MARKETING EXECUTIVE – FULL TIME (Bristol)
Job purpose: To help Sawday’s become an indispensable marketing partner for our hotels, B&Bs and self-catering owners in France and Italy. Supporting the business needs and goals by putting the customer at the heart of what we do. Fulfilling the Marketing function in a cross-functional team to deliver integrated sales and marketing activity for our French and Italian markets.
Summary
We’re after a capable, driven, thoughtful, determined marketer – someone as happy to roll their sleeves up and ‘do’ as they are to shape strategy. You must be imaginative, commercial, and creative enough to do a lot with a little. You must be happy to help a company with huge potential and a much-loved brand establish new, more rigorous ways of working so that its potential can be realised. If you shy away from risk or wilt when confronted with things that don’t work perfectly, you need not apply. But if you relish an opportunity to be part of shaping our future, we’d love to hear from you.
Is this you?
This is a brilliant role for someone with the gumption, drive and initiative to really make the most of the opportunity, and to be a key part in the change process that is under way.
We’re reshaping the organisation to create multi-disciplinary, country-focused teams. Marketing will sit at the heart of each of team. This role will be part of our French and Italian team, and the right candidate might have French language (not essential) but also, and more importantly, passion for and understanding of these markets. We have grown, solidly and organically, over the last 18 years into an established and well respected company, and much-loved brand. Now we need our marketing, and the systems and processes that support it, to equip us for the next era. You won’t find slick systems and processes in place, which work seamlessly across the business. You will have an exciting opportunity to be instrumental in shaping how we develop in the future.
This is a role for someone who’s happy to roll up his/her sleeves and get stuck in; someone who thrives on helping a company challenge its existing ways of working, and who will bring a marketing approach, namely a focus at all times on our Guests and Owners, to the forefront of the business and the brand.
Scope of role
The company’s marketing activities point in two directions: to ‘consumers’ (web visitors, any potential Guests for our hotels, B&Bs and other places to stay, and readers of our books), and to ‘the trade’ (owners of Special Places around the world).
The Marketing Executive role will raise the Sawday’s brand in the perception and experience of both audiences, so that we develop long term profitable relationships with them, in the form of repeat business and cross- and up-selling. The role must develop and deliver initiatives to acquire new Owners and Guests, to manage existing ones and, above all, to drive traffic to Sawday’s and our Owners’ places.
Owners are the main source of company revenue and profits, and are hugely valued customers. This financial emphasis must be balanced with the focus on our (and our Owners’) Guests to ensure that we continue to match increasing membership numbers with a steady and growing flow of Guests to their places. Alongside this must be an awareness of ways to generate more revenue from this audience of Guests.
Key Accountabilities
- Managing and developing our digital marketing channels, supported with relevant off-line activity
- Overseeing social media activity and ensuring the strategy is developed in line with this constantly evolving environment. Familiarity with blogging and social media publishing and tracking tools
- Reporting on all campaigns, showing summaries of where traffic has originated; conversion and sales by activity, and comparisons against pre-determined KPIs
- Experimenting, learning and helping drive the digital channels forward
- Managing secondary revenue generation from and through Guests via our digital channels and our sponsor/ affiliate/ partner marketing
- Providing Guest insight through primary and secondary research to ensure that our strategy of targeting new audiences and delivering outstanding customer service is supported by compelling campaigns
- Conducting on-going market research to identify key trends influencing our market from within and outside of the industry
- Developing and managing partner relations to create strong brand allegiances, extending our channel reach to grow our Guest base
- Contributing to the preparation of the company’s annual marketing plan, and delivering on its promises
- Ensuring consistent brand representation in all Guest communications
- Identifying fresh business opportunities within new Guest segments
- With sales and account management colleagues, developing and managing Owner acquisition/ recruitment/ retention campaigns
- Managing Owner communication plans and developing secondary Owner revenue streams
Key Capabilities
- Digital literacy – a good grounding in integrated digital marketing, including SEO, social media, direct marketing, display advertising and paid search, plus an understanding of the importance of analysis and reporting
- An appreciation of emerging technologies such as mobile internet usage
- Experience of managing and developing website content
- An appetite to learn and develop new skills, particularly in the area of digital marketing
- Resourcefulness, drive and initiative to really make the most of opportunities, and to be a key part of organisational/ structural change
- Guest-focused – able to identify and anticipate their needs, making them the frame of reference for the job and ensuring their needs are met
- Owner-focused – able to identify and anticipate their needs, making them the frame of reference for the job and ensuring their needs are met
- Prioritising – able to juggle wide ranging demands on time, prioritising the most important tasks effectively and efficiently
- Action-oriented – a self-starter, taking steps as necessary without being prompted, identifying what needs to be done and getting on with it
- Interpersonal skills – emotionally intelligent and able to build effective working relationships with colleagues, partners, sponsors, Brand ambassadors, agencies and others
- Language skills – French desirable but not essential
Key Behaviours and Attitudes
- Adaptability: confident with change, and a flexible approach to getting the job done
- A ‘can do’ attitude (plate‐spinning and problem solving, with an eye ever on the bigger picture)
- An inquisitiveness and hunger for learning more, for being stretched and challenged
- Willingness to work hard and beyond the remit when necessary
- Someone who can work across disciplines as part of a team and who is willing to contribute ideas
- A commercial mind, with an understanding of financial contribution and ROI
- Genuine sympathy/ empathy with others, and the patience and skills to influence people positively
- Ability to challenge received wisdoms and to lead with new ideas
- A sense of humour – work has to be fun!
Key Relationships
- With fellow members of the Marketing team to ensure consistent brand experience across all touch-points and business units
- With key members of cross-functional teams to engender a customer-focused Marketing approach in all that we do
Salary & Terms
- An annual salary of £24,000 - £28,000 depending on experience
- We have a three-month probationary period for all new staff
- 25 days holiday per year plus statutory or proclaimed holidays
- First interviews will be held w/c February 13
Pension scheme: After one year an employee is entitled to join the Group Personal Pension Plan and receive a 3% employer contribution provided that he/she is also prepared to match this contribution with a 3% employee contribution. The contribution would be based on gross salary. After three years’ service the employer’s contribution will be increased to 5% provided the employee matches the contribution.
Finally
Sawday’s is, we think, an unusual company. We aim to be as un-hierarchical, as ‘human’ and as informal as possible. There is no space here for purely ‘target driven’ careerists, but there is space for people of high integrity and human warmth who can also bring inspiration, energy, method and deep professionalism. We place an unusual emphasis on ethics, people and the environment and it is important to us that the right candidate understands, strongly identifies with, and is able to develop the Sawday’s ethos.
