General Statement of Duties

The Associate Vice President (AVP) for Marketing oversees a multifaceted, interdisciplinary marketing organization that manages the university's brand and produces institutional marketing campaigns and programs. The position is responsible for overseeing the planning, development, and execution of university marketing and promotional initiatives, generating revenue by achieving enrollment, fundraising, and auxiliary business objectives. This position works closely with the Chief Marketing Officer along with other unit and institutional leaders to direct the university's marketing vision and strategy and oversees an organization of centralized professionals and managers. The AVP also works closely with non-reports; embedded and constituent-based, across the university, providing best practice support, guidance, education, and training on integrated marketing principles across both traditional and modern marketing platforms. This position supervises the Creative and Digital Content Team, the Brand Marketing and Strategy Team, and the Social Media Team, and works collaboratively with the Web Strategy Team & Development Team,  and Integrated Marketing, Technology and Analytic team to execute best of breed outcomes that meet and exceed marketing and brand management goals and objectives tied directly to Rowan’s mission to provide high quality, accessible and affordable education, and to serve as an economic catalyst to our region and state.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree, preferably with a specialization in marketing, advertising, journalism, and/or business management or related field. Ten years of related marketing and business development experience in positions of increasing responsibility in marketing, web and brand management, and preferably within higher education.

• Eight years of experience in a leadership role with a hands-on collaborative style with cross-disciplinary direct reports and/or teams. Experience with building brand awareness and internal support.

• Experience brainstorming ideas and concepts for marketing campaigns and recommending solutions within the context of an institutional brand, communication, and marketing strategy.

• Evidence of creative and ambitious leadership style with a track record for leading both strategic and tactical marketing outcomes. Demonstrated highly collaborative work style, with experience that demonstrates relationship-building, consensus-building, flexibility, and managing through influencing.

• Expert-level knowledge of marketing principles, brand development and management, website management, CMS experience, strategic marketing campaigns, market research, revenue generation, target audience development, social media management, and team building. Advanced experience with traditional and digital marketing and communications functions, channels, and activities.

• Ability to interpret large amounts of data in a multi-tasked environment.

• Possession of exceptional verbal and written communications skills and compelling and impactful presentation abilities.

• Ability to motivate and inspire creative, communication, and marketing teams as well as colleagues, constituents, leaders, and governance boards.

• Demonstrated experience managing and executing creative projects across multiple communications and marketing channels and media. Demonstrated ability to work independently and entrepreneurially, creating, developing and implementing new initiatives.

• Evidence of a leadership style that produces high quality deliverables with meticulous attention to detail. Demonstrated ability to be a metrics-driven and results-oriented manager with excellent analytical skills. Ability to provide quick turnaround and updates for multiple requests while maintaining high quality work. Must be able to perform successfully in a fast-paced, intellectually intense, and service-oriented environment.

• Significant experience orchestrating successful outcomes and navigating political dynamics within a complex organization. Ability to adjust to changing demands and shifting priorities.

• Ability to work evenings and weekends to support major project deadlines or initiatives as needed.

• Demonstrated competency with common office productivity software suites (including Microsoft Office), creative production software (including Adobe Creative Suite), email marketing tools, social media management tools, and web content management systems. 

• Ability to perform the essential functions of the position, with or without reasonable accommodation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree.

• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in applying the principles of integrated marketing in higher education to support recruitment efforts and advance our brand.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Defines marketing strategies that direct, drive, and support the university's marketing goals and objectives. This includes developing, evolving, and propagating a compelling, memorable, and impactful brand platform and supportive marketing strategies that position the university to accomplish its presidential and strategic goals.

• Builds, develops, directs, and oversees the integrated marketing and digital strategy teams; this includes but is not limited to setting objectives, managing budgets, monitoring performance, and assessing outcomes.

• Cultivates a service-oriented team environment that fosters collaboration, transparency, teamwork, flexibility, and creativity. This includes coaching team members to maximize creativity, productivity, and effectiveness.

• Reviews, edits, and approves the university's most visible and strategic marketing plans, marketing content, and marketing assets (including print, digital assets, web, streaming radio, television, cable and OTT/CTV) and ensures a high-level of quality control, content appropriateness, voice, tone, brand platform alignment, and that target objectives are considered, reflected, and achieved.

• Sets and achieves strategic goals and key performance indicators for university and unit-specific visibility and revenue generation. Collaborates with the deans of the colleges, enrollment (undergraduate, graduate and online), advancement, and alternative revenue units to measure performance, investment returns, and accomplishment of intended outcomes.

• Oversees all marketing activities across a matrix of complex priorities, schedules, deliverables, and outcomes.

• Negotiates, reviews, and recommends contracts with external partners to maximize revenue generation and visibility opportunities. Determines and deploys best-practice marketing policies, standards, and guidelines and collaborate with university departments to ensure integration, adherence, compliance, and advancement toward university strategic goals.

• Streamlines marketing processes to realize cost savings and scales of economy.

• Reviews, synthesizes, and shares marketplace trends, data, and evidence-driven models to drive strategic decisions across the institution, including strategic planning, academic program development, philanthropic efforts, enrollment activities, and/or other institutional development efforts.

• Builds consensus to position the university to maximize its strengths and address opportunities and weaknesses.

• Serves as the senior architect of the university's brand by ensuring it is effective and able to accomplish its primary objectives of: elevating and solidifying Rowan's reputation; attracting and retaining best-fit students, faculty, and staff; increasing engagement among alumni, friends, and donors; supporting revenue generation streams; providing credibility for new offerings and programs; supporting fundraising activities; creating differentiation; shaping the university around its recognized strengths and forward-looking vision; improving institutional efficiency by supporting an internal culture of evidence-based planning and decision-making; and positioning the university optimally when confronted with economic downturns and/or public perception crises.

• Cultivates relationships with strategic advertising, promotions, and activation partners and firms and executes strategies that result in lead generation, target audience engagement, increased visibility, driving awareness and choice, and enhanced clout. As a relationship connector, finds, develops and maximizes relationships that broaden Rowan's reach and impact.

• Leads the university's social media platforms’ content planning, development, and calendar.

• Develops and executes campaigns that empower constituents to spread brand messages virally and increase the quality of fans, followers, champions, and ambassadors.

• Oversees the analysis of customized reports, dashboards and executive summaries through compelling, easy to understand images and data, providing transparency and insight for university partners into the work of the team and the outcomes thereof.

• Recommends, directs, and analyzes market research which may include audience analysis, segmentation, and survey development to monitor and measure communications and marketing results and to ensure that goals and targets for earned, owned, shared, and paid media are achieved.

• Ensures that all teams build and maintain a working knowledge of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), etc. to continue to improve campaign performance by completing regular progress toward trainings and support offered by the department.

• Encourages a team-oriented approach to developing and uncovering actionable data insights in order to achieve strategic objectives and continuous improvement.

• Ensures that all digital analytics are integrated and accessible through meaningful, actionable, and usable dashboards. Sets department-wide standards for the utilization of dashboards to measure progress and maximize ROI.

• Supports digital marketing strategies and tactics that drive traffic to the web presence, increase effectiveness and implementation of DXP/CRM functionalities of personalization, and lead scoring, chatbot, and A/B testing.

• Leads efforts related to content marketing/content strategy and intentionally integrates the work of the Marketing team as it relates to campaign execution.

• Creates efficient processes and demonstrates effective project management to drive execution of initiatives. Develops training documents and procedures and provide training to teams as needed.

• Ensures all marketing work is consistent with the established brand guidelines and that best practices are followed in all areas of marketing work product.