Senior Director of Digital Marketing and Communications

About the position

Full Sail University is seeking a highly experienced and strategic Senior Director of Digital Marketing and Communications to lead institution-wide efforts in digital advertising, communications, and student engagement. This role is responsible for designing and executing a comprehensive digital marketing and communications strategy that drives brand awareness and student acquisition, while ensuring consistent and effective digital communications throughout the student journey-from inquiry to graduation and beyond. This leadership position oversees digital advertising and communications, content development and channel strategy to support enrollment, student success, and graduate outcomes. The ideal candidate is a performance-driven digital leader with deep expertise in paid media, omnichannel communications, audience development, and proficiency in shaping digital user experiences. The ideal candidate combines data-savvy performance marketing acumen with creative storytelling expertise, fluency in emerging platforms and strong command of next-generation marketing strategies.

Responsibilities

• Architect and execute a future-forward digital marketing and communications strategy that enhances brand awareness, drives student acquisition and supports retention and graduate engagement.
• Lead and align digital advertising, marketing communications, social media, and content strategies across to ensure impact and consistency across all audience segments and digital platforms.
• Develop and implement strategies that deliver a cohesive student journey, optimizing interactions across marketing and service-related touchpoints.
• Establish Full Sail University as a leader in digital brand storytelling, leveraging the intersection of education, technology and culture.
• Champion the use of machine learning and AI-driven campaign strategies, personalization and predictive analytics to scale digital engagement.
• Lead paid media strategies across all digital channels, including paid search, paid social, streaming audio and video, affiliate, and influencer marketing.
• Lead development of high-impact digital creative assets and ensure alignment with institutional messaging and brand standards.
• Drive paid campaign performance, optimizing for customer acquisition cost, return on ad spend and other key metrics.
• Develop new and innovative methods of measuring and evaluating paid media effectiveness to inform strategy, identify growth opportunities and accelerate acquisition.
• Develop and manage a cross-channel student communications framework utilizing email, SMS, chat, push notifications, and social media platforms.
• Design communications strategies that guide prospective and current students through key milestones in their journey-improving engagement, enrollment, and retention.
• Lead content development across digital properties, ensuring consistency and personalization across websites, landing pages, microsites, online platforms and mobile applications.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders to optimize user experience across core websites and digital platforms.
• Ensure all campaigns and communications meet compliance requirements related to education marketing, privacy, and accessibility standards.
• Map and optimize the end-to-end digital customer experience from awareness to enrollment, onboarding, retention, and graduate engagement.
• Lead customer segmentation initiatives to support personalized communications and targeted marketing across all stages of the student journey.
• Collaborate with admissions, student services, academic departments, and career development to align digital touchpoints with student needs and institutional goals.
• Leverage analytics to measure campaign and communications effectiveness, continuously improving targeting, messaging, and channel mix.
• Implement testing and experimentation strategies to refine messaging and increase conversion rates.
• Provide executive dashboard reporting and insights on marketing and communications performance, pacing toward goals, and optimization opportunities with a focus on predictive insights.
• Lead the strategy, orchestration and optimization of marketing technology platforms including DSPs, CDPs, CRMs, and marketing automation tools (e.g., Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Eloqua, HubSpot).
• Collaborate with IT and data teams to ensure necessary data structures are in place for automation, personalization, and performance tracking.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing multidisciplinary marketing and communications team capable of delivering across the full spectrum of marketing functions.
• Foster a test-and-learn, innovation-driven culture focused on excellence, agility and impact.
• Provide training and development opportunities to elevate team capabilities and performance with a focus on upskilling around new platforms and digital fluency.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, or related field
• 10+ years of progressive experience in digital marketing and communications, including 5+ years in senior leadership roles focused growth, innovation and team development.
• Proven success leading cross-functional teams and multi-million-dollar digital campaigns with measurable ROI.
• Strong track record in performance marketing, paid media strategy, audience engagement, with a strong foundation in brand storytelling.
• Experience in leading the development of analytics and reporting strategies that deliver clear attribution, performance insights and visibility across the customer journey.

Nice-to-haves

• Deep expertise in paid media, customer journey orchestration, and content marketing.
• Highly proficient in advertising technology and automation platforms, with a strong grasp on how these technologies integrate to drive marketing performance.
• Deep understanding of how AI is transforming digital marketing and communications, with a clear vision for future applications and the strategic mindset to guide institutional readiness and adoption.
• Excellent written, visual, and verbal communication abilities.