Vice President Marketing
hace 2 días
New York
Since 1945, Circle Line has shown the world New York from the water. More than a million people a year step aboard our boats: first-time visitors circling Manhattan, families on a summer afternoon, thrill-seekers hanging on as The Beast tears across the harbor. We are one of the last true New York institutions that is also, every single day, a business that has to fill seats. We are looking for a builder to carry an 80-year-old brand into its next era: someone who treats that legacy as an asset to grow, and who measures their work by how many more people we get on the water, how much each visit is worth, and how efficiently we earn each booking. What This Job Is About: The VP of Marketing is responsible for about half of our revenue and all of our brand equity. This is a revenue growth role, and we judge it by outcomes, not output. We are not counting the number of campaigns you launch, emails you send, or decks you produce. Three numbers make up the scoreboard, and we watch them closely: • Directly-acquired passengers, year over year. More people on our boats than the year before is the truest sign the brand is winning. • Average revenue per passenger. Getting more value from each visit through pricing, packaging, and the mix of experiences we sell. • Marketing cost per passenger. Earning each booking more efficiently, so growth doesn't just increase costs. Everything else is a means to those ends. How you move the numbers is largely yours to decide, and the levers are wide: sharper digital and performance marketing, stronger brand positioning, and programming and promotions that widen what Circle Line offers and who it's for, deepening its pull with New Yorkers as well as regional and international visitors. Bring your own ideas too. If it moves passengers, revenue per passenger, or cost per passenger in the right direction, it's fair game. If it only produces activity, it isn't the job. Where You'll Focus: 1. Grow the number of people on our boats: This is a brand and demand-generation challenge as much as a media one. You will own how Circle Line and The Beast are positioned, how they sound, and how they show up, keeping two very different brands distinct and unmistakable. You will grow awareness across local, domestic, and international audiences, and sharpen how each of them discovers and chooses us. A big part of the growth story lives beyond sightseeing. We run a portfolio of specialty and occasion cruises: Fourth of July fireworks, New Year's Eve, fall-foliage and Bear Mountain cruises, puppy adoption cruises, evening “sip-and-groove” sailings built for a night out. Each reaches a different audience through different channels, and the mix that fills a fireworks sailing is a world away from what fills a weeknight party cruise. The job rewards range: the instinct to market all of it, and the appetite to invent new reasons for people to come aboard. 1. Increase the value of every visit: You will own pricing across all products, including daily dynamic, demand-based pricing that maximizes revenue per sailing. You'll watch booking pace, load factors, and competitor pricing, and make timely, confident calls, partnering with Finance to model scenarios and track revenue against budget, and holding any outside pricing partners to real performance. Value also comes from keeping the guests we already win. You will build and own the CRM and lifecycle program (segmentation, personalization, retention) so first-time riders become repeat guests, and design promotions and packaging that raise the value of a visit while keeping pricing strong. 1. Lower the cost of acquiring each passenger: You will own performance marketing across paid search, paid social, display, out-of-home, and other demand channels, setting the strategy, allocating spend, and holding media and agency partners accountable to measurable results. You'll set clear KPIs, run honest performance reviews, and align investment with the seasonal demand curve, product-level goals, and booking pace. Efficiency is also won on our own turf. You will lead digital across SEO, email, paid social, and the booking experience, own the customer journey from first impression to completed booking, and partner with Tech to strip friction out of the funnel, so more of the demand you pay for actually converts. The Rest of the Job: A few responsibilities round out the role: • Read the demand. This is a waterfront business, and demand shifts constantly, moving with the seasons, holidays, school calendars, the weather, and the rhythm of New York tourism. You'll live in guest surveys, Google Analytics, and booking data to see it coming. • Own the sailing schedule. Across all Circle Line and The Beast products, you'll tune departure frequency and timing to real demand, partner with Operations to keep it executable, and fold in new products as they launch. • Build the team. Today it's a lean team of two. A core part of this role is growing