The Director of Marketing & IT will lead the Foundation’s marketing and IT efforts to ensure continued growth and expansion of a high-growth, mission-driven, national non-profit organization.
This role provides the leadership and day-to-day strategic and tactical implementation of the organization’s marketing efforts, including but not limited to overall brand management and “youthful” positioning, signature campaigns, acquisition marketing, fundraising marketing, database/user/donor engagement campaigns (nurture/drip), advertising, messaging, video and event production, collateral materials, cause-branding with corporate partners, ad buying, newsletter writing and publishing, and all outbound digital, SMS and email marketing. This position also spearheads the company’s voice and brand across the website and all social media channels (along with excellence in SEO), leads marketing analytics for continuous improvement.
The role also leads the company’s IT efforts related to:
The company’s online career hub/network- (a significant, priority of the Board)—ensuring content is continuously brainstormed and kept fresh, UI/UX is stellar, engagement strategies are crafted and implemented.
The company’s network, is built and works in ways that drive growth in both user acquisition and engagement, ensuring that the IT system is delivering against KPIs.
Integrated database management, meaning the APIs and data flow between all third-party systems flow into a centralized database which is use for marketing/communications, fundraising and more.
Data reporting and analytics across the entire organization, including metrics on Network usage and interactions, marketing, scholarship, school partnerships, events and fundraising data.
Management of the company’s external/ IT vendor which serves as the organization’s near-shore IT team, which is a large team of between 15-19 contractors, including the webmaster, programmers and designers.
The Director of Marketing & IT supervises the Content Manager and the Engagement Manager, and additional positions in the future. At this time, this position does not currently oversee public relations, media relations, or association partnerships, but works in collaboration with that team member.
This position works closely with the senior leadership team to ensure coordination and consistency across all functions.
Principle Accountabilities & Deliverables
Work directly with the CEO and Board of Directors to craft the organization’s multi-year marketing and IT strategy.
Work directly with the CEO and colleagues to craft and implement a comprehensive, annual marketing plan.
Work directly with the Chief Growth Officer to craft and implement a comprehensive, annual IT project plan.
Provide the daily leadership and hands-on efforts to create, build and deploy the deliverables of above plans.
Conceptualize and develop unique marketing concepts for the company to use to drive fundraising, student acquisition and engagement, school partnerships, brand awareness/positioning/thought-leadership, and an industry-wide campaign to promote the profession. Develop concepts from start to finish in concert with key stakeholders, including (but not limited to) target audience identification, direction on voice/tone, headlines and copywriting, distribution tactics, storyboarding, script writing, direction on photo & video shoots as well as graphic design and imagery, and more.
Lead the user experience strategy within the company, the network, to ensure aspiring and working technicians engage repeatedly with the platform, and spread positive words. This included ensuring all content and workflows appeal to the target audience, and that the IT development and content management services deliver the intended results.
Under the direction of the Chief Growth Officer, supervise the contract with the IT vendor, ensuring the ongoing design, coding, testing, deployment, maintenance and security of desired projects are delivered. Serves as point-person between the company and the IT vendor, providing clear, organized direction to this team of 15-19 IT contractors for maximum benefit of the company.
Establish data reporting and analytic system to track and measure success. Arm management with the data and suggestions for continuous improvement. Implement changes to the organization’s marketing and IT efforts based on data and analytics feedback so that achievement of organization goals is obtained.
Supervise and provide creative direction to vendors and/or staff who oversee videographers, photographers, graphic designers, art directors, copywriters and others to ensure that all creative work is of the highest quality and delivered on time and on budget. Supervise staffers who are responsible for ensuring the company’s assets are properly stored in Lightroom, Video and on YouTube and are visually appealing, current, tagged correctly, and relevant.
Lead the on-going evaluation of the organization’s marketing and communications efforts to ensure the brand identity, logo, messaging and positioning is always represented, consistency throughout the organization and with volunteers, donors and partners, and that collateral materials, video and photographic assets, website, Network content and social channels are up-to-date/current and contain the most powerful messaging the company has been able to identify.
Manage the overall marketing and IT budgets. Direct any and all media buys (such as social media “boosts” or ad insertion orders) for the organization. Approve IT vendor’s invoices and any other third-party software licenses/costs related to marketing, IT or the Network (Hubspot, PowerBI, SendGrid, etc.) Supervise the Content Manager who manages and approves various content creation costs, such as videographer, graphic designer and printing costs. Also strive to identify, negotiate, secure and leverage donated, free and partner marketing channels, as much as possible.
Work collaboratively with the senior leadership team, corporate partners with expertise in marketing and/or IT, and colleagues to and those responsible for designing and implementing other aspects of MarCom that all creative work is aligned with the company’s marketing and communications goals.
Participate with fellow colleagues in ideating, brainstorming and suggesting ideas, tactics, methods and strategies to advance the marketing and communications efforts of the entire organization, including fundraising, student acquisition, school partnerships and positioning.
Stay up-to-date with the latest marketing and IT trends and resources, and incorporate new ideas into strategy and best practices.
Other duties as assigned.
Education / Experience
Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in marketing, communications, advertising, arts, business, IT, liberal arts, public policy, or related field.
A minimum of 10+ years of work experience in marketing, event production, project management, customer service and/or or other role demanding creativity and organization, with a proven track record of delivering high-quality work and results.
Proven track record in designing effective marketing and IT strategy, concepts, and deliverables across numerous mediums.
Experience and proven track record demonstrating exceptional project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously.
A deep understanding and a desire to keep current with emerging technologies (such as AI, APIs, new software, plug-ins, etc.) to ensure the organization deploys all the most up-to-date strategies to build its brand and base of supporters.
Proven track record of supervising and managing employees and/or volunteers, along with strong mentoring, coaching experience to lead a team with diverse levels of expertise.
Experience working for a not-for-profit organization highly desired.
Skills
An ability to be both a visionary/strategic thinker -and- a detail-oriented implementer. Possessing the skills to both imagine new ideas/concepts and identify/build the parts and pieces needed to deliver results is a key requirement for this position.
Undeniable creativity, visualization and messaging skills, and the proven ability to conceptualize creative marketing, advertising, promotion concepts, visual products that achieve intended, measurable results and ability to execute and bring to fruition such deliverables.
A keen eye for aesthetics, balance, spatial reasoning, intuition, and UI/UX required.
Knowledge and skills in information technology (IT) ranging from databases, APIs, CRMs (such as Hubspot, DonorPerfect or Salesforce), content delivery tools (such as SendGrid and Twilio), and backend tools, including WordPress.
Experience with creative design tools, such as InDesign, Canva, Photoshop; Vimeo, Lightroom and more.
Knowledge of the full array of search tools and social media platforms, ranging from Google and YouTube to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and X.
Proven project management ability to articulate, communicate, organize and direct projects in entirety, from creative conceptualization to copywriting, imagery, design layout, production and distribution, and experience using tools such as Trello.
Proven ability to use analytics and data to inform changes to marketing and advertising concepts in order to drive intended results and experience using tools such as Google Analytics, Lucky Orange, PowerBI and more.
Exceptional written (with an acute attention to grammar, punctuation and sentence structure), oral, interpersonal, and presentation skills along with ability to leverage AI tools appropriately.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills to work effectively with other departments, staffers, consultants, councils/committees and volunteers.