Marketing Specialist (MN)

Location: New Brighton, MN (Full-time, in-office. No remote/ hybrid) 

Reports to: CEO  

Salary: $70,000–$80,000 p.a. base (experience dependent) + performance incentives tied to MQL generation 

Growth pathway:  Transition to Marketing Manager role within 12–18 months based on performance and company growth  

About Gophermods Gophermods is Minnesota's leading provider of end-to-end technology support in device repair, management, and lifecycle solutions for K-12 schools and reliable tech services for small businesses. We specialize in iPads, MacBooks, Chromebooks, iPhones, and Windows laptops, handling over 50,000 devices annually. We're growing and ready to invest in marketing to expand awareness and drive new demand in an open market. 

The Opportunity 

We’re hiring our first dedicated Marketing Specialist, a senior generalist (3–6 years hands-on) ready to take full ownership from the ground up as a mini head of marketing. This isn't plugging into an established team or playbook; it's creating one. You’ve run end-to-end marketing before: built campaigns, worked tradeshows, written content, pulled and reported on data, set up tools, and iterated based on real feedback. You’re excited to build from scratch, not intimidated by it. 

You’ll report directly to the CEO and represent the brand at tradeshows and in the field. In your first year, you’ll lay the foundation, prove measurable ROI, run a full tradeshow cycle with clear learnings, and make the case to grow the marketing team positioning yourself to lead it. 

Your mission: Build a measurable marketing engine that drives: 

1. Brand awareness and expansion among existing K-12 clients (lifecycle marketing for additional offerings). 

1. Net-new demand in the K-12 public sector, primarily through field marketing (tradeshows), direct mail, and digital marketing tactics. 

We sell to busy K–12 IT Directors, Technology Coordinators, and district administrators, where sales cycles are long and influenced by peers, budget cycles, and credibility. Trust and a clear “make my life easier” value are everything. Your job is to cut through the noise with practical, useful offers like checklists, assessments, audits, and case studies while working at the decision maker's pace. As we scale, you’ll also help support shorter-cycle SMB tech services. 

Key Responsibilities 

Foundation & Infrastructure 

• Auditing and activating existing marketing assets (CRM, website, email list, social accounts) 

• Managing and optimizing the marketing tech stack; identifying and implementing tools that work well together 

• Building the foundation for a marketing department that will grow alongside the company 

Strategy, Research & Positioning 

• Developing and refining K–12 buyer personas through research, interviews, and collaboration with sales/leadership 

• Creating and managing a thought leadership content strategy that builds credibility and supports long sales cycles 

 Campaign Execution & Demand Generation 

• Planning and executing campaigns across email, content, social, SEO, and paid media (as appropriate) 

Field Marketing & Events 

• Representing the company at 3–4 tradeshows/industry events per year, including booth strategy, attendee engagement, and post-event follow-up/reporting 

Measurement, Reporting & Revenue Alignment 

• Building and maintaining a measurement framework with clear KPIs and regular reporting to the CEO 

• Tracking/reporting key metrics (MQLs, pipeline influence, CAC, conversion rates) 

• Partnering closely with the CEO and sales team to align marketing with business goals and revenue targets 

Required: 

• 3–6 years of hands-on marketing experience across multiple channels including content, email, social media, events, and SEO 

• Demonstrated ability to build and use marketing measurement frameworks, with fluency in metrics like CAC, ROAS, LTV, and MQL-to-SQL conversion rates 

• Experience developing buyer personas from real research not just templates including direct customer or market interviews 

• Experience working tradeshows or industry events with the ability to manage booth strategy, engage attendees, and iterate in real time 

• Generalist-level SEO knowledge including on-page fundamentals, content strategy for search, and basic EAT understanding 

• Experience evaluating and implementing marketing technology tools including CRM, email and marketing automation platforms, analytics, and social media management 

• Experience creating or contributing to content and thought leadership strategies 

• Strong presentation and communication skills with the ability to deliver clearly and confidently to both external audiences and executive leadership 

• Comfort and enthusiasm for being the external face of the brand 

• A genuine, demonstrable orientation toward data-informed decision making not just as a line on a resume but as a working practice 

Preferred but Not Required: 

• Experience marketing in K-12 education, edtech, or public sector environments 

• Experience with local or SMB service marketing 

• Familiarity with B2B demand generation programs and longer sales cycles 

• Experience mentoring, training, or onboarding junior team members 

• Participation in professional marketing development such as the Inbound conference or similar 

• Experience with Pipedrive is a plus 

Benefits 

• 14 PTO days + option for 2 additional weeks unpaid  

• 50 % employer-paid medical, dental, vision  

• 4 % 401(k) company match 

• Disability: Short‑ and long‑term coverage included. 

If you’re excited to build a marketing engine at a growing company that’s hands-on, field-driven, grounded in data and you’re comfortable owning results without a big team, we’d love to chat.