Description

Position Title: Director of Marketing Strategy & Operations
Department/Program: Marketing & Enrollment Mgmt 62200
# of Openings 1
Work Location: Hybrid On-Site/Remote
Campus Location: Arapahoe Campus
Reports to: Vice President, Enrollment Management & Marketing
FLSA Classification: Exempt/Salaried
FTE: 100% (40 hrs/week)
Compensation: $75,000-$85,000 annually DOE

Application deadline 9/30 or until filled

Job Summary
The Director of Marketing Strategy & Operations provides strategic and operational leadership for Naropa University's enrollment marketing, digital marketing, website strategy, marketing technology, analytics, vendor relationships, project management, and integrated communications planning.

The Director leads the Strategy, Operations & Communications functional area within Enrollment Management & Marketing and is responsible for ensuring that the University's marketing investments, campaigns, systems, and team capacity are aligned with institutional priorities and measurable enrollment outcomes.

Working closely with the Vice President of Enrollment Management & Marketing, the Director translates University enrollment goals into integrated marketing strategies, campaign plans, audience strategies, channel plans, and measurable objectives. The Director serves as a key connector among Marketing, Admissions, Financial Aid, Registrar, Academic Affairs, external agencies, technology partners, and other institutional stakeholders.

In close partnership with the Director of Brand & Editorial, the Director establishes the strategic brief, audience, objectives, channels, timelines, resources, and measures of success for major initiatives, while Brand & Editorial translates those priorities into compelling content and creative experiences.

The Director must be a strategic thinker and highly organized operator who is comfortable moving between enrollment strategy, analytics, digital marketing, technology, project management, vendor leadership, and cross-functional collaboration.

Job Duties & Responsibilities

Enrollment Marketing Strategy
• Develop and execute integrated marketing strategies that support University enrollment goals, academic program priorities, institutional reputation, and long-term enrollment sustainability.
• Translate enrollment objectives into actionable marketing plans, audience strategies, campaigns, channel recommendations, timelines, budgets, and measurable outcomes.
• Partner with Admissions, Financial Aid, Registrar, Academic Affairs, and other stakeholders to understand prospective student needs and identify opportunities to improve the enrollment journey.
• Develop strategic marketing briefs that establish objectives, target audiences, key messages, channels, deliverables, timelines, and measures of success.
• Support development and implementation of annual and multi-year Strategic Enrollment Marketing plans.
• Lead go-to-market planning for new academic programs, program changes, enrollment initiatives, and other institutional priorities.

Digital Marketing & Campaign Management
• Lead strategy for paid digital marketing, search, display, social advertising, email marketing, organic search, and other appropriate enrollment marketing channels.
• Manage external advertising agencies and digital marketing partners, establishing expectations, performance measures, reporting requirements, and accountability.
• Partner with Brand & Editorial to develop campaign messaging, creative assets, landing pages, content, and other campaign materials.
• Monitor campaign performance and make data-informed recommendations regarding audience, channel, creative, investment, and strategy.
• Identify opportunities for testing and experimentation and establish processes for learning from results and applying findings to future campaigns.
• Ensure marketing investments are aligned with enrollment priorities and produce measurable institutional value.
Website Strategy & Governance
• Provide strategic oversight of Naropa's website as a critical enrollment, marketing, communications, and institutional resource.
• Set website priorities based on prospective student needs, enrollment goals, analytics, SEO/AEO, accessibility, and institutional priorities.
• Provide strategic direction to the team member responsible for day-to-day website management and oversee key external web and technology partners.
• Partner with the Director of Brand & Editorial on website storytelling, content, voice, and creative expression.
• Establish website governance and use performance insights to prioritize improvements to the prospective student experience, engagement, and conversion.

Marketing Operations & Project Management
• Serve as the senior operational lead for the Marketing team, providing direction and decision-making support for priorities, capacity, resources, and competing demands.
• Empower and partner with the Marketing Production Manager to lead day-to-day project management, workflows, timelines, coordination, and team accountability.
• Establish departmental priorities, planning rhythms, project intake standards, and prioritization frameworks in partnership with the Marketing Production Manager and Director of Brand & Editorial.
• Lead annual, quarterly, and 90-day planning, ensuring strategic priorities translate into clear and achievable work plans.
• Serve as an escalation point when competing priorities, capacity constraints, or cross-functional needs require additional direction or resolution.
• Identify opportunities to improve processes, reduce manual work, and strengthen operational effectiveness across Enrollment Management & Marketing.

Analytics, Measurement & Insights
• Establish and maintain a comprehensive marketing measurement framework aligned with enrollment objectives.
• Develop dashboards and reporting that connect marketing activity with prospective student behavior and enrollment funnel outcomes.
• Partner with Admissions and other Enrollment Management teams to understand inquiry, application, admission, deposit, enrollment, and other relevant funnel metrics.
• Establish KPIs and measures of success before major initiatives and campaigns are launched.
• Translate marketing and enrollment data into actionable insights for team members, University leadership, and institutional partners.
• Promote a culture of strategic testing, learning, optimization, and evidence-based decision-making.
• Partner with institutional research, technology, enrollment, and external partners as needed to strengthen data quality and reporting.

