Marketing Executive

Please see Notes for Job Applicants for general background information on St. Clare's.

Background

  1. The College mission is to advance international education and understanding; this provides a context for its educational programmes and also for the way that both students and employees interact with each other. St. Clare's is a deliberately small, independent College, currently home to young people from over 45 countries and is proud of the diversity of its student body: our cultural differences provide a basis for supporting and celebrating an open and tolerant community. Because of the unique international composition of the student body, the Marketing Executive is expected to embrace the values expressed in the College mission and statement of values and to make sure that these values are respected both in spirit and in practice. The College prides itself on its warm, welcoming atmosphere and everyone who works at St. Clare's is expected to extend that same sense of welcome and hospitality to anyone who visits the College.
  2. The Principal, Paula Holloway, chairs the Marketing Team meetings and is responsible for marketing across the College. The current Marketing Team consists of the following people: Lawrie Coupland, Director of English Language Courses; Ines Molinaro, Director of Senior Courses; Richard Gorst, Business Manager; Rob Barker, Marketing Manager; Chris Osbourn, Registrar and Anna Little, Assistant Registrar. It is proposed that from September 2012 that this larger team will meet monthly and will be known as the Marketing Team. In addition, a smaller group called the Marketing Group will meet every week. This latter group will consist of: Paula Holloway, Rob Barker, Richard Gorst, and the new Marketing Executive. The Marketing Executive will also attend the Marketing Team meetings. The purpose of the Marketing Group, amongst other things, will be to prepare the travel planner, collect and collate information, review existing markets and prepare action plans for the Marketing Team to discuss and agree.
  3. Members of the existing team work in a highly cooperative and supportive way both with each other and with all other employees at the College. There are no incentive payments or performance bonuses at St. Clare's and everyone is expected to work hard and take pride in the work that they do. The College operates on two sites within ten minutes walk of each other: Banbury Road and Bardwell Road. The Marketing Executive will be expected to know staff at both sites and to spend time at Bardwell Road every week.
  4. There are a number of key marketing challenges which the College faces going forward. These are:
    • Increasing the number of PreIB and IB students by approximately 30 students from September 2014. Current numbers are c. 255.
    • Demand for some courses varies throughout the year, especially Adult EFL courses during the academic year (Sept to June) and summer Adult EFL courses. These troughs in demand need to be filled.
    • Demand for some courses varies throughout the year, especially Adult EFL courses during the academic year (Sept to June) and summer Adult EFL courses. These troughs in demand need to be filled.
    • Maintaining the diversity of its student body.
    • Maintaining relationships with existing agents whilst cultivating new contacts.
  5. St. Clare's offers a diverse range of courses and it is important that the marketing Executive understands these as quickly as possible so that he or she is able to promote each course to the right target market. The College is organised into four business streams:
    • The IB College centred around 139, Banbury Road which teaches a PreIB course and the full two-year International Baccalaureate Diploma. It also offers IB revision courses for students and IB Seminars for teachers throughout the year.
    • Senior Courses at Bardwell Road including: Liberal Arts programmes for American undergraduates, a University Foundation Course, an English + Academic Subjects course and inter-sessional and bespoke programmes.
    • Adult English Language courses at Bardwell Road, during the academic year.
    • Summer programmes broken down as follows: 6 weeks for 10-15 year olds; 9 weeks for 15-17 year olds and 11 weeks for students aged 17+

Qualifications / skills

The successful candidate will:
  1. Have a good overall education.
  2. Have the ability to write accurately, concisely and to the point.
  3. Have the ability to write appropriately to different audiences, e.g. agents, parents and students.
  4. Have excellent verbal communication skills.
  5. Be able to give presentations to the Marketing Team, the Senior Management Group, the Governing Body, agents and schools as and when required.
  6. Have excellent IT skills.
  7. Ideally have the ability to speak a second language although this is not essential.
  8. Be able to use e-marketing tools and be aware of e-marketing opportunities.
  9. Previous direct experience in marketing/sales ideally in an educational environment.

Personal characteristics

The successful candidate will be both competent and pleasant and they will:
  1. Have high standards of personal presentation.
  2. Have an open, pleasant personality with the ability to work well with existing members of the Marketing Team and, in particular, members of the Marketing Group.
  3. Be willing to embrace the College mission and to enjoy working in a multi-cultural environment.
  4. Accept the need to be flexible about travel arrangements, time spent away from home and the need to work occasional weekends and evenings.
  5. Be creative and confident about sharing new ideas.
  6. Have high expectations about themselves and others.

