Marketing Director

About Us

mdg, A Freeman Company is a marketing agency with head, heart and a passion for what we do – delivering measurable results for live event clients in diverse categories like education, healthcare, technology, alternative energy, gummy bears, woodfired pizza, and craft beer (we’ll explain those last three later).

The Marketing Director serves as the primary day‑to‑day contact for his/her clients. More than a project manager, this position is responsible for providing leadership and strategic guidance as well as ensuring the profitability and success of multiple clients’ campaigns. The account director is responsible for the development and execution of highly creative and effective marketing solutions for the client. This person will work with his/her account strategist and agency specialists to ensure that the clients’ needs are met by monitoring and guiding his/her internal team’s activities and by maintaining proactive, direct contact with his/her clients.

The account director will work closely with the account strategist to inform the client’s strategic marketing direction and ensure the campaign’s success. This position will support our Client Services group under our Sales team. It is eligible to work a hybrid schedule, generally requiring work in‑office and/or show‑site 2‑3 days per week. The ideal candidate will be located in Chicago, IL.

• Act as primary liaison between agency and client. Manage accounts autonomously and proactively address client needs.
• Participate in initial campaign kick‑off meeting with new client.
• Lead strategic marketing meetings and client presentations.
• Lead all other client meetings.
• Draft recommended scopes of work and budgets for account strategist approval before going to the client.
• Attend client events and perform research, press management, social media posting, photo/video art direction, etc. as needed.
• Collaborate with account and creative teams, as well as specialists, to execute results‑driven campaigns.
• Conduct primary and secondary quantitative and qualitative research and work with account strategist to create strategic analyses and develop personas as well as strategic and tactical plans.
• Lead creative team in brand identity, concept and message platform development.
• Participate in new campaign on‑boarding process.
• Participate in internal campaign kick‑off meetings and set internal account team roles/expectations.
• Lead the initial creation and weekly updates of the production schedule as well as lead the implementation of campaign tactics and timelines.
• Provide client and account strategist with weekly update emails including status of jobs in progress, updated production schedule and performance stats (as necessary).
• Write project briefs and lead project kick‑off meetings.
• Review all internal and client proofs to ensure brand and messaging consistency throughout campaign deliverables and evaluate copy and design to ensure they’re strategically on track.
• Develop campaign performance benchmarking/tracking.
• Monitor campaigns to ensure all mdg processes and procedures are followed by account team and all deliverables are high‑quality, on target, consistent, develop the campaign concept and are delivered on time and within budget.
• Monitor and report overall campaign performance (external) to ensure client goals are achieved and make recommendations to account strategist for any course corrections.
• Monitor and report overall budget/billing reconciliation and resource allocation (internal) and make recommendations to account strategist for any course corrections.
• Approve project estimates in WMJ.
• Create and submit invoices and POs.
• Open new projects and close completed projects in WMJ.
• Provide weekly client reports to the circle leaders except for the first Friday of each month, send to ownership (with a cc to the circle leaders).
• May manage direct reports and participate in the hiring process.
• Mentor junior account team members.

• Minimum of 3 years of marketing experience required.
• 5+ years marketing experience strongly preferred. Master’s degree in related field (business or marketing) may be used in lieu…