Head of Marketing

Our goal is simple: help the next generation of kids be more ambitious, more creative, and learn to think for themselves. To do that, we’re creating a new education system — one that takes kids seriously.

At Primer, students learn at their own pace, pursue their passions, and get the support they deserve every day. We started Primer because standard schools can’t possibly make space for every kid’s curiosities. But a small school connected to a big network can. Our goal with Primer isn’t to teach you everything under the sun—it’s actually the opposite. We want you to go deep on whatever it is that drives you. Because we think passion is the surest path to learning. And the world could use more of it. Come join us, and do your life work.

We’re looking for our first marketing hire to help us tell Primer’s story in a way that resonates with parents, students, and Primer Leaders.

This role is equal parts art and science and you’ll report directly to the COO. You’ll need to be able to operate at 30,000 feet and 500 feet, often switching altitudes multiple times a day.

Over time you should expect to lead a team, but be comfortable rolling up your sleeves until then.

Responsibilities:

• Own Primer’s brand. This includes copy, brand design, positioning, tone, and the overall feel of how we communicate about our work.
• Own top of funnel. You will be accountable for delivering high quality prospective Primer Leaders and students at or below our CAC targets.
• Own our channels. You’ll be responsible for allocating resources across channels to beat our top of funnel growth goals. Today our strongest channels are referrals (both from parents and Primer Leaders), paid (FB, IG, Google), and direct mail – but we expect that you’ll uncover new ones, expand some, and kill others.
• Own engagement. We often have a significant gap between the decision point (i.e. a parent enrolling their student, or a leader deciding to start a Primer) and the actual commencement date – keeping folks engaged during this period is critical. You’ll own this and be accountable to retention goals over this period.
• Manage partners. This is explicitly not a role where 100% of the work will be outsourced to agencies – you should expect to do the work. That said, we do work with a number of agencies for paid and other channels, and you’ll be responsible for managing them directly.

What we’re looking for:

• Experience leading marketing efforts in the tech industry or for a tech-adjacent brand. Bonus points if it was geo-constrained in some way (e.g. market-by-market rollouts, specific target cities, etc.).
• A healthy mix of art and science. We’re explicitly looking for someone who can flex between the creative inputs for great marketing (copywriting, managing design, etc.) and the quantitative analysis required to deliver results (channel analysis, CAC forecasts, etc.). We’re not expecting you to be an 11/10 on both fronts, but we are expecting you to be comfortable on both sides of the plate.
• Excellent organization and internal comms chops. You’ll be working across the team and managing a large portion of our annual budget. We’ll expect you to communicate clearly on tests we’re running, how we’re tracking against goals, and what you need from the rest of the team to be successful.
• An unbridled passion for fixing the US education system. This is, as you’d expect, non-negotiable. This work is incredibly hard. But if we succeed, it will be the most fulfilling work of our lives. On the days and weeks that it feels like we’re chewing glass, there are only two things that will get you through: a deep passion for fixing this problem, and looking around and seeing a team that shares that passion. We can guarantee the latter, but only you can guarantee the former.

If this sounds like you, fill out the application below with a bit about yourself and we’ll take it from there! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us at [email protected].

Tagged as: Marketing