The Job Specification in detail

Line Manager: The Principal although the Marketing Executive will work cooperatively and liaise with Richard Gorst and Rob Barker on a daily basis

Agent relationships

  1. Develop expert knowledge about the different courses which the College offers and understand the target markets to which each of these courses applies.
  2. Understand the different types of accommodation which the College provides and make sure that these are promoted to the appropriate target markets.
  3. Promote College courses through a number of different channels: country visits, fairs, FAM trips, email and other e-media and spend time with agents or other customers who visit the College.
  4. Make sure that thorough planning and preparation takes place both pre-visit and post-visit.
  5. Actively represent the College through country visits, attendance at fairs, FAM trips and other events as agreed by the Marketing Group.
  6. Maintain face-to-face contact with agents through country visits, fairs, FAM trips and other events as outlined in the Travel Planner. Destinations will be agreed with the Marketing Group.
  7. Follow up contacts and meetings with new and existing agents. Monitor the effectiveness of those contacts in terms of repeat business and new business and prepare succinct feedback reports for the Marketing Group/Team as appropriate.
  8. Provide appropriate materials and relevant information for agents, parents, students and other interested parties.
  9. Develop new relationships with agents from the Oxford base.
  10. Obtain references from existing partners, produce contracts and produce Certificates of Representation using existing templates.
  11. Establish a new agent zone on the College's new website, which will become active by end November 2012 in liaison with Rob Barker.

Client Aftercare

  • Actively follow the agreed strategy for client aftercare. The policy is currently being developed by Richard Gorst but will be implemented by all members of the Marketing Group.

Advertising

  1. Assessment of advertising opportunities in agent brochures
  2. Assessment of advertising opportunities in educational catalogues
  3. Assessment of advertising opportunities on web portals

E-marketing

  1. Planning and implementing regular e-newsletters to agents and monitoring response rates.
  2. Establishing an annual e-newsletter to maintain contact with former students.

Social media

  • Contribute ideas to e-marketing initiatives

Website

  1. Be the primary source for collecting news stories from across the College and making sure that the teachers or activity coordinators responsible delivers stories and photos in a timely fashion.
  2. Assist in developing the smartphone friendly version of the new website which will be introduced in spring 2013.
  3. Assist in developing the smartphone app as part of phase 3 of the website development.

Brochure distribution

  1. Plan mailings to agents and direct bookers
  2. Implement the above using the College mail order house or on an individual basis if necessary.

Target markets

  1. Identify potential growth markets and table these at the Marketing Group meetings, accompanied by a proposed action plan for each.
  2. Evaluate target markets and provide feedback to the Marketing Group as required.

Statistics

  1. Produce and analyse statistics relating to Adult Academic year courses and other courses as required.

Others

  • Write the minutes for Marketing Group meetings

Terms and conditions

35 hours a week with one hour for lunch. The Employee may be required to work such hours outside normal hours of employment as the Employer considers necessary to meet the needs of the business. Normal hours of work are Monday to Friday between the hours of 09.00 to 17.00. The Employee may take one hour for lunch between 12.00 and 14.00.

Salary and benefits

Salary will be competitive and based on qualifications and experience according to Administrative, Professional, Technical and Clerical staff scales, within the range of £25,673 to £30,453 per annum. Salaries are reviewed on the 1 September each year.

Holidays

22 working days per year and the period over Christmas when the College is closed (24 December – 1 January inclusive). The College operates during bank holidays and work may be required on one of more of these days, with time off in lieu.

Pension

A contributory pension is offered through St Clare's group personal pension scheme. The employer pays double the contribution of the employee, up to a maximum of 10% of gross salary, i.e. the employer pays up to 10%, and the employee pays up to 5%. Employee's contributions above 5% may be made, but do not attract a matching contribution from the employer. There is a death-in-service benefit of four time's annual salary

Other benefits

On commencement of employment you will be eligible to join the group life assurance plan. The benefit is a lump sum of four times salary for death in service.

You are entitled to free meals in the College dining room, during the working periods on days during the academic year and major summer courses on which you are working and when meals are being served to students.

Probationary Period

The first six months will be probationary, within which notice is two weeks on either side. Thereafter notice is 6 weeks on either side

References and Checks

All offers of employment and contracts are issued subject to satisfactory references and satisfactory outcomes on completion of all necessary checks, including criminal records and establishing the right to work in the UK. In some cases some or all of these checks will have been undertaken before an offer is made. Taking up employment will be subject to the satisfactory completion of all necessary procedures.

Under the National Minimum Standards for Boarding Schools, we are required to undertake additional checks on all employees. Full written references, and phone references on quoted referees, including current employer, may be obtained before or after interview. You should indicate specifically if you wish St. Clare's to refrain from contacting your current employer. Police checks / Criminal Records Bureau checks will also be undertaken, for which employees / prospective employees are required to provide information and consent. A Certificate of Good Conduct is acceptable if you are returning from abroad.

Contact with all previous employers where the employee has worked with children or vulnerable adults is also required. This is to establish the reason for leaving the position. On occasions, further information and a reference may be sought in writing, by telephone or by other means. By providing details of previous employment, it is assumed that the employee/prospective employee has given consent for this contact, and no specific consent of the employee / prospective employee will be sought.

The College reserves the right to contact any previous employer and to make any additional enquiries it considers necessary in order to meet its responsibilities in relation to employment of people working with students who are under the age of 18.

How to apply

  • Applications must be made using this standard application form. Applications must be submitted by email to recruitment@stclares.ac.uk before 6 pm on Wednesday 10 October 2012 and consist of a letter (consisting of no more than two sides of A4) explaining:
  • Why you want the job
  • How your qualifications and experience are relevant to the post
Please note that applications without a suitable accompanying letter and/or details of referees will be discarded. Interviews will take place on the week beginning 22 October 2012.