Senior Marketing Manager

The Morton Arboretum is a globally recognized, tree-focused botanical garden near Chicago in Lisle, Illinois. Welcoming more than a million visitors each year, it is seeking an experienced Senior Marketing Manager in our Marketing & Guest Experience division. In this role, you’ll be a mission-driven leader dedicated to advancing the Arboretum’s vision through strategic audience development and integrated marketing campaigns. You will help drive earned revenue and paid attendance for a variety of public programs and exhibits, working closely with external partners as a central point of contact. You will help lead the Marketing team to achieve institutional goals by focusing on digital-first campaign planning, leveraging data insights to inform and optimize marketing tactics for maximum impact and efficiency.

Location:  Hybrid (The Morton Arboretum, Lisle IL) 

Position Summary: 

Serve as a key goal-oriented leader who is passionate about advancing the Arboretum’s mission, vision, and strategic plan through audience development and marketing campaigns. Contribute towards team goals of meeting earned revenue and paid attendance goals and supporting sales for a range of public programs and exhibits. As a primary point of contact for external partners,  oversee integrated marketing campaigns with a digital focus to support new audience acquisition. Analyze and implement data insights to optimize marketing campaigns to maximum effectiveness and efficiency.

Essential Functions: 

• Act as the lead contact for advertising agencies and partners, in concert with the Director of Marketing. 

• In collaboration with the Director of Marketing, develop omni-channel marketing plans that support organizational and revenue objectives. Ensure the latest advances in technology are implemented into advertising campaigns, especially as related to AI.

• Develop creative briefs in support of marketing plans for both internal and external partners to identify clear goals and deliverables.

• Work with the Director of Marketing to prepare the annual marketing budget. Responsible for budget management of each campaign and ensuring maximum value on advertising spend. Monitor and manage expenses, working with the Marketing Specialist. 

• Lead a team to produce campaign deliverables ensuring timely review and delivery.

Collaborate with in-house creative teams spanning design, videography, social media, and brand marketing to bring marketing plans and campaigns to life.

• Manage email schedule, production timelines, and implement strategy. Review advertising, email, and web copy, with occasional copywriting and other content production as needed. 

• Ensure brand standards and brand communication strategies are consistently maintained and applied through all touch points and communication platforms.

• Develop and analyze sales/attendance patterns and pacing, campaign results, and ticket sales history to provide actionable insights and recommendations. Build and generate reports and dashboards to track key performance indicators (KPIs) including but not limited to visitation data, public programs, return on advertising spend, and more.

• Demonstrate alignment with the Arboretum’s employee core values.

• Other duties as assigned.
  
  

Supervisory Responsibilities: 

• May serve in a supervisory capacity of one or more employees, providing leadership guidance and communicating the organization's goals. This includes: 

  • Hiring, training, coaching and developing team members, by providing recognition and feedback, and evaluating performance 

  • Ensuring that team members adhere to the Arboretum’s policies and procedures, and maintaining a safe and compliant work environment 

  • Building and maintaining positive working relationships with team members, colleagues, and other stakeholders to foster a collaborative and supportive work environment 

Qualifications: 

Bachelor’s degree required. 5+ years professional marketing experience required, marketing agency experience a plus. Strong analytical and problem-solving skills required. Salesforce or other CRM database experience desired. Comfortable leveraging large amounts of data to drive decisions and a passion for continuous testing and optimization. Demonstrated experience in digital marketing with understanding of digital advertising, marketing/sales funnel, data analytics, performance measurements, deep knowledge of social media, and A/B testing. Strong integrated marketing background with experience and knowledge to manage marketing mix on digital marketing and direct response including email, print, content, social media, video ads, programmatic, mobile, PPC/SEM as well as traditional advertising, OOH, TV, radio, etc. Strong marketing copywriting skills and experience writing creative briefs. Experience with implementing AI into marketing campaigns. Ability to act independently, take initiative, and meet changing priorities in a fast-paced environment.  

Success Factors: 

Positive attitude with the ability to work to deadlines in a fast-paced environment. Curiosity about new communication channels and opportunities, as well as the trends that inform them. Emphasis on teamwork and supporting others. Confident, comfortable public demeanor with strong verbal skills. Detail-oriented, flexible, and self-directed. Ability to balance creative and strategic thinking, and sustain complex collaborations. Customer service oriented with the ability to relate effectively with persons internal and external to the Arboretum. Demonstrated excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and management skills to interact with staff, colleagues, leadership, agencies and cross-functional teams. Successful experience working in, and contributing to, a collaborative, team environment. 

Physical Demands and Work Environment: 

The physical demands and work environment characteristics described here are representative

of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions. 

• Physical Demands: Requires some physical activity: it is necessary to operate a computer for prolonged periods on a daily basis, limited carrying and lifting (up to 25 lbs.), some local travel. 

• Work Environment: Office environment. Work is performed primarily indoors, with some outdoors or offsite activity for public events. 

• Equipment: General office equipment, digital camera, tablets, scanner.

• Schedule: Position may require occasional weekend or evening hours. 

The expected hiring range for this position is annualized at $77,000-$87,000 based on experience that will be evaluated during the candidate selection process. We believe in the importance of pay equity and consider the internal equity of our current team members as a part of the final offer. This position is also eligible for a competitive benefits package 

For full consideration, please submit a resume and cover letter.

The Morton Arboretum is a champion for diversity, supporting a culture of inclusion that attracts, inspires, and engages people to achieve success.  The Arboretum is committed to hire and develop employees based on job-related qualifications irrespective of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or veteran status.  To increase diversity in professions related to the public garden realm, we encourage applications from underrepresented minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans.  

The Morton Arboretum is dedicated to complying with our obligations as an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.  All applicants are guaranteed equal consideration for employment.