Job vacancy – Marketing Manager at Chiswick House and Gardens

Job title: Marketing Manager
Job Reference MM20
Location: Chiswick House and Gardens, London W4 2QN
Responsible to: Head of Visitor Experience
Responsible for: Marketing Volunteers
Contract: Full time employee (some weekend working will be required)
Salary: £30,000 – 32,000 p/a
Funded by: Culture Recovery Fund
Closing date: 12noon Monday 23 November 2020

Any appointment will be subject to a full Disclosure and Barring Service check.

ROLE SUMMARY
Chiswick House & Gardens Trust (CHGT) has been awarded a Culture Recovery Fund grant to enable us to prepare Chiswick House for a Covid-secure reopening in April 2021. We can now recruit a Marketing Manager to develop and deliver our marketing reopening plan, continue to build our digital engagement and social media outputs. It is a fantastic opportunity for an experienced marketing professional who wants to make their mark at a pivotal moment in the history of Chiswick House & Gardens.

The onset of lockdown had a devasting impact on our income from private and commercial events. This has meant we have focused our limited resources on essential maintenance to ensure the grounds and gardens remain open and are clean and safe. Our café is open every day, currently providing a takeaway service. However, facilities that are usually open are now currently closed including the Conservatory and Chiswick House itself. In a typical year Chiswick House is open for four days per week from the beginning of April to the end of October.

We have been awarded a Culture Recovery Fund grant to carry out a rapid interpretation project, using low cost interpretative tools, so that we are ready for the reopening of the House in 2021. The key driver is to ensure we are Covid-secure for re-opening, but this also provides us with an opportunity to rethink our visitor experience, deal with some of the known issues identified over the years and generate new visitor income – vital for our future sustainability.

THE ORGANISATION
Chiswick House represents one of the first and finest examples of neo-Palladian design in England, whilst the Gardens are ground-breaking in their own right.

CHGT was established in 2005 jointly by the English Heritage Trust (EHT) and the London Borough of Hounslow, who previously managed the Gardens. Today, we provide dawn-til-dusk free access to our restored Grade 1 registered 18th-century landscape, and ticketed entry to the Grade 1 listed House during open season.

Chiswick House is an early 18th century villa which helped to set the trend for the neo-Classicism that defined Georgian architecture. The Gardens are considered one of the birthplaces of the English Landscape Movement, one of the UK’s greatest contributions to European art and culture, and contain a number of garden buildings and statues. Both House and Gardens are the work of Richard Boyle, the 3rd Earl of Burlington, and the architect and designer who was his friend, William Kent. They are considered a complete work of art. The House and Gardens are of international and national heritage significance and are a source of great pride to our local community.

We also care for and manage:
– A Grade I listed Conservatory designed by the architect Samuel Ware in 1813, substantially remodelled c.1930, housing the largest collection of heritage camellias under glass in the world
– A Walled Garden dating back to 1682, which was converted into a Kitchen Garden by a group of local volunteers in 2005, now an essential community outreach resource.

We are a hub for the local community, with 1,000,000 visits made to the Gardens each year, as well as thousands of visitors to the House. We are a popular destination for dog walkers, families, individuals and groups who arrive at Chiswick daily in pursuit of nature and culture. In a normal year, we host weddings, film and photography shoots, outdoor theatre and cinema, music and food festivals, family events and sporting activities which bring the community together.

Our Kitchen Garden is home to our community and education activities, where our ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ award-winning volunteers cultivate and sell produce. Typically, 140 volunteers help us care for the gardens, along with students from horticultural colleges. In the past we have hosted weekly visits from nursery and school groups including Queensmill, a local SEND school for young people with autism.

In 2019, Chiswick House and Gardens Trust was awarded:
– Heritage Park and Garden of the Year, Gold and Overall Category Winner
– Walled Garden of the Year, Gold and Overall Category Winner
– Our Community, Gold for the Chiswick House Kitchen Garden Volunteers
– Our Community, Silver Gilt for the Goosefoot Volunteers
– RHS ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood Award’, Thriving for the Goosefoot Volunteers
– RHS ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood Award’, Outstanding for the Kitchen Garden Volunteers
– LIB Allotment Site Award
– RHS ‘IYN’ Certificate of Distinction for the Kitchen Garden Volunteers
– Green Flag Award 2019/20 and 2020/21

WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING
A key strand to our business recovery is to define and launch a ‘refreshed’ visitor experience: to deepen our engagement with the traditional cultural heritage market; to encourage our daily visitors to do more than just take a walk and have a coffee; and reach new local audiences who do not currently visit. We also need to generate new visitor income from ticketing, membership and secondary spend. We have initiated a programme of work reviewing and adapting our visitor route and interpretative assets to ensure we are Covid-secure and ready for reopening.

