Prince William County is seeking a creative, results-oriented and energetic Marketing & Communications Director for a highly visible position in a fast-paced, future-oriented team focused on strategically marketing Prince William County as a premier business location. 
 
This position will lead the Marketing and Communications team and will report directly to the Executive Director to lead the departments' marketing, communication and digital lead generation efforts. Accomplished by developing a comprehensive marketing strategy to reposition Prince William County in the market and executing creative tactics to cultivate new customers and economic development prospect leads. This position requires extensive experience and skills in developing and implementing effective communications strategies, lead generation, event management, and outreach marketing, public and media relation programs to be successful.
 
Prince William's Department of Economic Development is growing its team and refocusing its programmatic efforts. This will be an opportunity to join the team and be part of anticipated transformation in the economic development of Prince William County.  Candidates should be creative, self-starters, fun, energetic, and passionate.

What you will do in this role:

Lead Marketing & Communications team to meet DED's organization expectations for productivity, quality, continuous improvement, and goal accomplishment. Motivate team members to achieve best practices and provide effective performance feedback through individual and team recognition.

• Develop a comprehensive and creative marketing & communications program aligned with County's and department's goals and utilizes KPI's to measure performance
• Provide clear direction and clearly communicate goals of the department to staff and inform external stakeholders and clients.
• Provide appropriate staff oversight and performance management.  Foster independence and appropriate risk taking as well as team interdependence and support.
• Provide ongoing performance feedback that is both positive and constructive. Address performance deficiencies specifically, constructively, and in a timely manner; i.e. evaluate performance accurately and continually.
• Execute effective budgets and assignments of tasks to maximize resource alloca

Manage DED's marketing and communications efforts to cultivate new customers and prospect leads, build trust and identity of the PWC brand, and use various tools to strategically market/advertise to establish new connections and strong relationships with potential prospects and businesses.

• Oversee the implementation of an effective branding and advertising strategy that increases brand awareness of Prince William County as a premier location for business.
• Direct successful web and mobile marketing strategies that promote Prince William County's business location advantages and increases top of mind awareness that PWC is a premier business location.
• Oversee a dynamic marketing collateral program to support and enhance PWC's brand position and outreach marketing programs.

Utilizing various digital and traditional marketing tools and channels, promote PWC to targeted audiences and geographies in order to create awareness of our assets and opportunities and generate new business prospect leads.

• Direct a successful trade show and special event marketing program to support lead generation initiatives.
• Develop and support a site selection consultant cultivation program to support lead generation efforts.
• Direct an effective digital media marketing strategy to establish PWC as a leader and trusted knowledge base for economic development content and services, targeting individuals seeking information regarding PWC's economic development program, target industries, and assets.

Actively engage media outlets and build relationships with reporters to pitch business success stories to gain valuable earned media in order to promote PWC and its business community climate. Respond appropriately to media inquiries.

• Direct PWC's earned media communications program and implement a strategic media relations program that ensures maximum exposure of favorable Prince William County economic development articles in major business publications, economic development trade magazines, and vertical industry publications,
• Direct the production of the PWC DED- press releases & media events, newsletters, and annual reports.
• Develop and implement an internal communication strategy to improve information sharing across all divisions.

Preferred Skills:

• Extensive and successful management experience in developing and implementing effective communications strategies, event management, and outreach marketing, public and media relation programs.
• Creative and passionate about marketing and communications and willing to try new ideas.
• Ability to develop a strong team environment to achieve focused and established goals.
• Demonstrated ability of effective leadership and motivation, performance management, and administration.
• Experience developing a comprehensive program with measured outcomes and tracking and reporting KPI's.
• Successful experience working in a fast-paced sales and/or customer service position.
• History of developing and implementing effective marketing strategy that includes digital platforms, email marketing campaigns, communication & PR, strategic digital advertising, etc.
• Proficiency in promoting corporate branding and maximizing interest among targeted industries, businesses, executives, and brokers, and site selection consultants using various marketing tools.
• Excellent project management skills and experience in managing vendor contracts.
• Effective and frequent experience in developing presentations and writing speeches, for public speaking engagements.
• Familiarity and expertise of inbound/outbound marketing CRM programs such as Salesforce and HubSpot.
• Knowledge of and uses research and databases effectively to engage targeted customers and refine marketing messages.
• Has strong background in web-based content management systems.
• Not required, but experience working in or knowledge of economic development marketing.

Education:
 Any combination of education and experience equivalent to bachelor's degree in marketing, advertising, public relations, communications, digital media, graphic design, business, or related field, and 3-5 years' experience in marketing, advertising, public relations, communications, digital media and graphic design experience.
 Preferred: Master's Degree, as well as any other relevant certifications.

Entry Salary Range: $90,000 - $123,896

EEOC