Manager, Marketing Strategy

Marketing Manager

Location: Bentonville, AR (with regional travel up to 25%) – Hybrid role -3+ days onsite/week

Reports to: Senior Manager, Marketing Strategy or equivalent

Hiring Range: This position's hiring range is anticipated to be $80,000-$90,000 depending on experience, plus great benefits!

About This Role

Best Friends Animal Society is on a mission to end the killing of dogs and cats in America's shelters. In Northwest Arkansas, that mission is showing up in neighborhoods, at community events, and across social feeds every day. This role sits at the center of that work, is connected to one of the most innovative assets in Animal Welfare – the NWA Pet Resource Center, and shapes how people in NWA discover, connect with, and advocate for the pets in our care.

As Marketing Manager for the NWA Pet Resource Center, you won't just run campaigns — you'll be the reason a family meets their dog or cat, a volunteer shows up on a Tuesday, and a donor decides this cause is worth their money. Your work lives at the intersection of mission and community: getting the right story in front of the right person at exactly the right moment and requires strategic leadership, tenacity, and rolling up sleeves to support execution.

You'll blend data and instinct to build marketing that drives adoption, fosters, volunteers, and donations — using modern channels, emerging tools, and genuine creative conviction. You'll also lead and grow a direct report, bringing the same energy to their development that you bring to a campaign launch, and partner closely with Lifesaving Teams, PR, Multicultural Marketing, Creative, and Fundraising to ensure that local insight can be supercharged to scale and resonate.

What You'll Do

• Lead Marketing Strategy: Community-centered campaigns for the NWA Pet Resource Center that work across channels and touchpoints. Serve as the primary local marketing contact, bringing innovative solutions (i.e. scaling with AI) to work smarter across planning, coordination, and execution.
• Manage Local Content and Social Media: Oversee content calendars, promotions, and social media efforts that align with Best Friends' brand voice, strategic goals, and broader campaigns. Provides oversight, accountability, and strategic integration and can step in to manage social if needed.
• Leverage Data to Inform Performance: Monitor, analyze, and report on marketing metrics—including social media and campaign performance.
• Build and Champion Marketing Systems: Improve how marketing operates by identifying and advancing systems, automations, and workflows that reduce manual effort, increase visibility into performance, and support stronger decision-making across campaigns and channels.
• Strengthen Media and Influencer Partnerships: Work alongside the Senior Specialist, who leads primary relationships with local press, influencers, and community partners. Provide strategic guidance, remove barriers, and help expand reach and impact through coordinated efforts with PR and editorial teams.
• Support Local Events and Community Engagement: Partner closely with Community Programs teams to support and promote local events, ensure marketing materials are accurate and effective, and use what you learn to decide what's worth doing again.
• Mentor and Manage Direct Reports and Volunteers: Provide guidance, feedback, and professional development to ensure effective and aligned local marketing execution. Support growth, and model thoughtful adoption of evolving tools and ways of working.
• Champion Inclusive and Culturally Relevant Marketing: Support the development of inclusive campaigns that reflect NWA's diversity and deepen community connections to the organization's mission.

What You Bring

• Marketing Strategy & Campaign Execution: You bring 6+ years of marketing or community engagement experience, ideally in a nonprofit or cause-centered environment. You lead campaigns from concept to results and use data to sharpen what's working. You know how to evaluate what's worth adopting versus what's hype — and you understand when AI accelerates the work and when the human touch matters more.
• Social Media & Content Development: Experience managing and growing social platforms (especially Instagram and Facebook), with a strong understanding of content strategy, analytics, and audience development.
• Hands on AI Practices & a Modern Marketing Mindset: You have hunger to understand, use and build '/skills' and'self-start' in the evolving AI and marketing landscape. You operate at the intersection of creativity and data, and get excited about using AI to accelerate ideas, personalize content/delivery and own the human layer, keeping a sharp eye on brand, audience, and message quality.
• Digital Advertising & Audience Growth: Experience developing and managing targeted digital advertising strategies (e.g., social media ads, display ads) to expand reach, attract new audiences, and re-engage existing supporters; ability to align paid media with broader marketing campaigns to drive measurable results.
• Project Management & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Track record leading complex projects across multiple teams, balancing competing priorities in a fast-paced environment. Skilled at building cross-functional relationships, getting people aligned through influence, and following through to deliver results.
• Team Leadership & Mentorship: You've been a marketer, not just a manager of them. You're as comfortable leading through influence as through direct authority, and you model the collaborative culture you expect from others.
• Communication & Cultural Fluency: Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Able to tailor messaging for diverse audiences. Familiarity with multicultural marketing; Spanish bilingual skills are a plus but not required.

You show up with kindness, transparency, and a genuine commitment to the mission. You're flexible when the work calls for it — including some evenings and weekends — embrace honest feedback, and thrive in a culture built on accountability and shared purpose.

Physical Requirements:

• Working in animal welfare means showing up for the animals directly. This role operates in and around shelter environments, and that's part of what makes it meaningful.
• Routinely lift 65 pounds and perform daily strenuous activity including, but not limited to lifting, carrying, reaching, stooping, squatting, cleaning, and bending.
• Perform repetitive tasks for extended periods of time including typing, sitting, walking, arm, and hand motion.
• Work indoors and outdoors in a variety of weather conditions including extreme heat and cold.
• Comfort working in and around active shelter environments, including facilities where animals are at risk. This is the reality of rescue work, and it's what drives everything we do.
• Must have a valid driver's license for at least 3 years, ability to qualify to be added to Best Friends insurance.
• Ability to travel up to 20% of the time (around NWA, within Arkansas, and out of state) and able to travel by various modes of transportation (plane, car, etc.)

Thank you for your interest in pursuing a career at Best Friends Animal Society. Best Friends Animal Society is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to their race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, or domestic partner status.

Applicants for employment in the U.S. must have valid work authorization that does not now and/or will not in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the U.S. by Best Friends Animal Society.