Director of Marketing - HGI/Canopy Chicago

 

 

 

 

Marketing Strategy & Commercial Leadership 

• Own the annual marketing strategy, budget, and calendar for the dual-branded hotel complex and its associated revenue streams. 

• Translate revenue goals, market conditions, competitive intelligence, and business needs into actionable marketing strategies and campaigns. 

• Serve as an active member of the property’s commercial leadership team, partnering with Revenue Management and Sales to identify need periods, demand opportunities, target segments, and strategies to grow market share. 

• Develop and execute strategies across transient leisure, business travel, group and meetings, food and beverage, and local audiences. 

• Maximize synergies across the dual-branded complex while maintaining appropriate differentiation between the Canopy and Hilton Garden Inn brands. 

• Develop recommendations for marketing investments based on anticipated revenue impact and return on investment. 

• Maintain a strong understanding of Chicago travel trends, competitive activity, citywide events, cultural moments, and emerging hospitality, lifestyle, dining, and consumer trends. 

Digital Marketing & Revenue Generation 

• Lead the property’s digital marketing strategy across Hilton and independent channels, including paid search, metasearch, display, paid social, OTA media, and other performance marketing platforms. 

• Own the strategy and performance of Hilton.com content and the stand-alone vanity website, ensuring compelling storytelling, strong merchandising, optimized conversion paths, and alignment with commercial priorities. 

• Manage paid media partners and agencies with clear expectations for performance, optimization, reporting, and return on ad spend. 

• Develop targeted campaigns supporting transient need periods, group and meeting demand, seasonal offers, packages, food and beverage promotions, programming, events, and other revenue opportunities. 

• Use performance data to continually optimize media mix, audiences, messaging, creative, landing pages, and marketing investment. 

• Identify opportunities to increase direct bookings, improve digital conversion, and reduce reliance on higher-cost acquisition channels. 

Social Media Strategy & Execution 

• Own the organic social media strategy and day-to-day execution with external partners for the property and its priority experiences and revenue streams. 

• Develop content pillars, channel strategies, and editorial calendars aligned with brand positioning, audience needs, and commercial objectives. 

• Create, curate, schedule, publish, and manage organic social content across priority platforms. 

• Capture timely, authentic on-property content showcasing guestrooms, food and beverage, meetings and events, programming, experiences, team members, Chicago, and behind-the-scenes moments. 

• Write engaging, brand-appropriate social copy and adapt content for individual platforms and audiences. 

• Actively manage community engagement, including comments, direct messages, tags, mentions, and engagement with relevant Chicago accounts and audiences. 

• Identify and capitalize on trending content, cultural moments, local events, and real-time opportunities relevant to the property. 

• Develop and manage influencer and creator collaborations that expand reach, generate high-quality content, and build awareness. 

• Track follower growth, reach, engagement rate, content performance, referral traffic, and other social KPIs, using insights to continually refine strategy and content. 

Brand, Content & Creative 

• Steward the positioning and creative expression of the dual-branded hotel complex and its guest experiences, ensuring alignment with Hilton brand standards where applicable. 

• Develop compelling storytelling that differentiates Canopy within Chicago’s competitive lifestyle hotel market while supporting the broader positioning and commercial objectives of the complex. 

• Lead photography, videography, creative development, and asset production across the property. 

• Maintain an integrated content calendar aligned with social media, seasonal demand, cultural moments, programming, promotions, PR, and commercial priorities. 

• Develop creative briefs and manage external resources when specialized production support is required. 

• Ensure consistency and quality across websites, digital advertising, social media, email, collateral, signage, menus, sales materials, and on-property guest touchpoints. 

• Maintain a robust library of current, high-quality photography, video, and creative assets that support ongoing marketing needs across all revenue streams. 

Public Relations & Influencer Marketing 

• Lead the property’s PR strategy in partnership with external PR resources, generating meaningful earned media coverage and strengthening awareness of the hotels and overall property experience. 

• Identify compelling story angles around design, hospitality, dining, Chicago culture, meetings, seasonal programming, partnerships, and guest experiences. 

• Serve as the primary property liaison for PR opportunities, media requests, press visits, and storytelling initiatives. 

• Identify, cultivate, and manage relationships with relevant influencers and creators. 

• Coordinate media and influencer stays and experiences in partnership with hotel operations. 

• Track the quality, reach, relevance, and business impact of earned media and influencer initiatives. 

CRM & Email Marketing 

• Own the property’s email and CRM strategy to drive incremental revenue, repeat visitation, guest engagement, and cross-promotion across the complex. 

• Develop targeted campaigns supporting guestrooms, seasonal offers, meetings, food and beverage, events, programming, and other revenue opportunities. 

• Develop content, messaging, offers, and creative direction for email campaigns. 

• Continually evaluate segmentation, engagement, conversion, and revenue contribution to improve effectiveness. 

• Track email-generated revenue and incorporate performance insights into future campaign strategy. 

• Identify opportunities to use guest data and segmentation to increase personalization, frequency, and lifetime guest value. 

Food & Beverage Marketing 

• Own the marketing strategy and execution supporting the property’s food and beverage offerings and experiences. 

• Partner with Food & Beverage leadership to develop strategies supporting revenue, covers, local traffic, hotel guest utilization, special events, seasonal experiences, and need periods. 

• Develop integrated campaigns around menu launches, seasonal programming, holidays, promotions, entertainment, and signature experiences. 

• Build awareness and repeat visitation among Chicago residents and visitors while maximizing cross-promotion to hotel guests and meeting attendees. 

• Develop and execute organic social and digital content that creates compelling reasons to visit and supports the positioning of the overall property. 

• Identify partnerships, collaborations, influencers, programming, and local opportunities that expand reach and generate incremental demand. 

