Email Marketing Specialist

The Email Marketing Specialist is an exceptional digital communicator who supports the growing needs of NCOA to gather and utilize first-party data and email best practices to grow reach, engagement, and impact through high-value content for a variety of audiences. The Specialist is responsible for setting the strategy for email marketing, as well as managing the technical aspects and day-to-day operations of the function, including subscriber acquisition and retention, optimizing email marketing performance via funder deliverables, newsletters, and advocacy campaigns, and collaborating with internal teams to increase newsletter revenue. The Specialist is the organization’s expert on the use of email to engage and activate NCOA’s audiences—turning subscribers into advocates and donors. The Specialist is responsible for building and maintaining NCOA’s database and online forms, creating and delivering high-quality and audience-specific email marketing and digital advocacy campaigns, building brand integrity through an optimized user experience, and reporting on results by gathering, analyzing, and sharing relevant metrics.

Positions at this level act independently on day-to-day work; collaborate on project planning for cross-team priorities; and consult with and provide guidance to senior management and other departments on advanced technical issues. Incumbents are required to make independent judgements within their scope of work and require minimal oversight. Incumbents generally have five or more years of experience in their discipline and a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent, as well as solid experience at this level. Graduate level degrees may be considered in lieu of experience.

COMPETENCIES AND EXPECTATIONS

• Written Communication - Writes clearly and informatively; edits work for spelling and grammar; varies writing style to meet needs of different audiences; presents numerical data effectively.
• Analytical - Synthesizes complex or diverse information; collects and researches data; uses intuition and experience to complement data; designs workflows and procedures.
• Adaptability - Adapts to changes in the work environment; manages competing demands; changes approach or method to best fit the situation; able to deal with frequent change, delays, or unexpected events.
• Technical Skills - Assesses own strengths and weaknesses; pursues training and development opportunities; strives to continuously build knowledge and skills; shares expertise with others.
• Teamwork - Balances team and individual responsibilities; exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views; gives and welcomes feedback; contributes to building a positive team spirit; puts success of team above own interests; able to build morale and group commitments to goals and objectives; supports everyone's efforts to succeed.
• Quality Management - Looks for ways to improve and promote quality; demonstrates accuracy and thoroughness.
• Dependability - Follows instructions, responds to management direction; takes responsibility for own actions; keeps commitments; completes tasks on time or notifies appropriate person with an alternate plan.
• Planning/Organizing - Prioritizes and plans work activities; uses time efficiently; plans for additional resources; sets goals and objectives; organizes or schedules other people and their tasks; develops realistic action plans.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - Shows respect and sensitivity for cultural differences; embraces the value of diversity & equity; supports a harassment-free environment; works to support a diverse & equitable workforce.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Email:

• Develops, tests, and optimizes all NCOA emails: end-to-end email marketing execution, including content planning, segmentation, scheduling, deliverability, and compliance.
• Writes and produces engaging emails that speak to individual readers and spur them to act, translating NCOA initiatives, issues, and policies in a way that effectively connects with readers.
• Leads efforts to continuously push email audiences up the NCOA engagement ladder, developing them from passive users into active advocates and donors.
• Manages comprehensive calendar for all email touchpoints across the organization.
• Manages the technical aspects and day-to-day operations of NCOA’s email marketing platform EveryAction.
• Collaborates with Digital team to design, test, and optimize responsive HTML email templates that reflect channel best practices and the specific needs of NCOA’s core constituencies.
• Ensures NCOA emails are CAN-SPAM compliant and optimized for modern user preferences (e.g., accessibility, mobile-friendly, responsive, etc.).
• Collaborates with Marketing and Communications and Program teams to create and deploy email newsletters designed to boost reach and relevance with NCOA’s key audiences.
• Serves as in-house expert on email marketing communications and best practices.
• Innovates and experiments with new tools, technologies, and tactics to keep NCOA at the forefront of email marketing best practices.

Revenue Generation and Partnerships

• Collaborates with the Business Development and Individual Giving teams to identify and execute philanthropic partner promotion opportunities, co-branded corporate sponsorships, and individual donation appeals.
• Seeks new opportunities to leverage email marketing to advance funder relationships and revenue generation for the organization.

Public Policy & Advocacy

• Collaborates with Public Policy & Advocacy team to create and deploy email engagement programs that drive subscribers to take action using NCOA’s advocacy tools and websites.
• Creates, updates, and maintains a library of interactive Action Alerts on NCOA’s website. 
• Works with Advocacy team to develop messaging that is relevant to NCOA audiences to educate them on Policy issues and create a sense of urgency to act.
• Partners with Advocacy team to identify, write, and update relevant content for advocates on NCOA’s website.

Database Maintenance:

• Leads the Marketing and Communications team’s efforts to collect, protect, and monetize first-person data in Salesforce and NCOA’s email marketing tool EveryAction.
• Segments and targets relevant audiences to ensure project success.
• Establishes and enforces procedures for maintaining a clean email marketing database.
• Manages a catalog of meta data related to email marketing campaigns, online forms, and other managed assets.

Analytics:

• Establishes benchmarks for email performance relative to other nonprofits.
• Works with Digital team to collect and analyze email performance data and insights (CTR, open rates, conversions) and recommend improvements to improve results.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE/QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree and 5-7 years of relevant experience.
• Proven experience with email marketing, lead nurturing, marketing automation, and analytics.
• Strong communicator with impeccable writing, editing, and proofreading skills and ability to tailor messages to unique audiences. 
• Proven experience in email list development, list segmentation, and subscription building.
• Success growing and monetizing email newsletters.
• Ability to understand and implement marketing strategies in support of coordinated campaigns.
• Experience using EveryAction or similar email marketing platform and Salesforce or similar customer relationship management (CRM) software.
• Proficiency in HTML and building/maintaining email templates.
• Knowledge of CAN-SPAM and email marketing compliance.
• Experience using Asana or similar cloud-based project management software.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

• Occasionally required to sit. 
• Occasionally required to walk. 
• Occasionally required to reach with hands and arms. 
• Occasionally required to talk or hear. 
• Occasionally required to bend, lift, or climb stairs.
• Occasionally required to lift light weights (less than 25 pounds). 

WORK ENVIRONMENT

• The noise level in the work environment usually is moderate.

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