Director, Marketing & Advertising

Endicott College•Evanston, IL

1d•$90,000 - $100,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Director of Marketing & Advertising serves as a strategic leader within Endicott College Communications & Marketing and partners with academic and enrollment leaders across the College. Reporting to the Assistant Vice President of Communications & Marketing, the Director develops integrated marketing and advertising strategies to strengthen the College’s market position, increase visibility of undergraduate and graduate academic offerings, and advance enrollment and auxiliary revenue goals. The Director leads advertising strategy across digital and traditional channels, ensuring investments align with institutional priorities, market conditions, data, and defined measures of success. The role establishes positioning frameworks, audience strategies, value propositions, and campaign plans across advertising, web, print, digital, recruitment communications, and content. In partnership with enrollment and marketing colleagues, the Director stewards undergraduate and graduate enrollment marketing and leads major initiatives from strategy through implementation and assessment. The Director supervises the Brand Manager, setting priorities, overseeing work, providing coaching and performance feedback, supporting professional development, conducting performance evaluations, and participating in hiring and onboarding as appropriate. The position also involves attending and supporting major College events, including Commencement and Homecoming, and may require occasional evening and weekend work.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, or a related field.
At least 7 years of progressively responsible experience in marketing, advertising, or integrated marketing.
Demonstrated ability to develop comprehensive marketing strategies informed by organizational goals, audience insights, market opportunities, and data.
Significant experience developing and managing advertising campaigns across digital and traditional channels, with knowledge of paid media, audience targeting, SEO/SEM, conversion strategy, and campaign optimization.
Experience developing positioning, audience, value proposition, competitive differentiation, and go-to-market frameworks.
Demonstrated ability to establish KPIs, analyze marketing performance, and turn data into actionable recommendations.
Experience managing agencies, media partners, vendors, marketing budgets, and complex cross-functional initiatives.
Strong consultative, interpersonal, presentation, and communication skills, including the ability to build trusted relationships across diverse teams and senior leaders.
Ability to work occasional evenings and weekends to support major College events and institutional priorities.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Experience in higher education, enrollment marketing, or another complex, mission-driven organization.
Experience marketing multiple programs, products, services, or audience segments with differing goals and customer journeys.
Experience identifying content and creative asset needs and providing strategic direction for video, photography, and other marketing production.
Experience working with CRM, marketing automation, analytics, and/or enrollment management platforms.
Experience supporting revenue-generating initiatives, events, venues, or other consumer-facing offerings.
Experience supervising, mentoring, or developing marketing professionals.
Familiarity with higher education enrollment trends, prospective student behavior, and the evolving digital marketing landscape.

Responsibilities

Develop and lead annual and long-term marketing strategies advancing College priorities such as enrollment, institutional visibility, engagement, and revenue growth.
Partner with College leaders to identify marketing opportunities, define audiences and objectives, and determine suitable strategies and resources.
Translate institutional goals into marketing plans specifying audiences, positioning, messaging, channels, investment, timelines, and success measures.
Lead marketing strategy for major College initiatives, coordinating advertising, brand, creative, content, web, social media, and communications as appropriate.
Evaluate marketing requests and opportunities based on institutional priorities, audience needs, revenue or enrollment potential, available resources, and expected impact.
Monitor market conditions, audience behavior, competitive activity, and marketing trends to inform College strategy and identify opportunities.
Lead advertising strategy across digital and traditional channels, including collaboration with an external agency on paid search, paid social, and digital display, and direct oversight of out-of-home, print, broadcast, and other advertising opportunities.
Manage advertising agencies, media partners, vendors, and other external marketing relationships.
Establish campaign KPIs and reporting frameworks; communicate performance, insights, and recommendations to College leadership and campus partners.
Ensure paid campaigns have effective creative, content, web experiences, and conversion pathways.
Evaluate advertising channels, partnerships, sponsorships, and promotional opportunities for audience fit, institutional goals, cost, and expected return.
Lead integrated marketing strategy for undergraduate and graduate enrollment in partnership with Enrollment Management and academic leadership.
Develop annual undergraduate and graduate marketing plans based on enrollment goals, priority audiences, market opportunity, program demand, and performance data.
Develop strategies for new and priority academic programs, including audience identification, positioning, value propositions, competitive differentiation, launch strategy, and campaign planning.
Coordinate with Undergraduate Admission, Graduate Enrollment, academic leaders, and College Communications & Marketing colleagues to align advertising, recruitment communications, web, print, digital, and content across the prospective-student journey.
Use enrollment and marketing data to recommend adjustments to targeting, investment, channels, messaging, creative, and conversion strategies.
Assess whether the College has the content, creative assets, web experiences, and audience pathways needed to support marketing priorities.
Partner with creative, social, web, content, video, and photography teams to identify asset gaps and prioritize development.
Audit the College’s marketing and enrollment web presence and recommend pages, landing pages, content improvements, audience pathways, calls to action, and other enhancements.
Ensure major marketing initiatives have the content and digital infrastructure needed to move audiences from awareness to action.
Attend and support major College events, including Commencement, Homecoming, and other all-hands-on-deck gatherings; model commitment to community engagement.
Supervise the Brand Manager, including setting priorities, assigning and overseeing work, coaching, providing performance feedback, supporting professional development, conducting evaluations, and participating in hiring and onboarding as appropriate.
Perform other duties as assigned.