Blue Plate Catering is hiring: Marketing Operations Manager in Chicago

Description:

Join Our Team as the Marketing Operations Manager at Blue Plate Catering!

Blue Plate Catering is looking for an experienced Marketing Manager to drive our marketing initiatives

and help us reach new heights. In this role, you’ll develop impactful marketing campaigns, lead customer

retention efforts, and support our sales goals through strategic and innovative projects. Collaborate with

Sales, Culinary and other team to bring our brand vision to life!

Position Summary:

Blue Plate Catering is seeking a dynamic and results-oriented Marketing Operations Manager to support the company's growth goals through strategic and creative marketing initiatives. This role will oversee the development and execution of sales and marketing materials, campaigns, lead generation, and customer acquisition and retention efforts that align with our brand standards. Reporting to the VP of Marketing, the Marketing Operations Manager will collaborate with sales, culinary, and other internal teams to create engaging materials, manage multi-channel campaigns, and support our mission to “care more” by delivering food and service experiences that transform our clients’ visions into reality. Balancing creative thinking with interpersonal skills, this person will demonstrate an ability to work with the various teams to successfully develop concepts and ensure they represent the “voice” of the company.

Essential Functions:

• Deliver marketing projects on time, on budget, and with excellence. Ensure compliance of brand standards and maintain consistency of all communication elements across marketing-based activities.
• Implement a new project management platform to manage departmental and cross-functional workflow: intake, importance hierarchies, and on-deadline output.
• Assist in implementing and managing a CRM system to support customer segmentation, lead generation, and retention efforts.
• Conduct market research, customer segmentation, targeting, and competitor analysis to inform marketing strategies.
• Collaborate closely with sales and culinary teams to develop and manage a new-menu rollout production calendar.
• Collaborate with internal teams to integrate partnership efforts into broader marketing initiatives, ensuring consistency in messaging and execution.
• Develop presentations, creative campaign overviews, performance recaps, and other materials for internal and external meetings.
• Oversee photography and videography needs to include food, events, staff, etc., when needed for marketing content.
• Understand the local events, catering, and corporate foodservice markets and effectively target customers and demonstrate awareness of competitors activities and address tactical plans/promotions.
• Assist in maintaining the marketing budget, invoicing and the annual budgeting process for marketing expenditures.
• Perform other job-related tasks, as assigned.

Requirements:

Education and Experience: The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required.

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing or related field.
• Minimum 5 years of progressive marketing experience, ideally in the restaurant or hospitality industry.

Essential Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Blue Plate is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA):

• Ability to demonstrate strong affinity for Blue Plate’s mission: Our mission is to “care more” for others through food and service experiences that turn our partners’ visions into reality.
• Experienced with and enjoy data - including market/segment sizing, forecasting, and working with analytics to understand opportunity sizing.
• Proven experience in collaborating with marketing, sales, operations, and other teams to drive initiatives.
• Up-to-date on marketing communications, analytics best practices, and hospitality market insights.
• Strong project management skills from conception to evaluation, with ability to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and to deadline.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to prepare and deliver clear, concise reports and presentations that are understandable by the target audience.
• Ability to function independently and intuitively in a fast-paced environment.
• Highly organized/strong attention to detail.
• Strong interpersonal and analytical skills.
• Must be proficient in Microsoft 365; Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, and CRM platform are a plus.

Language Skills:

Ability to read, write and speak English proficiently. Bilingual skills preferred.

Physical Demands: 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. Blue Plate is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA):

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear.
• Possess the ability to fulfill any and all office activities normally expected in an office setting, to include, but not limited to: remaining seated for periods of time to perform computer entry, participating in filing activity, lifting and carrying office supplies (paper reams, mail, etc.).
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required by the job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and the ability to adjust focus.
• This role may occasionally require more than 40 hours per week to complete essential responsibilities, depending on business needs.
• Fine hand manipulation.

Work Environment: The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those an employee encounters while performing the essential functions of this job. Blue Plate is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in accordance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA):

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is exposed to weather conditions prevalent at the time.
• Internal office space.
• The noise level in the work environment is usually moderate

Blue Plate Catering complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment, including protections related to race, color, religion, sex (including sexual

orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy), national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.