Marketing Lead

Job Description

Job Summary

Salary: circa £50,000 per annum, full-time equivalent

This role is offered as an 11-month maternity cover contract, ideally starting in mid-April.

War Child UK is a multi-award winning, creative and innovative charity, with high ambitions for our fundraising and communications. We are recruiting a Marketing Lead (Maternity Cover) who will be responsible for creating and implementing marketing plans and delivering campaigns and activity that engages the public through music, art, gaming, sport and other creative industries (including film, fashion and TV) for campaigns including BRITS Week, Secret 7”, Sound and Vision, Jingle Jam, War Child Record releases and other exciting arts, music, gaming and partnership opportunities.

You will activate these campaigns with the goal of generating funds and increasing our brand presence. Reporting to the Head of Communications and Campaigns, your role will include line managing three members of the Communications and Campaigns Team, as well as project managing external agencies, to deliver high performing integrated communications and marketing activity across digital channels, PR, digital marketing, design, content and narrative creation.

You will be the marketing expert for the organisation, working side by side with creative teams across the organisation to design marketing and communications plans, ensuring that the creative, content and narrative elements add significant value, and most importantly provide a WOW factor to our work. You will both be able to come up with imaginative ideas and ensure they are implemented to a high standard but also have exceptional organisational and project management skills that bring this work together.

Your Role

The Marketing Lead, is responsible for the creation and implementation of integrated communications and marketing strategies and campaigns, supporting our priority objectives of raising scalable and sustainable income, growing audiences and our supporter base, and increasing our brand presence.

As part of the Communications and Campaigns team, and working with other teams across the organisation, you will devise written marketing and communications plans, as well as create and manage project management documentation, which will guide your work as well as that of the Communications and Campaigns Team in terms of meeting the defined objectives and goals of marketing campaigns.

These marketing activations will include a range of music gigs, art events, product launches, gaming streams and events, and ad-hoc opportunities as they arise. You will develop a nuanced understanding of these cultural events, target audiences and the industries backing these initiatives.

You will ensure that we take an audience-led, evidence-based approach to the development of marketing plans that don’t compromise on creativity and style. You will build a core understanding of War Child’s current audiences and help identify underserved or new audiences that we should be aiming to engage with.

You will ensure end-to-end integrated communications and marketing campaigns for individual projects are delivered effectively and that all opportunities are considered to maximise engagement, project success and income generation. This includes owned, earned and paid marketing.

You will report directly to the Head of Communications and Campaigns, work closely with colleagues in the Communications and Campaigns Team, and alongside specialised teams within the Fundraising Engagement Department and across the wider organisation. You will also line manage the PR Manager, Digital Content Manager and Digital Marketing Manager on a day-to-day basis.

Your Responsibilities

• Create and execute communications and marketing strategies using audience insights and data-led decision making, to maximise the achievements and income of War Child fundraising projects, as well as growing and deepening brand engagement with key strategic audiences.
• Work with the Communications & Content Manager to clearly articulate and deliver the War Child UK’s brand to key audiences through public engagement. You will work with the Communications & Content Manager to define narrative and messaging on a project-by-project basis.
• You will oversee end-to-end communications and marketing campaigns across a portfolio of complex projects. This will include a mix of existing internally developed projects, collaborations with external partners, and ad-hoc one-off projects as they emerge.
• You will be the Campaign and Communications Team’s expert around how best to utilise and develop the team’s marketing knowledge and skills, alongside instilling a nuanced understanding of the audiences, marketing and communications channels and industries that sit behind our marketing activations, across events and opportunities such as music gigs, art auctions, gaming fundraising streams, sports tournaments and other ad-hoc opportunities, that help to generate significant fundraising for the charity.
• As the team’s project manager, you will take ownership of feeding in the marketing and communications elements of project plans and ensure that Communications and Campaign team members are fully briefed, coordinated and deliver outputs on time and to high standards.
• You will ensure marketing risks are identified, mitigated against, and that contingencies are put in place and can be launched at short notice around critical marketing project elements, including activating paid digital advertising.
• You will create tools and processes to support the delivery of marketing strategies – including monitoring engagement with social channels, paid advertising, PR success and website stats. You will establish trigger points around success and failure and ensure that remedies are sought and implemented to improve performance both in real time.
• You will take ownership of providing team input into evaluations, reviews and collating feedback so that project plans can be improved in the future.
• Ensure we have a robust set of KPI’s and the means to capture data, track, monitor and report on performance using digital analytics software and platforms as appropriate, conducting regular reviews of digital performance. You will use the insights you have gathered to reach defined KPIs in terms of digital audience growth.
• Line manage the PR Manager, Digital Content Manager and Digital Marketing Manager on a day-to-day basis, ensuring that they are working towards objectives and meeting KPI’s as well as providing input and expertise to add value to their media work.
• Support the Head of Communications and Campaigns on cross departmental or organisation projects and campaigns.
• Support the Head of Communications and Campaigns on the development and implementation of the departmental strategy, budgeting and planning.
• Contribute to creating a culture committed to the safeguarding of children and adults and compliant to WCUK’s Child Safeguarding and Adults at Risk Policies.
• We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace. All staff are expected to actively contribute to this by embedding principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging into their day-to-day work, decision-making, and interactions with colleagues, partners, and supporters.

You Are

• Highly experienced marketer and project manager.
• Strong track record of leading on the successful creation and implementation of marketing campaigns that engage audiences through music, art, gaming, sport or other creative industries.
• Good knowledge around the nuances of creative industries or a background working with a marketing focus in a creative industry.
• Demonstrable experience of creative ideation and flare that has added significant value to marketing performance of campaigns.
• Strong track record of deploying marketing approaches to optimise engagement.
• Extensive project management experience to deliver on multiple complex campaigns across a range of channels and specialisms concurrently and experience of critically evaluating activities to achieve strategic priorities and maximise their effectiveness.
• Excellent organisational and coordination skills, with a track record of utilising project management tools and processes that hold colleagues accountable to delivery.
• Analytical and able to take an evidence-led approach to enhancing marketing performance pan-channel.
• Good understanding of digital analytics platforms, data capture, monitoring and tracking and how to utilise this to improve digital performance of campaigns.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a high degree of emotional intelligence to deal with a variety of and internal and external stakeholders and the ability to build effective working relationships at all levels.
• Excellent writing skills, able to craft emotive, compelling messaging and narrative that drives audience engagement and action.
• Ability to present information, verbally or in writing, including briefings and marketing reports to a range of audiences in a clear and confident manner
• Able to demonstrate strong knowledge of the latest trends/developments in the marketing arena, including in digital marketing.
• Have a good understanding of how PR and earned activity can contribute to support marketing campaigns and have led or overviewed PR efforts in this realm.
• You have demonstrable management experience.

Deadline: 04/02/2026