Marketing Communications Manager

The Marketing Communications Manager for the Industrial Wood Division of the Sherwin-Williams Performance Coatings Group will be the focal point of marketing communications excellence, including end user and distributor awareness, engagement, and demand creation, as well as sales enablement initiatives across our multi-channel sales organization. This role supports our full portfolio of brands marketed across North America.

Working from the established brand and segment strategies, this position manages the planning and execution of marketing communications tactics in support of division sales and share growth goals. Demand generation campaign/program design and execution, thought leadership content development and curation, print and digital media advertising, public relations, social media, direct marketing, events/trade shows, product launches, sales collateral, and internal communications are all managed by this position.

The Marketing Communications Manager will drive measurable business results for the Division with the support of internal shared services and external agencies.

Marketing Communications Program Management

• Work with brand managers, product managers and market segment leaders to create annual marketing communications plans and tactics that drive impactful value propositions and differentiated messaging to achieve our sales growth and awareness goals.
• Design and manage content initiatives, product launches, demand gen campaigns, trade shows, media and PR programs.
• Serve as a marketing communications thought leader, interfacing daily with brand and channel, market segment, product management, strategic account, and sales teams.
• Coordinate and prioritize projects and requests and clearly communicate strategy, timeline and budgets for those projects to creative services and digital marketing teams.
• Coordinate content development and internal collaboration with marketing colleagues while leading effective and on-time project completion.
• Manage to the allocated budget for North America marketing communications, including content development, trade shows, advertising, annual sales meeting, collateral printing, association memberships, etc.
• Deliver innovation and leverage resources across teams and campaigns wherever possible to drive efficiencies and share best practices.
• Measure campaign effectiveness and report both to divisional and group leadership and to peers in formal debrief sessions to drive continuous improvement. Work with brand managers to analyze market opportunities within target segments and use data-driven insights to optimize marketing campaigns.
• Ensure merchandising programs are relevant, cost effective, and efficiently managed.
• Directly manage marketing communications specialist.

Events

• Lead development of segment content and programming for Industrial Wood's North American Sales Meeting. Executive speeches, breakouts, giveways/handouts, and guest speakers if applicable.

Registration leadership for IWC sales meeting in North America, including management of invitee list, coordination with Creative Services on utilization of online registration platform, and onsite check-in for all attendees.

Coordination on vendor show content and programming with Associated Products Team.

Design strategy and execution plans for key industry, customer and trade show events in support of the division's strategy.

Digital Marketing

• Drive content placements on social media accounts, coordinating with Inbound Marketing Manager on scheduling and best practices for growth.
• Drive e-blast announcements and campaigns through end user and distribution databases to generate and track lead generation.
• Own and publish content updates for all brands' North American web sites and microsites; work with digital teams to execute any full site redesigns.
• Collaborate with regional teams in EMEAI and Asia on content sharing.

Public Relations and Thought Leadership

• Owner of engagement strategy for trade press relationships.
• Leverage creative services team and external agencies to generate press releases and oversee distribution via wire service, email to target trade media list, etc. Ensure approval process through division and corporate communications.
• Align PR calendar with segment strategic communications needs objectives.
• Collaborate with digital marketing team to ensure coordination of website content with external announcements.
• Work closely with sales organization, segment, and brand teams to drive awareness and utilization of content, as well as ideation for new content.

Internal Communications

• Lead the communication of key initiatives from the Division's integrated marketing plans to internal teams via National Sales Meeting sessions, quarterly webinars and leadership video updates, and other sessions to ensure alignment with business goals.
• Communicate key program developments and content placements to the sales and marketing teams.

Job duties include contact with other employees and access confidential and proprietary information and/or other items of value, and such access may be supervised or unsupervised. The Company therefore has determined that a review of criminal history is necessary to protect the business and its operations and reputation and is necessary to protect the safety of the Company's staff, employees, and business relationships

FORMAL EDUCATION:

Required:

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred:

MBA or Master's

KNOWLEDGE & EXPERIENCE:

Required:

• 8+ years marketing communications experience
• Excellent oral and written communications skills and sound understanding of creative marketing communication practices
• Excellent project management, vendor relationship, and internal influence/relationship building skills
• Thought leadership content development and media program management experience
• Sales meeting and trade show management experience
• Demand generation campaign and promotion management experience
• Social media and other digital marketing excellence skills

Preferred:

• Thriving in highly matrixed environment, including experience with multiple stakeholder collaboration.
• Experience in and familiarity with asset protection, coatings, and/or any of the customer segments served by the Division.

TRAVEL REQUIREMENTS: (TIME SPENT AWAY FROM HOME OR OTHER TYPICAL OFFICE LOCATION)

10-20%