Director of Marketing, Communications & Membership

San Mateo, CA (Hybrid)

Salary Not AvailableDirector/Executive7+ years expFull time

Posted 2 days ago

Job Summary

Own and lead the integrated marketing, communications and membership strategy to drive attendance, ticket sales, memberships, brand health, and audience growth while steering cross-functional campaigns, measurement, and leadership collaboration.

  • Own integrated strategy and multi-channel campaigns
  • Lead budgeting, performance measurement, and cross-functional alignment

Job Description

Responsibilities

  • Strategy and growth. Develop and lead an integrated marketing, communications and membership strategy tied to attendance, ticket sales, membership sales and renewals, brand health, audience development and organizational priorities.
  • Audience and positioning. Use research, segmentation, first-party data and market insight to identify priority audiences, sharpen CuriOdyssey's value proposition and create relevant messaging for diverse Bay Area communities.
  • Out-of-home advertising. Set strategy for OOH media, including market and geographic selection, transit, billboard, street-level and other place-based opportunities. Lead planning, buying oversight, creative adaptation, production specifications, flighting, vendor management and effectiveness measurement.
  • Digital advertising. Direct paid search, paid social, display, programmatic, video, retargeting and emerging digital channels. Establish testing plans, audience and conversion strategies, tracking requirements, brand-safety standards and optimization cadence.
  • Campaign leadership. Build campaign briefs, goals, budgets, timelines and channel plans. Guide creative development and ensure accurate, accessible, on-brand delivery across paid, owned, earned and on-site touchpoints.
  • Performance management. Create a practical measurement framework and reporting rhythm. Monitor spend and results, diagnose performance, shift resources when warranted and communicate insights and recommendations to the CEO and senior leadership team.
  • Membership growth. Partner with the Marketing and Membership Systems Manager to strengthen acquisition, renewal, upgrade, win-back, lifecycle communications, and member experience.
  • Website and search. Own the marketing roadmap for website content, user journeys,s and conversion. Lead SEO and evolving AI-search visibility practices, including technical and content improvements, structured data, local discovery, and measurement through analytics and search platforms.
  • Brand and communications. Maintain brand standards and message consistency. Oversee public-facing communications and coordinate with public relations support on media opportunities, issues, and organizational storytelling.
  • Cross-functional revenue support. Provide strategic and tactical marketing support for education programs, retail, fundraising campaigns, facility rentals, and special events while keeping primary accountability focused on attendance, ticketing, membership and marketing performance.

Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, communications, or advertising from an accredited institution. Will consider work experience in lieu of a degree. Masters or MBA with a marketing focus preferred.
  • At least 8 years of progressively responsible marketing experience, including significant ownership of strategy, integrated campaigns, budgets, and measurable growth outcomes.
  • At least 2 years of experience leading a department or managing a team of two or more employees.
  • Deep experience developing and evaluating both out-of-home advertising and paid digital media strategies, with demonstrated ability to connect media choices to business outcomes.
  • Demonstrated success driving consumer attendance, ticket sales, subscriptions, or memberships in a ticketed, membership-based, or comparable customer environment.
  • Strong command of marketing analytics and experimentation, including conversion tracking, attribution, ROAS, customer acquisition cost, funnel performance, and budget optimization.
  • Experience with SEO and AI-search optimization, including the evolving practices often described as answer-engine optimization or generative-engine optimization. Ability to distinguish durable, evidence-based search practices from short-lived tactics.
  • Experience managing agencies, media buyers, creative partners, technology vendors, and production timelines.
  • Excellent writing, editing, presentation, and executive communication skills, with sound judgment about audience, tone, and message.
  • Strong people leadership, project management, and prioritization skills, including the ability to operate effectively in a small, hands-on organization.

Preferred

  • Experience in a museum, zoo, attraction, hospitality organization, or nonprofit.
  • Website strategy or design experience, particularly information architecture, user experience, accessibility, content management, conversion-rate optimization, or a website redesign.
  • Experience marketing to families, schools, tourists, or culturally and economically diverse communities.
  • Working knowledge of CRM, ticketing, membership, email automation, web analytics, and marketing technology systems.
  • Strong visual judgment and the ability to provide useful creative direction; graphic production skills are helpful but not required.

Benefits

  • Vacation
  • Paid Sick Leave
  • holidays
  • individual medical
  • dental
  • life insurance
  • 403(b) retirement plan
  • museum membership
  • and more.
  • Dental insurance
CuriOdyssey logo

CuriOdyssey

3.0 Glassdoor

CuriOdyssey is science and wildlife center in the San Francisco Bay Area that is experienced by approximately 100,000 children and adults each year. CuriOdyssey's inquiry-based learning approach to education is built into a wide range of hands-on science exhibits where visitors experiment with real scientific phenomena. Over 100 rescued native California wild animals reside at CuriOdyssey as animal ambassadors, connecting visitors and students to the natural world and the importance of conservation. CuriOdyssey's classes, workshops and camps explore science and technology to help kids develop critical thinking skills and the tools to take on the challenges of the future.

Founded in 1954
San Mateo, California, USA
60 employees (2 in marketing)
1% recommend to a friend

Marketing Team

Marketing Team Size
1 (2% of company)
Marketing Roles Posted (Last 30 Days)
1

Traffic Signals

Monthly Visitors
35.1K
Monthly Google Ads Budget
$143.2K
Traffic Source Mix
Search
66.3%
Direct
19.6%
Referral
7.1%
Social
4.9%

Headcount Trend

Current headcount: ~60
CuriOdyssey logo

Director of Marketing, Communications & Membership

CuriOdyssey · San Mateo, CA · Hybrid