You will report into the Head of Visitor Experience, who we are also recruiting for, and be part of a new Visitor Experience Team. Your brief is to devise the marketing strategy to:
– reopen Chiswick House, deliver footfall, ticket sales and launch our new membership offer building vital income
– build and diversify our audiences.

This will include:
Marketing & Communications strategy
– Working with the Head of Visitor Experience to develop our marketing and communications strategy for 2020/21
– Setting out our overarching objectives, target audiences, key messages and tools to provide the framework for the marketing campaigns planned for 2020/21
– Being CHGT’s key press contact to establish and nurture good media relationships with relevant contacts at local, regional and national level across print, broadcast and web media
– Being the brand champion and ensuring the CHGT team and partners are adhering to the guidelines

Audience & research
– Working with the Head of Visitor Experience to develop a data capture plan to support our long-term audience development and income generation targets
– Working closely with colleagues to devise Audience Development Plans for key work strands
– Overseeing strategic and practical delivery as well as the evaluation of the Audience Development Plans to attract and engage new and hard to reach audiences
– Interrogating visitor data to identify trends and evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and audience development strategies
– Managing audience research projects
– Being our CIO and taking the lead on ensuring we are GDPR compliant across our internal and external activities
– Supporting the Business Support Assistant in the administration of our CRM

Digital & social
– Developing and delivering our digital, social and e-newsletter communications plan
– Ensuring our activity is focused, effective and monitored, building on the work we have already done
– Devising new digital outputs, drawing on the learnings to date and impact of Covid-19 on our digital visitor engagement
– Managing the Business Support Assistant in the delivery of the day to day digital communications activity
– Ensuring all our data analytics are set up across web, social and newsletter channels and we are maximising our google ad grant

Marketing campaigns
– Planning and managing delivery of dynamic, innovative and results-led marketing campaigns for pre-opening and post-opening across all target audiences, effectively contributing to the achievement of CHGT’s financial, audience and charitable objectives
– Promoting and marketing CHGT to ensure growth and retention of key audiences
– Coordinating niche marketing campaigns across the organisation with relevant teams
– Identifying and developing close working relationships with our local and national press, relevant organisations and promotional partners
– Devising third-party promotions and media partnerships
– Devising and implementing press, digital, online and e-marketing as a core part of marketing campaigns
– Managing campaign budgets
– Managing supplier relationships and developing an approved supplier list, delivering on cost and quality
– Managing the reporting process for all campaigns on a monthly basis, and more frequently where required

Events & partners
– Working with partner event marketing teams to develop co-marketing, ticket opportunities and membership acquisition activity
Wayfinding and signage
– Leading on regular review and updating of signage, marketing and interpretation messages in the grounds
General
– Ensuring efficient budgetary management, implementation and reporting across all marketing and communications activity

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR
The ideal candidate will be passionate about marketing and communications, a confident self-starter and creative. You will:
– Have at least 5 years’ experience in the arts, hospitality, heritage, leisure or live event industry in a marketing leadership role.
– Be extremely well organised and have demonstrated your ability to juggle multiple, demanding projects
– Have demonstratable experience of creating, implementing, managing and evaluating marketing strategies and campaigns across multiple projects
– Be experienced in commissioning, managing and delivering digital engagement activities
– Be experienced in gathering, analysing and reporting from a range of data sources
– Have managed budgets
– Be educated to degree level in a relevant subject (Marketing, Arts, History) and have a Chartered Institute of Marketing or Chartered Institute of Public Relations qualification

We are looking for people who reflect the diversity of the country today to help us shape and change our approach and make it more relevant to the diversity of the people in our local communities. Disabled people, those that identify as being from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and people under 30 are under-represented in our staff and volunteer team so we particularly encourage applications from people in these groups.

OTHER
You may be asked to carry out additional tasks as may arise, and which may be reasonably accommodated within the post’s salary level. You will be required to act in accordance with the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to take reasonable care for the health and safety of any person who may be affected by your acts of omissions at work.

HOW TO APPLY
Application is by CV (no more than 2 pages) and a supporting statement (no more than 2 pages) outlining the reasons for your interest in the post and why you believe yourself to be suitable, and how you would propose approaching the brief.

Please provide details of two referees who know your employment and your work. For shortlisted candidates, references will be taken up prior to interview unless you advise that you do not wish us to do so.

Please include your full contact details including daytime and evening telephone numbers.

Applications should be sent to info@chgt.org.uk please include the job reference MM20 in the subject header of your email.

Deadline: Closing date for applications is midday Monday 23 November 2020

Interviews and Shortlisting: It is anticipated that shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview (online) on either Friday 27 November or Tuesday 1 December 2020.