Manager of Integrated Marketing & Community Engagement

The Manager of Integrated Marketing and Community Engagement supports AC Grand Rapids with day-to-day integrated marketing execution, paid digital performance, and community engagement efforts across West Michigan. The role partners across departments to strengthen the club’s community pillars while maintaining consistent brand messaging and measurable campaign results.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage week-to-week integrated marketing priorities, ensuring campaigns and initiatives are planned, executed, and measured on schedule.
• Build and maintain an integrated marketing calendar, aligning campaigns, promotions, and community activations with the match schedule and broader club initiatives.
• Plan, execute, and optimize paid digital marketing campaigns across Meta, Google, programmatic, and other digital platforms to drive ticketing, merchandise, and brand awareness.
• Support planning and execution of club-hosted events including watch parties, meet-the-team events, kit launches, and season ticket member events.
• Build and lead grassroots programming across West Michigan, including youth soccer, schools, supporter groups, neighborhood organizations, and local businesses.
• Own vendor relationships and purchases across paid radio, billboard, television, out-of-home, and other traditional media channels.
• Support community efforts by building strategic community partnerships, driving database growth initiatives, assisting with marketing support for camps and clinics, and identifying community events for club presence.
• Maintain the club website and applicable channels in collaboration with the Creative Manager, ensuring updates reflect current promotions, matches, events, and key messaging.
• Create and implement marketing campaigns to drive demand for club ticketing products, including single-match tickets, season tickets, groups, hospitality areas, and exclusive offers.
• Plan and execute email and SMS marketing campaigns, including segmentation, A/B testing, and automation workflows that support fans from awareness through conversion and retention.
• Oversee negotiation, creative development, and trafficking for all paid media advertising, plus strategic in-house asset management across owned channels such as digital, print, outdoor, and in-stadium.
• Track, measure, and report on campaign performance, including spend, ROI, attribution, and audience engagement, and provide data-informed recommendations to improve outcomes.
• Compile marketing data and analytics to identify trends and support strategic recommendations to leadership.
• Work with ticket sales and partnerships teams to create and execute marketing campaigns, including copywriting, graphic development, campaign timelines, list pulls from CRM and analytics platforms, and multi-channel outreach.
• Partner with ticketing to leverage CRM data for audience segmentation and targeted campaigns.
• Develop creative strategies with the corporate partnerships team to promote partners via social media, email marketing, community outreach, and website recognition.
• Maintain strong relationships with media outlets, influencers, third-party providers, vendors, and platform representatives, including ticketing, CRM, email/SMS, and auction tools.
• Coordinate off-season promotions meetings to build a promo calendar for the upcoming season.
• Collaborate with the VP, Integrated Marketing and Communications to implement department goals.
• Manage the integrated marketing budget allocation for assigned channels and campaigns, including forecasting and expense tracking.
• Maintain current awareness of MLS, MLS NEXT Pro, and sports marketing trends, statistics, strategies, and activities.
• Assist with game day activities as needed.
• Provide the highest standards of customer service to fans, clients, and partners.
• Perform other duties as required.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• At least 3 years of experience in integrated marketing, digital marketing, or a related role, preferably within a sports or entertainment environment.
• Hands-on experience managing paid digital campaigns on Meta Business Manager and Google Ads (or comparable platforms).
• Experience managing paid media vendor relationships across radio, billboard, TV, and other traditional channels.
• Demonstrated results in digital growth and campaign performance.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including copywriting.
• Proficiency with marketing tools and platforms including CRM systems such as HubSpot or Salesforce, email/SMS platforms, social media management tools, ticketing analytics platforms, website content management systems, and creative tools such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro.
• Must be proficient with MS Word, MS Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
• Must be willing to work flexible hours, including nights, weekends, holidays, and match days.
• Must be willing to travel when necessary.
• Must pass pre-employment screens.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in a professional or collegiate sports marketing environment.
• Experience with soccer-specific marketing or community programs such as camps, clinics, and grassroots initiatives.
• Familiarity with the West Michigan media and community landscape.
• Understanding or knowledge of the professional soccer landscape and culture.

Technologies

• Meta Business Manager
• Google Ads
• Meta
• Google
• Programmatic
• HubSpot
• Salesforce
• Email/SMS platforms
• Social media management tools
• Ticketing analytics platforms
• Website content management systems
• Photoshop
• Premiere Pro
• MS Word
• MS Excel
• PowerPoint
• Outlook

Role Summary

The Manager of Integrated Marketing and Community Engagement will handle AC Grand Rapids’ week-to-week integrated marketing priorities, including execution of paid digital marketing, management of paid media vendor relationships, and support for grassroots marketing and community efforts. This role amplifies the club’s community pillars and initiatives through strategic community partnerships across West Michigan, while working across departments to ensure initiatives reflect the organization and remain consistent with the AC Grand Rapids brand.