Director of Marketing

Summary and Objective:

This position will exercise significant discretion and independent judgement while responsible for increasing the awareness of AFA among students interested in agricultural careers, collegiate professionals in agricultural colleges and industry executives. This awareness will lead to increased student applications for the various AFA programs and increased alumni and industry support of the AFA mission. The director will manage a team of marketing professionals who work together to support AFA’s growth, and the director will serve on the leadership team of the organization to help inform the vision and strategies of AFA.

Essential Functions:

• Lead development of a public relations and event strategy that extends the reach of AFA with executives across the various verticals in agriculture to generate prospective leads for development team to nurture to support fundraising and volunteer efforts.

• Oversee efforts to collect stakeholder feedback regarding various AFA initiatives, analyze for insight, communicate across the organization, and ensure action is taken as appropriate.

• Establish metrics, both leading and lagging indicators, to evaluate all marketing activities and monitor and report results.

• Lead and coach a marketing team to provide strategic value to the entire organization and produce results associated with awareness. Effectively plan and oversee the work produced to ensure sustainable execution. Also provide strategic counsel to team members as they execute various initiatives.

• Sponsor the development of an extensive influencer marketing program to expand the awareness of AFA among influencers including students, collegiate professionals and industry. This position will take a lead role on how to maintain relations with colleges for referral purposes.

• Collaborate closely with the Director of Programs and the team to direct the development, execution, management and measurement of promotional activities associated with increasing the number of applicants for AFA events.

• Collaborate with data and technology to ensure systems are set-up to support marketing efforts such as new web site platform, marketing automation, customer relationship management and voice of customer/stakeholder system.

• Collaborate with development team to construct a lifelong AFA journey that supports the deployment of an enriching student experience that leads to increased engagement of AFA alumni throughout their career in agriculture.

• Develop thought-leadership content and brand messaging that effectively communicates the value of AFA to various stakeholders in ways that are engaging, memorable and share worthy.

Competencies:

• Data analysis/Problem solving and root cause analysis

• Customer-focused

• Collaboration/Cross-functional teamwork

• Critical thinking/strategic thinking

• Demonstrated ability to make sound decisions

• Results driven

• Goal setting & budget management

• Excellent verbal and written communications skills

Required Education and Experience:

Minimum of 5 to 10 years of marketing communications experience with a bachelor’s in marketing, communications, public relations or related field.

• Project management

• Strategic

• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite or related software

• Computer proficiency in data management and constituent databases

• Strong supervisory, coaching and leadership

• Excellent interpersonal and customer service skills

• Project management

Preferred Education and Experience

Prefer professionals with marketing experience in non-profit, education or agriculture sectors.

Supervisory Responsibility:

This position has supervision of direct reports and indirect supervision of administrative staff. This position will occasionally be involved in recruitment, interviews, hiring and training of new team members.

Work Environment

This job operates primarily in an office environment but travel to hotels, business offices, university campuses, and conferences is common. The office environment of this role routinely uses standard office equipment such as computers, phones, photocopiers/scanners, and filing cabinets.

Physical Demands

While performing the duties of this job, and subject to request for reasonable accommodations, the employee is regularly required to communicate with others and exchange information with internal and external constituents.

The employee frequently is required to remain in a stationary position 80% of the time, constantly operates a computer or other office productivity machinery, move or position equipment weighing up to 5 pounds periodically.

Because travel is frequent and this role represents the organization at other conferences, ability to transport personal belongings and organizational promotion material for travel, with reasonable accommodation, is necessary.

Position Type/Regular Hours of Work

This is a full-time position, and regular hours of work and days are Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. This position will be expected to work some evenings and weekends corresponding to organizational programs and other stakeholder events.

Travel

Travel is primarily local during the business day, although out-of-area and overnight travel is expected including weekend program attendance. Travel averages 10 - 20%.

Apply

Please send your cover letter and resume via the email provided.