AAQ - Director of Marketing and Admissions Revenue

Director of Marketing and Admissions Revenue

As a business driver, you will lead the marketing and admissions revenue functions for Adventure Aquarium. You will be primarily responsible for developing high-performance marketing, ticket sales, and PR strategies and tactics to achieve attendance and revenue goals. You'll lead the day-to-day promotions, membership, public relations, onsite programming, content, and group sales efforts to deliver business targets. You will partner with our Atlanta-based Property Support Center ("PSC") to deliver each element of the Adventure Aquarium marketing mix with excellence. With a constant eye on attendance and other critical business metrics, you will be a hands-on leader who ideates, executes, and tweaks strategy to reach established targets. To be effective and successful, you will provide strategic thinking, departmental leadership, partnership, and executional excellence in delivering property business goals.

What You'll Do

• Develop annual ticket sales, marketing, and public relations plans; execute plans to deliver targets.
• Forecast attendance and ticket mix, manage capacity limits, and admission prices based on historical data, market conditions, trends, competitive activity, and third-party consultation.
• Provide ongoing monitoring of business performance and goal attainment; recommend shifts in strategies and tactics as necessary to ensure financial plan attainment.
• Lead a team of four full-time sales and marketing professionals to achieve business objectives and inspire the property toward "creating memories worth repeating" for every guest, overseeing the development and implementation of the aquarium's :
• Membership program , providing strategic guidance to ensure the successful delivery of channel objectives
• Promotions strategy and plan , which leverages brand assets and paid / earned / owned media to establish Adventure Aquarium as a brand of choice with our target guests and drive visitation
• Annual group sales plan , providing strategic guidance to ensure the successful delivery of channel objectives
• All public relations and social media strategies and tactics
• Content creation for email, social media, and PR.
• Onsite multi-week festivals / activations / programming to drive attendance and delight guests with fresh and innovative experiences
• A small number of sponsorship agreements
• Partner with third-party PR, media planning & buying, and sponsorship agencies to execute plans
• Author campaign briefs, informed by guest insights and defined KPIs, working with PSC to execute paid media creative, paid media placement, website updates, and email sends.
• Review and approve advertising strategy, creative concepts, media mix, weight, and timing; provide feedback professionally and in a way that demonstrates partnership with the PSC and respect for the process.
• Plan and administer the annual Marketing budget.
• Utilize post-visit surveys, online reviews, and Placer.ai data to guide marketing strategy and identify growth opportunities.
• Lead the process to identify, develop, and promote new products, including events, limited-time offerings, onsite programming, and up-sell opportunities. Play a vital role in developing the strategic plan and new exhibit concepts.
• Bring a spirit of collaboration and service to the position, applying insights to assist property leaders in determining where the aquarium brand has opportunity.
• Serve as an official aquarium spokesperson
• Represent the Aquarium with tourism partners, national zoological networks, and industry-related meetings and conferences.
• Model and reflect the Adventure Aquarium culture to guests, partners, direct reports, supervisors, peers, and property and PSC leadership.
• Purposefully develop all direct reports through an ongoing commitment to growth, creating an environment of clarity in expectation, praise / recognition, and accountability.
• Other duties as assigned.

What You'll Bring :

Who You Are :

You have a talent for balancing strategy and execution and are unafraid to get your hands dirty bringing your plans to life. You can be creative and analytical. You can juggle multiple priorities, effectively utilizing resources to get the job done on time. You value the strength of a team and know it is better to go together than go it alone. You have a keen ability to cultivate data into insights, insights into action, and action into results. You are rewarded by constant improvement and leading others to success.

What You'll Get :

Special Requirements :

About Us :

As a Herschend Family Entertainment property, Adventure Aquarium is in the business of creating memories worth repeating by greatly exceeding guest expectations, serving others, creating emotional connections, and seeking constant improvement. Stewardship, guest satisfaction, and team member satisfaction are our core areas of focus. We aim to be a great place to work for great people by leading with patience, kindness, humility, respect, unselfishness, forgiveness, truthfulness, and trust. Together, we will create emotional connections that will last a lifetime!

Adventure Aquarium, A Herschend Family Entertainment Property, maintains a continuing policy of non-discrimination in employment. Herschend is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based upon race, color, sex, age, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, as well as any other category protected by law. Furthermore, it is our policy to provide equal opportunity to individuals with disabilities and protected veterans in all phases of the employment process and in compliance with applicable federal, state, and local laws