Marketing Manager (Incentive Plus and Speechmark),Education Division

Electric Word plc, Milton Keynes

Closing date: 7th March 2010
Salary: £27-30k plus £3k OTE dependent on experience.

Based in our Milton Keynes office
Please send your CV and a covering letter to Emma Rogers: emma.rogers@electricwordplc.com

Electric Word plc is a specialist publisher, with offices in London and Milton Keynes. Our Education Division publishes a number products focused on the professional development of a range of education and associated professionals. This role in based in the Milton Keynes office, responsible for all marketing activities of Incentive Plus, a specialist education cataloguer, and Speechmark, a niche publisher for education and speech and language therapists.

We’re looking for a highly-organised and experienced marketing manager with excellent data analysis skills and a passion for improving marketing competencies. You should be able to demonstrate experience in the management of marketing activity, with a strong ROI focus, backed up by careful analysis of results and trends.

You will be managing a small team consisting of an Online Marketing Exec and a more experienced Senior Marketing Exec.

Responsibilities and Requirements

The below gives an outline of the initial scope of your accountabilities and responsibilities:

  1. Manage all marketing activity for Incentive Plus and Speechmark. Working to forecast targets and closely (where appropriate) with the London marketing team and Milton Keynes MD, you will be responsible for:
    • Catalogue marketing – both businesses generate the majority of direct sales through the direct mailing of catalogues at core times of the year. You will be expected to analyse results of previous catalogue campaigns in order to generate catalogue marketing plans for future mailings.
    • E-commerce activity – online sales have dramatically increased over the last 2-3 years, with limited input and analysis. This will undoubtedly be a core area of growth for both businesses over the coming years. Improving our e-commerce capabilities, particularly around analysis and investment decision-making is essential.
    • Email marketing campaigns – a structure or using the email marketing channel has been created over the last year, but needs further investment to ensure we are achieving maximum possible growth in this area.
    • Lead generation – database building (finding new customers) is key for both businesses. You will need to create a plan for investment in building lists through catalogue requests and broader list research.
    • Smaller scale marketing activity for popular high-margin products across both businesses.
  2. Associated reporting and analysis of all marketing activities. To enable future investment decisions through the accurate reporting and analysis or core activities. Maintaining appropriate marketing spend to support and grow the businesses will be a core challenge of the role.
  3. Maintain efficiency of activities / ROI of personnel. To ensure you effectively manage the team in order to maintain focus on areas of highest return.
  4. Research and develop new opportunities – to actively consider new opportunities (e.g. social media) and integrate into the team if a return can be proven. Constant testing of small-scale activities will be essential in finding new areas of high return.
  5. Contribute to annual forecasting process – in liaison with the Managing Director and Operations Manager.
  6. Review and sign-off monthly management accounts – in liaison with the Managing Director and Operations Manager.
  7. Be an excellent and supportive manager to the marketing team – you will be responsible for the day-to-day management and ongoing personal and professional development of the team. You are free to manage and distribute workload between the team as you see fit. You are expected to adhere to EW’s policies and recommendations for good management at all times, and instil core business values where possible. You are responsible for carrying out appraisals twice a year and following through on actions. EW takes the development of managers seriously and will at all times attempt to support you in this area, and provide training and development opportunities where appropriate. The role is currently directly responsible for two marketing personnel.

Essential Characteristics

Analysis – the ability to make good business decisions based on intelligent use and interpretation of data is essential. Data is freely available although in many cases, systems and procedures need improvement. We want somebody who actively seeks answers to their own questions and who gets excited by data, numbers and problem solving.

Organisation and prioritisation – you will be managing all marketing activities across the business, so being able to manage and prioritise yours and others’ workloads is essential.

Communication – marketing productivity is a core KPI of the business. As such, excellent communication between yourself and the MD is essential, along with an ability to influence behaviour of other teams affecting your output (e.g. accuracy of customer services input).

Drive and motivation – whilst support will be provided, we are looking for an ambitious self-starter with an ability to make recommendations for improvement.

3-5 years experience in the publishing or cataloguing field is essential, along with proven experience in the above areas.