Director of Marketing

Director Of Marketing

Apple Montessori Schools is seeking a strategic and results-driven Director of Marketing to lead the organization's marketing strategy and drive enrollment growth across a growing portfolio of schools. This role is responsible for developing and executing integrated marketing initiatives that increase brand awareness, generate qualified leads, and convert prospective families into booked tours and enrollments. The Director of Marketing will own the marketing strategy and execution required to increase qualified booked tours across our schools.
The ideal candidate is a hands-on marketing leader with a strong analytical mindset, proven leadership experience, and the ability to translate strategy into measurable business results in a fast-paced, growth-oriented environment.
Some of the responsibilities include:
Lead full-funnel marketing strategy across awareness, lead generation, nurture, and booked tour conversion
Optimize all marketing activity toward qualified booked tours as the primary business outcome
Manage paid search and paid social strategy in partnership with agency partners
Oversee SEO strategy, priorities, and agency execution
Lead website, landing page, and CRO initiatives to improve inquiry and tour-booking conversion
Own lifecycle marketing across email and SMS, including segmentation, nurture journeys, reactivation, and campaign calendar planning
Manage direct mail, referral programs, listings/reviews, local marketing support, and school-level campaign needs
Partner closely with Admissions to understand lead quality, parent objections, tour show rates, tour conversion, and enrollment outcomes
Build strong feedback loops between Marketing, Admissions, and school teams so insights from the field improve campaigns, messaging, and nurture
Own marketing reporting across leads, booked tours, completed tours, conversion rates, channel efficiency, and budget pacing
Translate performance data into clear recommendations, priorities, and next steps
Manage marketing budgets, monitor pacing, and recommend investment shifts based on performance and business needs
Lead and develop a team of three internal marketers, while managing multiple agencies and freelance creative partners
Create clear workflows, briefs, calendars, and operating cadences that help the team execute with quality and accountability
Communicate performance, risks, tradeoffs, and decisions clearly to senior leadership
Reports to: SVP of Marketing and Admissions
Requirements
Full-funnel growth marketing experience, ideally in a lead-generation, multi-location, education, childcare, healthcare, wellness, retail services, or high-consideration consumer business
Experience optimizing toward a meaningful conversion outcome such as booked tours, appointments, consultations, leads, or enrollments
Strong data fluency, including the ability to build, pull, analyze, and act on performance reporting
CRM and lifecycle marketing expertise, including segmentation, nurture journeys, email/SMS strategy, and campaign calendar planning
Strong project management skills and the ability to manage multiple channels, agencies, timelines, budgets, and dependencies
Ability to lead paid media, SEO, website/CRO, CRM, local marketing, referrals, direct mail, reviews, and reporting at a strategic level
Experience steering people, agencies, freelancers, or cross-functional teams
Comfort operating in ambiguity and creating structure without getting stuck
Strong test-and-learn judgment, with the ability to move forward without needing every detail to be perfect
Collaborative working style and strong cross-functional instincts
Ability to partner effectively with Admissions and school teams
Strong executive communication and the ability to manage up with clear updates, risks, recommendations, and tradeoffs
Competent brand and creative judgment, with the ability to brief, evaluate, and approve parent-facing creative confidently
Candidates must reside in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, or Pennsylvania and have the ability to travel throughout the assigned territory as business needs require and attend weekly meetings in Westfield, NJ.
Bachelor's degree in marketing, Communications, Business, or a related field
7-10 years of progressive marketing experience, including at least 35 years in a marketing leadership role.
Preferred:
Experience marketing to parents or families
Experience in education, childcare, enrichment, or school admissions
Multi-site, local-market, or retail services marketing experience
Direct people management experience
Agency-side experience with meaningful strategic ownership
Experience with Salesforce, Power BI, GA4, ad platform reporting, CRM platforms, or similar tools
Competitive compensation package including a base salary of up to $150,000, commensurate with experience and qualifications, plus annual bonus potential.