Manager, Digital Platforms

Position:            Manager, Digital Platforms

Department:             Global Consumer Marketing

Travel Alberta is the tourism marketing agency of the Government of Alberta. A team of youthfully spirited adventurers lead in marketing Alberta’s authentic experiences in breathtaking landscapes around the world. Our mission: to create economic value and prosperity with compelling invitations to explore Alberta.  Travel Alberta strives to empower individual passion and build inspirational leadership as ONE TEAM.  If you want to be part of an award-winning organization with strong corporate values, passionate team members and a great culture, Travel Alberta is the destination for you.

Position Summary

Reporting to the Director, Digital, the Manager, Digital Platforms is responsible for leading the continual evolution of Travel Alberta’s web, mobile and email marketing channels for consumer and B2B audiences in regional and global target markets. The Manager will also work with internal stakeholders to continually enhance the features and functionality of the Alberta Tourism Information Service built as a custom application. Further, the Manager will support other business technology initiatives to improve marketing and sales functions.

Primary responsibilities include:

• Drive traveler consideration and interest in Travel to Alberta from owned digital channels (websites, email)
• Plan and optimize the ATIS platform to create competitive advantages for Alberta’s tourism industry
• End to end lifecycle management, governance and adoption for business technology platforms

Position Responsibilities

Leadership

• Develop innovative strategies to drive the evolution of Travel Alberta’s web, mobile and email marketing channels
• Provide strategic and day-to-day coaching, mentorship and direction for the digital platforms team by clarifying expectations; delivering results; prioritizing and balancing work load.
• Optimize team structure and define roles in alignment with organizational goals
• Assist in the establishment and monitoring of performance toward department objectives and unit scorecards that optimize the utilization of all resources to maximize return on investment within marketing efforts.
• Provide advice and guidance to direct reports toward their professional development and ensuring similar support is provided by global marketing leadership for overall team member success.
• Provide leadership in contractual partnerships to ensure all project deliverables are fulfilled and that the relationship is productive and meets the needs of Travel Alberta.
• Lead the development and implementation of technologies, processes, and best practices to optimize and improve business operations performance
• Act as a Travel Alberta Ambassador and represent Travel Alberta with integrity
• Strive for high-performance by demonstrating the corporate values, principles and Team Member behaviours

Continuous improvement and governance of digital platforms

• Develop optimization plan, conduct tests, analyze results and implement findings to improve website user experience, wayfinding and conversion
• Leverage analytics to identify trends and insights, and optimize websites and email marketing
• Plan and implement behavioral email targeting to increase consumer engagement
• Plan all consumer and B2B channel projects as the business analyst and information architect.
• Support the outsourcing of all design to support consumer and B2B channel projects 
• Work closely with Media & Content team to align content strategies with the user experience strategy of the consumer website
• Collaborates with Marketing team members and agency partners to optimize consumer digital channel performance
• Develop digital strategies to drive in-destination traveller engagement to increase length of stay and spending
• Develop digital strategies to drive Team Alberta engagement on B2B channels
• Collaborates with B2B team members and agency partners to optimize B2B digital channel performance (Industry, Media, Travel Trade and MICE)
• Ensure digital platforms are compliant with FOIP, consumer protection laws and leverage marketing best practices.
• Manage the development and/or configuration of new technology with consideration to existing technologies and opportunities for alignment and integration
• Ensure best practices are followed to optimize SEO on owned consumer channels (ie. Page titles, meta tags, headers, sitemap)
• Working with the Insights & Innovations Manager, evolve and maintain our global taxonomy based on business and brand strategies to provide a common methodology for classifying and structuring content and analytics data across multiple systems and channels
• Domain name and redirect management

Manage end to end project lifecycles

• Working with each manager within the Digital & Insights team, ensure each teams processes align to an end to end project lifecycle that supports the overall team in efficiently completing all projects and on-going work. 
• Project manage all consumer and B2B channel projects from business analysis through to production delivery.
• Participate in development sprint planning and reviews to support continuous collaboration.
• Analyze and verify requirements for completeness, consistency, comprehensibility, feasibility, and conformity to standards. 
• Utilize standard templates and global taxonomy to accurately and concisely create project artifacts (i.e. requirements, specifications, project charters, regular status reports, etc). 
• Translate conceptual user requirements into functional user stories with acceptance criteria in a clear manner that is comprehensible to developers/project team. 
• Design and develop user-centric solutions based on all business and technical requirements.
  This includes, but is not limited to, the following types of documentation:
  • data modeling
  • process modeling
  • use case modeling
  • Conceptual and logical data flow modeling (system maps and data flow diagrams)
  • Wireframes
  • Assist with the interpretation of user requirements into feasible options, and communicating these back to the business partners. 
  • Communicate changes, enhancements, and modifications of business requirements, project statuses to business partners and others so that issues and solutions are understood. 
  • Willing to assist and back-up other team members in their roles (including, on occasion, application support). 

Budget Accountability and Reporting

• Manage budget development and forecasting and making recommendations regarding fund allocation. Regularly forecast project and associated budget requirements to ensure project objectives are achieved within allocated budget.
• Review and manage the approval of project requests, purchase orders, etc. Oversight of all Digital Platform team expenses, invoicing, etc.
• Source and manage the contractual relationships with suppliers and agencies including requests for proposals, NPPs, RFIs, RFQs.
• Contribute to the establishment and monitoring of KPIs
• Responsible for contributing to monthly updates for business unit reports and quarterly MD & A. Assist with information requests regarding Innovation from other business units.

Education & Experience

• BA or BS in one of the following: Marketing, Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, Information Sciences, or a related area.
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience planning and optimizing web, mobile, and email strategies ideally in an agency environment

Additional Requirements

• In-depth knowledge of digital marketing practices to build strategies and process that will meet the diverse needs of many stakeholders
• Knowledge of usability heuristics and effective design principles
• Understanding of responsive design principles
• Knowledgeable about software development, application frameworks, APIs, programming languages, development methodologies, including Agile
• Good communication skills
• Good leadership and interpersonal skills
• Thorough and up-to-date understanding of web publishing systems, web development and related capabilities
• Architecture-related software (Illustrator, Visio, Photoshop, SQL Server, MS Office, Acrobat, Dreamweaver)
• Knowledge of latest marketing technology trends, as well as established marketing/technology best practices

Your dedication and passion has taken your career to this point, now it is time to advance to a new level by stepping into Travel Alberta’s exciting working environment.     

Other Information

This position is based in Calgary, Alberta.

Employment status: Full Time

Start Date: Immediately

This position offers an excellent benefits package with SunLife Financial, including extended health and dental coverage, life insurance, travel insurance, long term disability and a flexible spending account. This individual will also participate in a defined benefit plan with the Management Employee Pension Plan (MEPP), have free and confidential access to the Employee and Family Assistance Plan and be a part of Travel Alberta’s learning and development program, which includes up to 100% reimbursement to further education.

Since becoming a Crown corporation in 2009, Travel Alberta has been recognized with more than 50 awards for brand and marketing and excellence.

Closing Date: February 16, 2018

If you have the qualifications to succeed in this role, submit a cover letter, resume and your salary expectations, with the title in the subject line of your email to careers@travelalberta.com. If applicable, please indicate the name of the Travel Alberta Team Member who referred you to this role.

We wish to express our appreciation to all applicants for their interest and advise that only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. Any personal information submitted will be managed with the strictest of confidentiality.