and lifecycle interventions.
• Experience translating business objectives and customer needs into clear journey strategies, campaign briefs or product-style requirements.
• Experience working with product managers, designers, data teams, marketing teams and business stakeholders.
• Strong understanding of digital customer lifecycle stages such as onboarding, activation, engagement, retention, servicing and cross-sell.
• Strong written communication skills, with the ability to create clear briefs, journey documents, messaging guidance and stakeholder updates.
• Experience balancing commercial objectives with customer experience quality and communication relevance.
• Experience working on mobile app engagement, app adoption or app lifecycle journeys.
• Experience with marketing automation or journey orchestration tools such as MoEngage, Braze or similar platforms.
• Experience with WhatsApp, SMS, email, push notification and in-app messaging strategy.
• Experience designing always-on, trigger-based or event-based customer journeys.
• Experience with experimentation, A/B testing, control groups and conversion optimisation.
• Experience working with data science, analytics or personalisation teams. 

It would be advantageous if you also have:

• Experience in fintech, financial services, insurance, banking, wealth, investments, payments, lending or another regulated industry.
• Experience working in a matrixed organisation with multiple business units or product owners.
• Experience with MoEngage, AppsFlyer, Segment and MixPanel in particular. 

In this role, success will typically include:

• Customers receiving timely, relevant and useful nudges that help them get more value from the Sanlam app.
• Clear lifecycle journeys being defined for onboarding, activation, engagement, retention and servicing.
• Improved journey completion rates and behavioural conversion outcomes.
• Improved app adoption, activation, monthly active usage, engagement and retention.
• Stronger alignment between business unit objectives and the app customer experience.
• Effective prioritisation and sequencing of lifecycle journeys across competing business needs.
• Reduced customer fatigue through thoughtful message governance and journey orchestration.
• High-quality journey briefs that enable execution teams to work efficiently and creatively.
• Repeatable operating model for app-adjacent lifecycle communications across the Sanlam Group.