• Evaluate campaign performance and continuously refine marketing strategies based on revenue contribution and audience response. 

Group & Meetings Marketing 

• Partner with Sales to develop marketing strategies that generate qualified group and meeting demand and support conversion. 

• Develop campaigns, promotions, content, collateral, digital media, and sales tools that differentiate the property within the Chicago meetings market. 

• Support need-period and booking-window strategies with targeted group marketing initiatives. 

• Leverage the combined hotel offering, meeting facilities, lifestyle positioning, food and beverage, and broader property experiences to create a compelling proposition for meeting planners and attendees. 

• Support Sales with content and storytelling that communicate the complete meeting and event experience across the dual-branded complex. 

• Evaluate group marketing initiatives based on qualified lead generation, conversion, revenue contribution, and return on investment. 

Partnerships, Programming & Local Market Engagement 

• Identify and develop strategic partnerships with Chicago businesses, cultural organizations, attractions, events, brands, creators, and community organizations that expand reach and reinforce positioning. 

• Partner with hotel and Food & Beverage operations to develop marketable programming and experiences that create reasons to visit and generate incremental revenue. 

• Capitalize on major Chicago events, conventions, festivals, restaurant initiatives, and seasonal demand generators through targeted campaigns and partnerships. 

• Identify opportunities to connect the property with Chicago’s neighborhoods, culture, businesses, attractions, and experiences in ways that strengthen relevance for both visitors and local audiences. 

• Represent the property within relevant tourism, hospitality, business, and community organizations. 

Budget, Performance & Partner Management 

• Own the annual marketing budget and manage investments against established revenue priorities and performance expectations. 

• Manage external partners supporting paid media, PR, specialized creative production, and other marketing disciplines as appropriate. 

• Establish clear scopes, deliverables, timelines, KPIs, and accountability for external partners. 

• Develop regular marketing performance reporting connecting marketing activity to commercial outcomes. 

• Present marketing strategies, performance, opportunities, and recommendations to hotel leadership, SHG Corporate Marketing, and ownership. 

• Continually evaluate results and reallocate resources toward the channels, audiences, and initiatives producing the strongest business outcomes. 

Key Performance Indicators 

Success in this role will be measured by the Director’s contribution to overall property performance, market share growth, and marketing effectiveness. 

Commercial Performance 

• Total Revenue Achievement to Budget 

• RevPAR Index Growth 

• Guestroom Revenue Performance 

• Food & Beverage Revenue Performance 

• Contribution to Group and Meeting Revenue Generation 

Digital & Marketing Performance 

• Hilton.com Website Traffic Growth 

• Stand-Alone Vanity Website Traffic Growth 

• Paid Media Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) 

• Direct Booking and Digital Conversion Performance 

• Email Marketing Revenue Generation 

• Marketing Campaign Revenue and ROI 

Social Media 

• Organic Social Media Follower Growth 

• Engagement Rate 

• Reach and Impressions 

• Content Performance 

• Referral Traffic from Social Channels 

• Influencer and Creator Campaign Performance 

Public Relations 

• Quantity and Quality of Earned Media Coverage 

• Target-Market and National Media Placements 

• Share of Voice and Destination Visibility 

• PR-Generated Referral Traffic and Measurable Impact, Where Available 

Food & Beverage Marketing 

• Food & Beverage Revenue Performance 

• Campaign and Promotion Performance 

• Traffic and Revenue Contribution from Marketing Initiatives 

• Growth in Local, Hotel Guest, and Meeting Attendee Engagement 

Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Hospitality, Business, or related field. 

• 7+ years of progressive marketing experience, preferably within lifestyle, luxury, full-service, or upper-upscale hospitality. 

• Previous hotel marketing experience strongly preferred. 

• Demonstrated experience owning marketing strategy and execution with accountability for measurable revenue performance. 

• Demonstrated hands-on experience developing and executing organic social media strategy, content creation, publishing, and community management. 

• Strong understanding of hotel commercial strategy, including revenue management, sales, distribution, transient and group segmentation, and food and beverage. 

• Proven expertise across digital marketing, paid media, CRM/email, social media, content development, public relations, influencer marketing, partnerships, and brand strategy. 

• Strong food and beverage marketing experience, ideally within full-service, lifestyle, or experiential hospitality environments. 

• Experience with Hilton marketing platforms, systems, and brand resources preferred. 

• Strong analytical capabilities with the ability to translate performance data into actionable marketing decisions. 

• Experience managing marketing budgets, agencies, vendors, and multiple concurrent initiatives. 

• Exceptional communication, writing, presentation, project management, and stakeholder management skills. 

• Strong creative instincts balanced with disciplined, data-driven decision making. 

• Ability to capture and create compelling social content independently, with an eye for photography, video, storytelling, and emerging platform trends. 

• Ability to work flexible hours as needed to support events, content capture, media visits, activations, and hotel programming. 

The Ideal Candidate 

We are looking for a commercially minded, hands-on marketing leader who can move seamlessly between strategy and execution. This is not a role that simply directs agencies or manages a marketing calendar. The Director will personally shape how the hotels and overall property experience show up in the market every day. 

The ideal candidate is equally comfortable developing an annual marketing strategy, creating and publishing social content, analyzing campaign performance, partnering with Revenue Management on a need period, developing demand-generating campaigns across guestrooms, food and beverage, meetings and programming, briefing a photographer, writing an email campaign, presenting results to ownership, or identifying the next Chicago partnership that can generate meaningful awareness and demand. 

This individual is highly collaborative, accountable, entrepreneurial, creatively ambitious, analytically rigorous, and energized by the opportunity to directly influence the commercial performance of a multi-faceted hospitality destination.