Marketing Specialist

The Morton Arboretum is a world-renowned tree-focused botanical garden located just outside of Chicago in Lisle, Illinois. With more than one million annual visitors, the Arboretum seeks an experienced marketing specialist to drive awareness of the Arboretum with new audiences, and keep recent guests informed and interested in what the Arboretum is offering through email and marketing strategies and tactics. Help advance our mission to plant and protect trees for a greener, healthier, and more beautiful world while working with a talented marketing team.

Work with teams across the organization to achieve institutional priorities and objectives.

Location:

Hybrid (The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, IL)

Responsible for the implementation of The Morton Arboretum’s integrated marketing communications that attract and engage audiences and heighten brand awareness. Create brand-appropriate promotional copy for marketing campaigns across communication channels. Play a key role in the development of annual advertising plans. Lead marketing automation and email marketing efforts. Collect and analyze data to measure the success of marketing efforts and improve understanding of Arboretum audiences.

• Develop and implement promotional and integrated marketing plans for Arboretum exhibitions, events, and programs. Prepare creative briefs and partner with Creative team for campaign creative development. Write, edit, and proofread branded marketing copy for use across communication channels..
• Serve as a point-of-contact with external media agencies and internal teams. Support the development of and facilitate an annual advertising plan to support reputation, participation, and revenue goals.
• Oversee the generation, analysis, and presentation of marketing statistic reports comparing promotional activities with attendance and revenue trends.
• Lead email marketing efforts, including automation, setting a comprehensive strategy that balances multiple departments’ needs and schedules, providing and producing content, tracking outcomes, proposing tests and improvements.
• Work in partnership with the Marketing and Communications Project Manager, as well as Creative and Public Relations colleagues, to set priorities, monitor job progress by tracking schedules and meeting deadlines for deliverables, communicate changes and job status, expedite requirements, track and meet budgets, and resolve scheduling conflicts and project problems.
• Assists in preparing the annual marketing budget. Submit and track incoming invoices to Finance team. Assist with budget management.
• Demonstrate alignment with the Arboretum’s employee core values.
• Other duties as assigned.

Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in a related field. 3+ years of relevant experience required, including marketing, email marketing, and advertising project management. Exceptional writing/editing/proofreading skills, and meticulous attention to detail. Experience leading project collaborations with successful and measurable outcomes required. Experience with email marketing and digital marketing (examples: Meta, Tik Tok, Google Ads) required. Ability to meet deadlines and handle multiple projects simultaneously required.

Advanced knowledge and demonstrated ability of marketing tactics and how to combine them effectively required. Experience working with an advertising or media planning agency preferred. Critical thinking and problem-solving required. Familiarity with Google applications, Asana, Survey Monkey, Salesforce, Act On, and email and marketing automation systems preferred. Experience in an agency, museum, botanic garden, or large-scale nonprofit organization helpful.

Positive attitude with the ability to work to deadlines in a fast-paced environment. Curiosity about new communication channels and opportunities, as well as the trends that inform them. Emphasis on teamwork and supporting others. Analytical mindset with the ability to identify solutions to increase marketing success. Confident, comfortable public demeanor with strong verbal skills. Detail-oriented, flexible, and self-directed. Ability to…