Senior Research Manager

# Senior Research Manager Hot Job Discover Durham - Durham, NC 27701## Overview Salary Range $75,000.00 - $80,000.00 Salary Level Experienced Position  Type Full Time Job Shift Day Education  Level High School Diploma Category Government ## Description Discover Durham is Durham’s marketing and sales agency, generating economic impact by attracting 13 million leisure, business and sports visitors to our vibrant community.

Discover Durham also operates the Durham Sports Commission (DSC), a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to create economic and social impact by leading the community’s efforts to attract, support and promote sporting events at every level, as well as Durham Next, a nonprofit community partnership focused on the sustainable advancement of Durham as the best place to live, work and visit.

We’re looking for a Senior Research Manager to join our team and turn data into insights that help shape Durham’s future.

This role leads Discover Durham’s destination research efforts— helping shape Durham's next destination brand, understanding who visits Durham and why, measuring the economic impact of tourism, tracking how residents and stakeholders feel about it, and identifying where new opportunities exist.

The Senior Research Manager sits on the Content & PR team and reports to the Director of Content & PR. This is a hands-on, highly collaborative role that works across marketing, communications and public relations, strategic initiatives, and with the Durham Sports Commission and Durham Next. The role also interfaces and works with many of our community partners and festivals. The role isn’t just about gathering and reporting data, but instead, taking the data and helping colleagues understand what it means and what to do next.
*** Projects You Will Lead and Manage:
*** Discover Durham’s Senior Research Manager will own and commission a portfolio of projects. Some studies happen once and shape the organization for years to come; others will recur on a regular cycle, yearly or every other year, providing insight into Durham’s tourism economy. Examples of projects include:
* ** Destination Brand Research & Development**— Lead the research that will help inform Durham’s future destination brand.  + Identify Durham’s top competitor markets for in-state and out-of-state visitors and conduct brand positioning research against those destinations.  + Develop audience personas for core visitation segments and emerging opportunity audiences.  + Establish a measurement framework and baseline for awareness and perceptions of Durham and the new destination brand among residents, partners and out-of-market audiences.  

+ Identify and manage research vendors supporting focus groups, concept testing and other qualitative research.  + Lead concept validation and audience testing, translating findings into clear recommendations for the destination brand working group.
* ** Day-Tripper & Visitor Conversion Research** — Develop insights that help Discover Durham understand day-trip visitors and identify opportunities to encourage more overnight stays.  + Research Durham’s day-trip audiences, including their origins, behaviors and motivations.  + Identify high-opportunity audiences, markets and time periods for visitor conversion.  + Develop insights that can inform out-of-market partnerships, activations and marketing campaigns.  + Work with the marketing team to translate findings into strategy and measure visitation lift.
* ** Brand Sentiment & Lift Measurement** — Measure how travelers in Durham’s priority origin markets perceive Durham and how those perceptions change as the new destination brand is introduced and on an ongoing basis as our work evolves.  + Establish pre-launch baselines for awareness,…