Vendor, Budget & Resource Management
• Manage major marketing vendor and agency relationships, contracts, scopes of work, deliverables, timelines, and performance.
• Support the Vice President in developing and managing the Enrollment Marketing budget.
• Regularly evaluate vendor performance, costs, capabilities, and institutional needs and recommend opportunities for consolidation, renegotiation, transition, or investment.
• Monitor invoices, expenditures, commitments, and budget performance in partnership with appropriate University offices.
• Ensure responsible stewardship of University marketing resources and maximize the impact of available investments.
• Maintain documentation of contracts, renewal dates, deliverables, and vendor performance.

Strategic & Institutional Communications
• Coordinate integrated communications planning for major enrollment, institutional, and cross-campus initiatives.
• Partner with Brand & Editorial to ensure strategic messaging is translated consistently across channels and audiences.
• Establish communication plans that clarify audiences, objectives, timing, channels, ownership, and desired actions.
• Support executive, institutional, crisis, and change communications as assigned by the Vice President of Enrollment Management & Marketing.
• Coordinate with institutional stakeholders to ensure timely, accurate, and aligned communications regarding programs, enrollment initiatives, deadlines, and other priority information.

Cross-Functional Partnership
• Serve as a primary Marketing liaison to Admissions, Financial Aid, Registrar, Academic Affairs, Information Technology, and other institutional partners.
• Establish recurring feedback loops and data-sharing practices between Marketing and enrollment-facing teams.
• Facilitate collaborative planning to ensure Marketing understands stakeholder needs while maintaining clear ownership, priorities, and capacity.
• Develop transparent processes for submitting, evaluating, prioritizing, and communicating the status of marketing requests.
• Strengthen understanding across the University of Marketing's role, resources, priorities, processes, and impact.

Leadership & Team Development
• Lead, coach, and develop members of the Strategy, Operations & Communications team.
• Establish clear expectations, accountability, operating rhythms, and measures of success.
• Foster a culture of curiosity, experimentation, evidence-based decision-making, responsible stewardship, and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with the Director of Brand & Editorial to ensure Strategy, Operations & Communications and Content, Creative & Community function as an integrated team rather than separate silos.
• Support the Vice President of Enrollment Management & Marketing with departmental planning, strategic initiatives, resource allocation, organizational development, and other priorities as assigned.

What Naropa Requires...
• All job candidates must hold a commitment to co-create a diverse and inclusive community and actively participate in related JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) professional development regarding the dynamics of privilege and oppression and the impact these have in the workplace.
• All job candidates must demonstrate their level of understanding of the dynamics of privilege and oppression, and the impact these have on equity, access, and opportunity.
• All job candidates must demonstrate an appropriate level of understanding of and appreciation for the values of Naropa University and the capacity to demonstrate an integration and embodiment of these values as evidenced in work, communication, collaboration styles, and other general workplace behaviors.

Educational requirement:
• Bachelors degree, Masters preferred

Minimum length of prior applicable professional experience required:
• Minimum of five (5) years of prior applicable experience in communications, content creation, and managing creative teams.

Minimum Experience, Knowledge, Skills, and/or Competencies Required:
• Excellent writing and copyediting skills, including experience working with style guides.
• Strong knowledge of SEO and crafting content to increase organic search.
• Comfortable in content management platforms, specifically Wordpress and SharePoint.
• Stays up to date in trends in SEO, social media, and digital content distribution.
• Is known within a network of media editors, journalists, bloggers, and content syndicators.
• Experience working on Naropa's social platforms (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest) and others with potential to assist Naropa (Discord, TikTok, Reddit, etc.).
• Strong working knowledge of standard office procedures and productivity software such as Microsoft Office, MS Teams, and various video conferencing platforms.

Qualifications Naropa Would Prefer in Candidates for this Position
• Experience managing photographers, videographers, and podcasters
• Ability to use marketing analytics to guide content development decisions
• Experience managing creative teams
• Minimum required length of experience with Bachelor's degree in related field

Naropa recognizes the following holidays throughout the year: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Fall Break, 4th Thursday and Friday in November, and Winter Break, the last two weeks in December encompassing the Christmas holiday as well as New Year's.

Naropa's health and welfare benefits include the following: medical, dental, vision, FSA, HSA, employer-paid short-term and long-term disability, employer-paid life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment, an employer-sponsored pre-tax retirement savings plan, and a variety of voluntary, employee-paid supplemental insurance plans.

A comprehensive benefits package is available to full-time employees who work a minimum of 30 hours each week. Employees who work 20 - 29 hours each week are eligible for only the employer-paid short-term & long-term disability, employer-paid life insurance & accidental death and dismemberment, and the retirement plan.

Employees who work fewer than 20 hours per week are eligible to participate in Naropa's retirement plan only.

All regular full-time and part-time faculty and staff, including student workers, accrue sick leave benefits. Full-time and part-time staff positions accrue vacation and personal time. All leave accrual rates vary based on the position, hours worked, and years of service.

The University recognizes the importance of including its employees in its organizational mission and values and welcomes employees into the classroom to "touch the magic." Specifically, regular employees are provided generous tuition remission opportunities for themselves and their family members.

Naropa University participates in the Council of Independent Colleges Tuition Exchange Program (CIC-TEP). CIC-TEP is a network of CIC colleges and universities willing to accept, tuition-free, students from families of full-time employees of other CIC participating institutions (full-time as designated by the employer/institution). Additional information can be found here: https://www.cic.edu/member-services/tuition-exchange-program.

Naropa University is an equal opportunity, non-discriminatory employer and Title IX is a federal civil rights law that prohibits gender discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual and relationship violence. This law applies to all students, faculty, and staff.

JOB CODE: AY2627 0043