Director of Communications
The Director of Communications reports to the Senior Vice President for Student Experience and Enrollment Management (SEEM), and is a key member of the SEEM leadership team working collaboratively with other division leaders and the Office of Marketing and Communications staff. The Director of Communications will play an important role in the development of high quality and data-driven communications campaigns to prospective, admitted, and current students at Saint Mary's College of California (SMC). This will include working closely with the SEEM unit leaders to create and execute communication strategies that will impact student decisions around enrollment, as well as support students in the successful completion of a SMC diploma which including the mission and ministry that makes SMC unique. It will also include collaborating with the Office of Marketing and Communications team to ensure that communications are timely and integrated into the overall SMC communications strategy.
The incumbent will design communications using cutting-edge technology and communications avenues, to implement a communications plan that serves to inform and educate clients around SMC's educational offerings, and resources to support student success. The incumbent will create recruitment and retention campaigns, create activity and assessment dashboards and reports to track results of activities. The incumbent will stay up-to-date with the latest marketing technology and educate teams on best practices. The incumbent will work with the Office of Marketing and Communications staff to ensure that SEEM's digital marketing channels (e.g., website, social media, other digital content platforms) is innovative and up-to-date to prospective/current students, campus stakeholders, and community partners as well as to new audiences.
The incumbent will play an important role in SMC's undergraduate and graduate programs current and future enrollment marketing success. The incumbent will cultivate relationships with key campus stakeholders to inspire a culture of creativity, collaboration, and innovation as part of the marketing/communications team.
The ideal candidate for this position is an energetic and passionate professional who is up-to-date with the latest marketing, advertising, social media, web communication, visual communications, and video trends. The incumbent oversees the production and implementation of communications for enrollment, housing, financial aid, mission, orientation, registrar, and student life portfolios.
Requirements
Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary liaison between SEEM and the Office of Marketing and Communications.
• In coordination with the undergraduate and graduate admissions directors, academic deans, financial aid director, leadership in Mission and Ministry, Office of the Registrar, and Student Life leadership, design, develop and execute comprehensive communication plans to support recruitment, yield and student retention efforts for all students.
• In collaboration with SEEM leadership, develop and implement a long term communications strategy that brings together all phases of the student experience to support a successful student experience.
• Prepare and maintain calendars and schedules for print and digital recruitment campaigns and communication plans.
• Work with different academic departments to collect content needed for communication plans.
• Collaborate with the graphic designer and staff in the Office of Marketing and Communications to ensure SMC branding guidelines are followed; provide feedback and work with the graphic designer to create graphics that reflect messaging to the target audience.
• Plan both ad hoc communications and drip campaigns in the CRM system.
• Expand CRM system usage across the SEEM division, coordinating the messaging to students in collaboration with other entities messaging students.
• Coordinate and create a long term communications plan for SEEM, and execute the plan appropriately.
• Create and manage reports for tracking progress and success of communications.
• Monitor email and drip campaign analytics and discuss changes needed with SEEM leadership.
• Iterate new layouts and gather ideas from stakeholders to improve user experience on SMC's recruitment and student information webpages.
• Collaborate with recruitment teams to ensure they have the content and consistent messaging they need to connect with prospects.
• Manage and implement concurrent, short-, medium-, and long-term marketing/communications plans that support SEEM goals and priorities.
• Review, manage, and support undergraduate enrollment marketing content across traditional and digital channels with content providers and edit/track for consistency, accuracy, and timeliness.
• Assist with writing and/or copyediting, upon request, relevant content for compliance, scholarships, reminders, admission letters, events and ad-hoc requests.
• Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications
Education
Required: Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, Communications
Preferred: Master's degree in Marketing, Communications, Journalism, English or related field.
Experience
Required:

• Minimum 5 years marketing/communications experience within higher education industry or related industry.
• Evidence of successful marketing/communication positions of increasing responsibility required.
• Experience managing FTE staff as well as overseeing student workers and freelancers/contractors.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively and independently.
• Self-motivated.
• Experience working collaboratively implementing marketing/communications strategies successfully.
• Ability to balance competing requests.

Preferred:

• Higher education marketing/communications preferred.
• Experience working in marketing/communications role(s) that support recruitment, enrollment management, and/or admissions activities required
• Advanced interpersonal skills to effectively communicate with a wide- ranging audience, including current/prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni, media, and outside agencies.

Other Requirements
Some travel, weekend and evening work will be required as needed.
Salary Description $107,749
To apply, visit https://recruiting.paylocity.com/Recruiting/Jobs/Details/3322775

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