Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Guest Services

Title: Vice President of Marketing, Communications & Guest Services

Department: Marketing

Reports to: President and Chief Executive Officer

Supervises:

• Director of Visitor and Member Operations, Sales, and Data (supervises Manager of Visitor and Member Operations, Guest Services Supervisors, and Guest Services Team Members)
• Senior Graphic Designer & Brand Lead
• Marketing Specialist
• Agencies, freelance, and contract support

About Chicago Children’s Museum: Chicago Children’s Museum (CCM) is committed to improving children’s lives by creating a community where play and learning connect. We embrace creativity and collaboration, we never stop learning, and we remember to stop and play along the way. CCM’s staff is a dedicated group of curious individuals who embrace the playful spirit of childhood. Every employee is empowered to reach their potential and be recognized for the impact they have on our organization, visitors, and the community we serve. Over its 42-year history, Chicago Children’s Museum has provided innovative exhibits, arts programs, STEM experiments, imaginative play, and more to over 11 million children and their caregivers. Located at Navy Pier, the museum is intentionally designed for experimentation, creativity, and the universal pursuits of childhood. CCM focuses on accessibility, inclusion, and learning for all children, ensuring valuable and memorable experiences for all visitors.

General Job Function: The Vice President of Marketing, Communication & Guest Services (VP MCGS) will develop and implement strategic market and business development plans to increase attendance, membership, audience development, brand recognition, and drive new business revenue streams. This position drives attendance to the museum and promotes exhibits, programs and initiatives, based on an insightful understanding of the museum’s visitors and their needs. This position is responsible for developing and implementing initiatives, policies, procedures and staffing to deliver on our brand, maximize impact and attendance, increase sales, and deliver top-level customer service.

Through collaboration with museum leadership, the VP MCGS is a key leader in maximizing not only paid admissions and membership, but all earned and contributed revenue. They are responsible for promoting and growing the reputation of CCM’s play and learning experiences, including dynamic, developmentally appropriate, culturally sensitive exhibits, programs, events, and services, both on and off-site, to ensure that these programs and services fulfill our promise to our guests, stakeholders, donors, and sponsors. The VP MCGS leads the Guest Services team in the development of strategies, initiatives, policies and procedures that will help deliver exceptional experiences and guest-centered service to all visitors and member families.?

Principle Job Duties and Responsibilities:

Marketing

• Develops, oversees, and implements the annual museum marketing plan and budget to support strategic organizational objectives. Develops strategies, tactics and programs to drive increased attendance, grow earned revenue, diversify audience, and maximize optimal mix of paid, reduced, and free visitors. Oversees implementation of said strategy.
• Develops and drives rigorous multi-year audience development plan and works with the MCGS team to translate research results into increased revenue and improved services and engagement. Develops and directs visitor and market research and translates research to effective marketing strategies and development of initiatives to target existing and new audiences, members, and groups, resulting in increased revenue and improved services and engagement. Is responsible for all efforts to understand the museum audience including in-house and partner-based surveying efforts.
• Manages all elements of digital strategy advertising, public relations, direct marketing, and more. Provide thought leadership and identify trends and lead best practices for digital marketing, including analytics, SEM/SEO, email marketing, social media marketing, website, PPC, and content amplification to support needs across the organization.
• Oversees all elements of the MCGS department budget. Regularly monitors various reports on sales and attendance and takes necessary action to adjust for unexpected decline or increase.
• Establish methodologies by which to assess the success of the market development efforts across all media; conduct regular audits of market development efforts to determine their effectiveness and return on investments is aligned with museum priorities.
• Lead pricing efforts for the museum. Work with the CFO to assess, recommend, and implement new pricing models/strategies for admissions ticketing and membership, and to develop and implement initiatives to maximize sales of admissions, memberships, and groups.

Strategic Communications and Museum Brand

• Builds the strength of Chicago Children’s Museum, its reputation, and its brand, through consistently implemented messaging, strategies, and initiatives.
• Defines and directs comprehensive communications plans for museum audiences, including earned media, digital, print materials, and website. Collaborates with and advises department leaders on their promotional and communication strategies and ensures consistency with museum’s strategic direction.
• Ensures that a high-quality and consistent branded message is delivered through all marketing vehicles, including print and online advertising, website, social media, PR, signage and print materials. Provides leadership in the visual translation and development of the CCM identity.
• Serves as a museum spokesperson as appropriate. Develops communication plans and talking points, as appropriate, for staff to use with internal and external audiences. Contributes to CCM’s internal communications strategy. Leads crisis communication planning.
• Identifies, negotiates and implements media sponsorships and partnerships and determines promotional benefits. Initiates partnerships resulting in pro bono work to support the marketing function.

