Marketing Specialist

Gophermods•Minneapolis, MN

17d•$70,000 - $80,000•Onsite

About The Position

We’re hiring our first dedicated Marketing Specialist, a senior generalist (3–6 years hands-on) ready to take full ownership from the ground up as a mini head of marketing. This isn't plugging into an established team or playbook; it's creating one. You’ve run end-to-end marketing before: built campaigns, worked tradeshows, written content, pulled and reported on data, set up tools, and iterated based on real feedback. You’re excited to build from scratch, not intimidated by it. You’ll report directly to the CEO and represent the brand at tradeshows and in the field. In your first year, you’ll lay the foundation, prove measurable ROI, run a full tradeshow cycle with clear learnings, and make the case to grow the marketing team positioning yourself to lead it. Your mission: Build a measurable marketing engine that drives: Brand awareness and expansion among existing K-12 clients (lifecycle marketing for additional offerings). Net-new demand in the K-12 public sector, primarily through field marketing (tradeshows), direct mail, and digital marketing tactics. We sell to busy K–12 IT Directors, Technology Coordinators, and district administrators, where sales cycles are long and influenced by peers, budget cycles, and credibility. Trust and a clear “make my life easier” value are everything. Your job is to cut through the noise with practical, useful offers like checklists, assessments, audits, and case studies while working at the decision maker's pace. As we scale, you’ll also help support shorter-cycle SMB tech services.

Requirements

3–6 years of hands-on marketing experience across multiple channels including content, email, social media, events, and SEO
Demonstrated ability to build and use marketing measurement frameworks, with fluency in metrics like CAC, ROAS, LTV, and MQL-to-SQL conversion rates
Experience developing buyer personas from real research not just templates including direct customer or market interviews
Experience working tradeshows or industry events with the ability to manage booth strategy, engage attendees, and iterate in real time
Generalist-level SEO knowledge including on-page fundamentals, content strategy for search, and basic EAT understanding
Experience evaluating and implementing marketing technology tools including CRM, email and marketing automation platforms, analytics, and social media management
Experience creating or contributing to content and thought leadership strategies
Strong presentation and communication skills with the ability to deliver clearly and confidently to both external audiences and executive leadership
Comfort and enthusiasm for being the external face of the brand
A genuine, demonstrable orientation toward data-informed decision making not just as a line on a resume but as a working practice

Nice To Haves

Experience marketing in K-12 education, edtech, or public sector environments
Experience with local or SMB service marketing
Familiarity with B2B demand generation programs and longer sales cycles
Experience mentoring, training, or onboarding junior team members
Participation in professional marketing development such as the Inbound conference or similar
Experience with Pipedrive is a plus

Responsibilities

Auditing and activating existing marketing assets (CRM, website, email list, social accounts)
Managing and optimizing the marketing tech stack; identifying and implementing tools that work well together
Building the foundation for a marketing department that will grow alongside the company
Developing and refining K–12 buyer personas through research, interviews, and collaboration with sales/leadership
Creating and managing a thought leadership content strategy that builds credibility and supports long sales cycles
Planning and executing campaigns across email, content, social, SEO, and paid media (as appropriate)
Representing the company at 3–4 tradeshows/industry events per year, including booth strategy, attendee engagement, and post-event follow-up/reporting
Building and maintaining a measurement framework with clear KPIs and regular reporting to the CEO
Tracking/reporting key metrics (MQLs, pipeline influence, CAC, conversion rates)
Partnering closely with the CEO and sales team to align marketing with business goals and revenue targets