mselect is looking to hire a Marketing Manager for an international school in Erbil. Candidate must have at least 2 years of marketing management experience and be fluent in English, Kurdish and Arabic.
JOB OBJECTIVE
To support the Business Development Manager in raising the visibility of the school by carrying out an effective marketing and communications plan in order to attract new students across the school’s portfolio and publicise the strengths of the academic faculty, school facilities and services and promote the profile of the school as a whole to external audiences.
MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES
This is a role with a high level of accountability and the key measures of success are:
- The number of new enquiries generated and the conversion of enquiries through to enrolment.
- Building and sustaining strong and effective relationships with the parent body
- Retention across key transition points within the school
Strategic Marketing:
- Develop in-depth knowledge of parent needs and of local market trends and developments to inform school marketing strategies
- Apply customer and market insights combined with creative thinking to define and shape the school proposition to maximise appeal and relevance within the local market
- Develop the whole school marketing strategy including product development, pricing, multichannel communications plan and parent engagement programmes to support enrolment growth across the whole school
- Define effective parent engagement strategies and own the overall parent experience across all marketing and admissions touch points
Marketing Execution:
- Implement advertising, communications and event activities to support recruitment and retention
- Responsible for the production of the annual school magazine
- Develop and execute effective PR initiatives across digital and off-line channels which build positive brand awareness
- Contribute to school website including content and customer experience and the school’s social media channels
Marketing Management:
- Marketing Budget Management
Relationship Management:
- Develop effective parent engagement programmers and regularly interact with parents to build insights and positive relationships
- Develop and manage relationships with feeder schools to support enrolment growth
- Identify relevant community-based initiatives in which the school can play a relevant part, to support awareness / positive brand perception, etc
- Work collaboratively with school colleagues and admissions team, contribute to sharing of best practice
Other:
- Set agenda, chair and minute fortnightly internal strategic marketing meetings with the Senior Leadership Team
- Any other duties, as required regularly or occasionally, to ensure the smooth running of marketing, admissions and the schools
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS RESPONSIBILITIES
Website and other e-marketing communications:
- Collating material and editing copy for the school’s monthly e-newsletter, circuited to internal and external audiences
- Updating the School’s Facebook and Twitter accounts
- Updating information about the school on external websites and directories Creating fresh and up-to-date web content, to pass to the IT Specialist as necessary
- Providing ideas and input into the development of new e-marketing materials
Marketing collateral and publicity material:
- Writing and producing marketing material (brochures, posters, flyers etc.) for the school’s programmes, liaising with the Administration Team to update content as necessary; sourcing student and parents’ testimonials; liaising with the in-house team for all marketing issues
- Preparing marketing collateral for the school’s corporate relations activities, working with the Director of School and Business Development Manager (Head of Marketing)
- Preparing PowerPoint presentations for schools at promotion events and conferences
- Assisting the Business Development Manager in compiling media plans
- Responsible for the School’s publicity stands and other event-support material- ordering new stock as required and ensuring the supply of stock to events
- Selection and ordering of promotional merchandise for exhibitions and for use as corporate gifts
- Managing the stock of all marketing collateral i.e., brochures; creating systems to identify when the stock needs to be replenished
Public Relations:
- Liaison with academic and administrative staff to request and collate information for in house publications
- Proactively searching out information for PR purposes and writing press releases
- Liaison with, and provide information to, the media and arrange meetings with corporates
- Maintaining a photo library and arranging external photo shoots and filming with students as well as in-house photo shoots with School staff and students
- Updating the School’s PR notice boards
Advertising (printed media, outdoor and new media):
- Supporting the Marketing Manager in booking, designing and tracking advertising for the school as required
- Creative input into new advertising campaigns
- Assistance with proofreading, copy writing, editing copy and information collection
Exhibitions and client pitching/ visits:
- Coordinating the School’s presence at exhibitions
- Representing and promoting the school at the various event and providing market analysis post-event
- Managing the supply of literature to the clients pitched and collating and dispatching literature and other display material.
- Ensuring prompt follow-up of exhibition enquiries/ leads
Event:
- Assistance and coordination at Open Days of the School
- Coordinating the School’s annual graduation/ prize-giving
- Marketing support for the school’s annual activities
- Coordinating School events in relation to major accreditations and audits
- Assistance in the growing number of other School events: major speakers’ events, gala dinners, governance meetings
Market analysis & planning and new programme development:
Input into the School’s marketing plans: gathering market intelligence and working with the Business Development Manager (BDM)to analyse results in relation to the school’s marketing plans. Supporting
the BDM in planning, researching and coordinating the school’s promotion, liaising with relevant parties both internally and externally.
Market Intelligence:
Gathering information on competitor schools and programmes. Also gathering information on us programmes for use in rankings and other forms of market analysis.
The post holder will, from time to time, be required to undertake other duties of a similar nature as may reasonably be required by his/her line manager.
There may be occasions when the post holder’s role and skill set may be required elsewhere within the School, so flexibility will be essential.
QUALIFICATIONS
- At least 2 years’ experience in the field of marketing. (Desirable Work Experience in the field of Strategic Planning/ Consumer Marketing / Digital Marketing / Events Management / PR)
- Fluent in English, Kurdish and Arabic
- Enthusiasm for the company and industry
- High standard of numeracy and literacy
- Ability to analyse and clearly present statistical material
- Excellent organisation skills – meticulous and well-organised with a proven ability to multitask
- Excellent communication/presentation skills
- Great customer service skills
- Hardworking, with an ability to meet strict deadlines
- Good interpersonal skills with an outgoing personality
- Creative and imaginative
- Excellent work ethic
- Good ICT skills (familiar with Microsoft Office)
- Willingness to learn, ability to take criticism and be self-critical
- Willingness to travel overseas on behalf of the organisation if needed for cover
*Only applicants meeting the strict criteria outlined above will be contacted as part of the shortlisting process.