MARKETING MANAGER
Location: Marion, Iowa
Reports to: COO
Status: Full-Time, Exempt
Typical Working Hours: 7:30 AM – 4:30 PM
May require extended hours including holidays and weekends due to the nature of ESCO’s client support model. Occasional travel to other ESCO offices or client sites may be required but generally does not exceed 10%.
Position Summary
The Marketing Manager is responsible for leading and developing ESCO's marketing function while driving measurable business growth through demand generation, brand development, and sales enablement initiatives.
This role serves as the organization's marketing leader, partnering closely with executive leadership and business unit leaders to create and execute marketing strategies that generate qualified opportunities, strengthen ESCO's market presence, and support long-term growth objectives.
The ideal candidate has a strong background in performance marketing, demand generation, and revenue-focused marketing, combined with the leadership skills necessary to build processes, develop team members, and establish marketing discipline across a multi-business-unit organization.
Key Responsibilities
Marketing Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, develop, and mentor the marketing team while creating a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Establish marketing priorities, operating rhythms, processes, and performance expectations.
- Coordinate internal resources and external vendors to ensure successful execution of marketing initiatives.
- Partner with executive leadership to develop annual marketing plans, budgets, and growth strategies.
- Build scalable marketing processes that support future growth across all ESCO business units.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to leadership regarding marketing opportunities, risks, and investments.
Revenue Marketing & Lead Generation
- Own marketing's contribution to pipeline growth and business development efforts.
- Develop and execute integrated lead generation strategies aligned with company and business unit objectives.
- Create and manage demand generation programs across digital marketing, email campaigns, content marketing, events, referral programs, and other channels.
- Establish and monitor key lead generation metrics including marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), sales-qualified leads (SQLs), opportunity creation, conversion rates, and pipeline influence.
- Partner closely with sales and business development teams to improve lead quality, lead conversion, and customer acquisition efforts.
- Continuously optimize campaigns to improve return on marketing investment.
Brand Strategy & Market Positioning
- Develop and maintain ESCO's brand strategy across all business units.
- Ensure consistency of messaging, positioning, and brand standards throughout the organization.
- Increase awareness of ESCO's services, expertise, and market differentiators.
- Lead website strategy and digital presence initiatives to support growth objectives.
- Support development of thought leadership content, customer success stories, case studies, and market-facing communications.
- Partner with business unit leaders to identify and communicate key market opportunities and competitive advantages.
CRM & Marketing Technology
- Serve as the primary owner and champion of CRM utilization, adoption, and optimization.
- Develop dashboards and reporting tools that provide visibility into marketing and sales performance.
- Improve lead tracking, attribution, campaign measurement, and marketing analytics.
- Identify opportunities to automate marketing and sales processes.
- Maintain data quality, reporting accuracy, and system integrity.
- Leverage technology to improve efficiency and decision-making.
Campaign Strategy & Execution
- Develop annual and quarterly marketing plans aligned with organizational growth objectives.
- Lead campaign development from concept through execution, measurement, and optimization.
- Coordinate cross-functional efforts to ensure successful campaign implementation.
- Ensure marketing initiatives support both short-term lead generation goals and long-term brand development objectives.
- Monitor project timelines, budgets, and campaign performance.
Sales Enablement
- Partner with business unit leaders to understand market opportunities, customer needs, and sales priorities.
- Develop and maintain sales collateral, presentations, case studies, and customer success stories.
- Support proposal, pursuit, and business development activities where appropriate.
- Identify opportunities to improve sales effectiveness through marketing support and tools.
- Create alignment between marketing initiatives and sales objectives.
Market & Competitive Intelligence
- Monitor industry trends, competitor activity, customer needs, and emerging market opportunities.
- Conduct research to better understand target audiences, buyer behavior, and market dynamics.
- Recommend innovative marketing approaches and growth opportunities.
- Help leadership stay informed on market conditions and competitive positioning.
Education and Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or related field.
- 7+ years of progressive marketing experience.
- Demonstrated success developing and executing demand generation and lead generation programs.
- Experience managing marketing personnel, agencies, or external marketing partners.
- Strong experience with CRM systems, marketing technology platforms, and marketing analytics.
- Proven ability to translate marketing efforts into measurable business outcomes.
- Excellent written, verbal, and presentation communication skills.
Desired Skills and Abilities
- B2B marketing experience.
- Experience supporting technical, industrial, engineering, manufacturing, construction, or professional service organizations.
- HubSpot, Salesforce, or similar CRM experience.
- Marketing automation experience.
- Google Analytics, SEO, SEM, and digital advertising experience.
- Experience aligning marketing and sales functions to support revenue growth.
What success in this role looks like:
- Establishes a clear marketing strategy aligned with ESCO's growth objectives.
- Builds a high-performing marketing team with defined roles, priorities, and accountability.
- Creates visibility into marketing performance through meaningful KPIs and reporting.
- Increases qualified lead generation and measurable pipeline contribution.
- Strengthens ESCO's brand awareness and market positioning.
- Improves collaboration between marketing, sales, and business unit leadership.
- Develops repeatable marketing processes that support scalable growth.
- Becomes a trusted strategic partner to executive leadership and business unit leaders.