Guest & Member Services/Sales

• Oversees Guest Services team and admissions and activities. Ensures policies, programs, procedures and staffing are in place to enable maximized onsite and online sales while delivering top-level customer service. Leads the Guest Services team in the development of strategies, initiatives, policies and procedures that will help deliver exceptional experiences for visitor and member families
• Works closely with the VP of Guest Experience Operations to set vision for and execute high standards of guest experience and customer service museum wide. Ensures that training and development for the Guest Services team support museum-wide standards and goals.
• Develops and works collaboratively with MCGS leadership team to develop sales initiatives to maximize revenue, repeat visitation, and member conversion and retention. Ensure policies, programs, procedures, and staffing are in place to enable maximized onsite and online sales. Participate in the determination of museum hours for general operations and special events.

Cross-departmental Collaboration and Museum Management

• Develops and implements the annual museum marketing plan and budget to support museum’s strategic goals.
• Recruits, hires, trains, and leads a superior marketing, creative, digital strategy and public/media relations team to ensure consumer-driven marketing. Motivates and supports staff daily, serving as an advocate and resource for marketing and communication strategy throughout the museum. Evaluates staff performance regularly.
• Serves as a thought partner and marketing resource to all departments and members of the Management Committee. Works collaboratively with and as a member of the museum’s Management Committee to continuously renew and improve CCM’s offerings to improve visitor satisfaction, expand the visitor base and generate revenue growth.
• Contributes to, and may supervise, marketing, communications, and reputation-building initiatives for Chicago Children’s Museum’s exhibits, programs, strategic initiatives, and consulting services. Works with peers to pursue and deliver media and marketing-oriented sponsorships and partnerships.
• Regularly presents to the Board of Directors. Acts as Staff Liaison with the Marketing Committee of the Board of Directors.
• Actively participates in developing CCM’s strategic plans– especially regarding external dimensions, including audience, competitors, strategic communication, reputation, attendance, and revenue goals.
• Carries out other duties as assigned by the President and Chief Executive Officer.
• Supports the museum’s work in diversity, equity, access and inclusion and actively ensures that DEAI principles are upheld in all work with fellow staff, visitors, community and other external partners.

Performance measures

• Achievement of annual attendance goals
• Achievement annual revenue goals
• Clearly articulated and effective internal and external communications
• Earned media secured
• Enhanced reputation
• Achievement of engagement (including digital) goals

Positions Qualifications:

Education: Candidates must have an earned baccalaureate degree in Marketing, Communications, Business or a related field. MBA a plus.

Job Experience: A minimum of ten years combined experience in marketing with expertise in advertising, communications, media relations, digital marketing, design management, market research and strategic marketing planning. Must have a demonstrated ability to translate marketing tactics into earned revenue. Experience with ticket- and membership-driven revenue a plus. Demonstrated experience supervising and developing a team.

Special Knowledge & Skills/Demonstrated Competencies:

• Commitment to the mission, vision, and values of Chicago Children's Museum.
• Deep understanding of advertising, marketing, visual design, digital strategies, social media and sales, as well as a willingness to learn and understand Chicago Children’s Museum’s unique value and offerings.
• Previous experience responsibility for P & L, budgeting, planning, and revenue accountability.
• Proven supervisory and leadership experience. Excellent managerial, organizational, analytical, planning, and administrative skills.
• Excellent negotiating skills; specifically negotiating ad buys, sponsorship agreements, and marketing/media partnerships.
• Excellent judgment and critical thinking ability. Decisions may influence the outcome of major projects, revenue gain or loss, and gain competitive advantage.
• Strong communication skills, with excellent written and oral presentation skills, and the ability to present data clearly and effectively.
• Strong work ethic and the desire to thrive in a demanding environment.
• Successful management of many high-level projects simultaneously while consistently meeting deadlines. Ability, and flexibility, to handle changing situations and timelines a must.
• High level proficiency in computer operations, budget and data management, and reporting. MS Word, Excel, Power Point, Asana. Altru a plus.
• Ability to assist staff and other colleagues in department as a consultant and collaborator in making decisions critical to project outcome.
• Enthusiasm for learning and mastering new skills on an ongoing basis; willingness to be informed/certified/ trained through institution-offered courses and to work within Diversity, Equity, Access, Inclusion (DEAI) frameworks and actively engage in learning about these frameworks.
• Possess an equity mindset and cultural humility.

Benefits: This position is eligible for medical, dental, vision, Life, Long-term Disability, and Short-term Disability insurances, 401k after six months of service, as well as PTO and Sick time.

Schedule: This is a full-time, exempt level position working 37.5 hours per week Monday through Friday, including some early mornings, weekday evenings, and weekend hours related to meetings or events.

Physical Requirements of the Position: This position must be able to work at a computer for extended periods of time.

Location: Hybrid with 3 days in office?at 700 E. Grand Ave., Ste. 127, Chicago, IL 60611

Salary Range: $135,000 - $150,000