Marketing Specialist Gophermods Location: Virtual Role Reports to: CEO Growth Pathway: Clear opportunity to advance to Marketing Manager 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 public sector K-12 (Primary - Secondary education) 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: 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 support the Sales team as they represent the brand at tradeshows and in the field. In your first year, you’ll lay the foundation; activate existing assets and create the systems, campaigns, and measurement frameworks that drive results. Your Mission Build a measurable marketing engine that delivers:

• Greater brand awareness and expansion sales from existing K-12 clients through lifecycle marketing.
• Net-new demand in the K-12 public sector, led by you supporting the field marketing initiatives, direct mail, and digital tactics.

You’ll target busy K-12 IT Directors, Technology Coordinators, and District Administrators in long, trust-based sales cycles. Success means creating practical, no-fluff offers; checklists, readiness assessments, audits, peer case studies, and clear next steps that respect their time and deliver real “make my life easier” value.

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.

Field Marketing & Events

• Support field marketing efforts: develop tradeshow and event strategy, prepare pre-event outreach, design lead capture and follow-up processes, and analyze post-event performance and ROI.

Measurement, Reporting & Revenue Alignment

• Building and maintaining a measurement framework with clear KPIs and regular reporting to the CEO
• Tracking/reporting key metrics
• Partnering closely with the CEO and sales team to align marketing with business goals and revenue targets

Required Qualifications

• 3–6 years of hands-on marketing experience executing across content, email, social, events, and SEO.
• Proven ability to build measurement frameworks and make data-driven decisions using metrics like MQLs, MQL-to-SQL conversion, CAC, and ROAS.
• Experience developing buyer personas from direct research and interviews.
• Strong background driving tradeshows or events: strategy, materials creation, iteration based on feedback, and follow-up execution.
• Generalist SEO knowl