it, recruiting and developing specialists across performance, social, partnerships, and coordination as the function scales. • Run social with intent. Set the voice, cadence, and content strategy for both brands, bring on a content specialist to execute, and keep social tied to launches, campaigns, and booking conversion. • Lead alongside your peers. You'll sit on the leadership team, partner with Sales, Guest Services, Operations, Finance, and Tech, own our most important agency and vendor relationships end to end, and report performance and forecasts straight to the CEO. Who This Will Suit: You're energized by a rising booking curve and would rather run the A/B test than argue about it. You're comfortable being both the strategist and the practitioner, setting direction and doing the hands-on work to deliver it, in a fast-moving business where senior leaders still build things themselves. You'll start hands-on, with a small team and a budget you'll grow by earning it: early on you'll do much of the work yourself and prove the returns that justify the next hire and the next dollar. As the business grows, so does the role, the team, and the investment behind it. And you want to leave your mark on a New York institution. If that's you, this is the job. What Success Looks Like in Year One: • More passengers than the prior year, with the brand visibly gaining ground in local, domestic, and international markets. • Measurably higher revenue per passenger, driven by disciplined dynamic pricing, smarter packaging, and better retention, with load factors improved in the shoulder seasons. • A lower, well-instrumented marketing cost per passenger, backed by clear KPIs, agencies held accountable, and a booking funnel that converts more of the demand we pay for. • A specialty and occasion cruise program that sells out its marquee dates and pulls demand into the quieter stretches of the calendar. • A sailing schedule tuned to real demand and built together with Operations, plus a marketing team growing in capability under your leadership. What You Bring: Required • 12+ years of progressive marketing experience, including senior leadership of revenue-driving functions in a high-volume, consumer-facing business. • 5+ years leading and developing high-performing marketing teams., • Hands-on pricing experience, ideally dynamic or demand-based pricing in a ticketed, capacityconstrained, or hospitality business. • A track record managing advertising and media-buying agencies, including multimillion-dollar budgets and accountability for performance. • Strong analytical instincts, with fluency in revenue data, booking pace, forecasting, Google Analytics, and guest-survey data, and the ability to turn all of it into action. • Proven direct-to-consumer digital chops across paid search, paid social, SEO, and email., • Comfort in a hands-on, fast-paced environment where senior leaders are also practitioners, working effectively with operations, finance, and other non-marketing teams. • Willingness to work on-site, with flexibility for occasional evenings, weekends, and events. Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field. Preferred: • Experience marketing a high-volume consumer business serving hundreds of thousands or millions of customers a year, where scale, seasonality, and audience diversity shape decisions. • Background in tourism, attractions, live events, hospitality, or other experiential consumer businesses, and knowledge of New York City's visitor economy. • Familiarity with OTA distribution, group sales, or B2B partnership marketing, plus command of A/B testing and offer-optimization methods. • MBA or advanced degree. What You'll Get: More than a competitive package, this is a rare seat at a New York original: A thrilling job. You'll lead marketing for an 80-year-old New York institution that puts more than a million people on the water every year, with the mandate, the budget, and the brand to leave a real mark on it. An office on the Hudson. You'll work right on the waterfront, with the river and the Manhattan skyline out the window and our boats coming and going all day. A city that comes to you. Fourth of July fireworks, fall foliage, New Year's Eve on the harbor: the best of New York's calendar is your product line, not just your commute. Base salary. $150,000 to $200,000 annually, commensurate with experience. Bonus. Annual performance-based bonus with significant upside, tied to passenger growth, revenue per passenger, load-factor performance, and marketing efficiency. Health. Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents. Retirement. 401(k) plan with company match. Time off. Generous paid time off plus company holidays. Flexibility. Although you are expected to be physically in the office a lot, we also have a work-from-home policy that acknowledges that you do some of your best thinking out of the office. Perks. Complimentary cruise access and hospitality perks for you and your family. Free on-site parking.