Director of Marketing & Brand Strategy

University of Illinois Springfield•Springfield, IL

20h

About The Position

The Director of Marketing & Brand Strategy serves as the University of Illinois Springfield’s chief marketing strategist and institutional brand steward. The role leads integrated marketing, brand positioning, and audience engagement strategies that advance enrollment, strengthen reputation, and elevate institutional visibility. The Director provides university-wide strategic leadership for brand management, market positioning, and enrollment marketing across first-year, transfer, graduate, online, and adult learner audiences. Working with campus leadership and stakeholders, the Director uses market intelligence, audience insights, and performance data to identify growth opportunities, strengthen UIS’s competitive position, and communicate the university’s value. The position oversees an in-house marketing and creative team, directs external agency partnerships, and advises university leadership on enrollment marketing, institutional positioning, reputation, and audience engagement. It also monitors marketing trends, technologies, and audience behavior, translating emerging tools, channels, and strategies into measurable organizational results. The Director leads enrollment and institutional marketing strategy, serves as steward of the university brand, manages strategic agency and vendor partnerships, supervises marketing staff and student workers, represents the Office of Marketing & Brand Strategy on institutional initiatives, and manages the office’s annual budget and return on investment. The role is based at the University of Illinois Springfield. The position is intended to be eligible for benefits, including health, dental, vision, and life insurance, a retirement plan, paid time off, and tuition waivers for employees and dependents.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, or a related field.
At least 7 years of progressive marketing leadership experience, with a proven track record in higher education enrollment marketing or multidisciplinary agency environments.
Demonstrated success developing and leading integrated marketing initiatives that produced measurable results, such as enrollment growth, lead generation, student yield, audience engagement, brand awareness, or market expansion.
Ability to anticipate and adapt to evolving marketing trends, technologies, and consumer behaviors, using emerging strategies and innovative tactics to achieve enrollment, engagement, and brand reputation goals.
Experience evaluating and implementing new marketing approaches while balancing creativity, data, ROI, and organizational objectives.
Experience using CRM, enrollment, web, advertising, and audience data to evaluate marketing effectiveness across the enrollment funnel and inform budget and strategy decisions.
Direct experience leading or operationalizing a major brand refresh or institutional positioning campaign within a complex, matrixed organization.
Expertise in brand strategy, digital marketing, audience engagement, and integrated multichannel campaign development.
Experience writing and editing effective, audience-centered creative copy for digital advertising, outdoor advertising, websites, and other marketing materials.
Ability to communicate complex marketing insights and strategic recommendations to executive leaders and diverse stakeholder groups.
Proven record of supervising creative staff, such as graphic designers and photographers, and managing external vendor contracts.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree.
Higher education experience.
Familiarity with the Drupal content management system and Slate.
Experience managing contracted external partners and vendors.

Responsibilities

Lead university enrollment marketing strategy in partnership with Enrollment and Retention Management, developing data-informed integrated strategies to attract, convert, and yield priority student populations.
Partner with academic programs to assess market demand, competitive positioning, and enrollment opportunities for existing, revised, and new academic programs, and develop strategies that support institutional priorities and sustainable program growth.
Execute brand-building marketing tactics to advance institutional awareness and reputation among critical audience segments.
Use analytics and campaign performance, including yield trends, audience segmentation, web traffic, and media conversion data, to inform marketing strategy and budget allocation.
Use market research, audience data, and competitor analysis to identify opportunities, refine messages, and strengthen the UIS brand and enrollment outcomes.
Cultivate community and corporate partnerships that extend institutional visibility and brand engagement.
Serve as the university’s brand steward and lead strategist for brand rollouts, visual identity refreshes, and positioning strategies.
Establish, maintain, and enforce institutional brand guidelines, logo architecture, messaging frameworks, and brand standards across academic colleges, administrative units, and external marketing touchpoints.
Manage logo trademarking requirements and licensing permissions.
Identify opportunities to extend the UIS brand through thought leadership, content marketing, and other organic marketing approaches.
Develop brand strategies to strengthen UIS reputation and visibility among prospective students, families, alumni, employers, community leaders, policymakers, and other priority stakeholders.
Manage external agency and vendor partnerships, setting expectations and ensuring effective collaboration and high-quality, timely deliverables aligned with university goals and contracts.
Supervise and lead a marketing team of five full-time employees and one to two student workers, setting responsibilities and performance expectations and supporting professional development and accountability.
Partner with Department of Strategic Communications directors and Office of Admissions Recruitment colleagues to integrate and cross-amplify enrollment campaigns and brand initiatives.
Represent the Office of Marketing & Brand Strategy on institutional committees, task forces, and strategic initiatives.
Collaborate with enrollment management, advancement, athletics, academic affairs, and other university units to align marketing initiatives with institutional goals.
Translate market intelligence into actionable recommendations for university leadership.
Manage the annual Marketing & Brand Strategy budget, keep expenses within allocated funding, and track and demonstrate ROI for marketing investments.
Perform other duties as assigned.