The Communications department at The Place oversees all marketing, press and PR activity across the organisation. Comprising eight members of staff, the team is responsible for implementing sales, audience development, digital, content and student recruitment strategies in line with corporate goals and The Place’s ambitious business plan. Serving a digital audience of around 600,000 people through our channels, and with a growing producing and touring house; our content reaches over 3 million people every year. The communications team are custodians of The Place brand and contribute to ultimately raise the overall profile of The Place whilst ensuring it remains true to its values across all communications. The communications team is highly dynamic and collaborative and works to reach targets whilst also being encouraged to experiment and innovate.

JOB OVERVIEW

Reporting to the Head of Marketing: Public Programmes, the Marketing Officer will support the development, implementation and evaluation of marketing campaigns for activities across the organisation. They will oversee specific projects in areas including - promoting performances in our theatre and on tour; engaging more young people and adults with the classes and courses programme; supporting the student recruitment campaigns for the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT); building audiences for digital projects, and other projects and campaigns as required.

This role will work most closely with the Head of Marketing: Public Programmes,  the Marketing Manager (Public Programmes), the Marketing Manager (Education Programmes), and the Communications Trainee. They’ll also work with the Press and PR Manager and the Digital Content Manager, as well as the Public Programmes team and artists; and the school faculty and students.

The performance programme includes more than 120 performances a year presented in the theatre at The Place, with visiting companies and The Place’s own commissions and productions; as well as an expanding touring strand of work, producing and presenting more work than ever before locally, nationally, and internationally.

The Classes & Courses Programme includes approximately 45 classes per week, with sessions available for all ages 2 to 60+ and suitable for all levels. Teachers draw on a broad range of dance forms including Ballet, Bharatanatyam, Cunningham, House, Limon, Popping and Release.

The Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) is a pre-vocational programme of dance training for young people aged 14-18 years old who are passionate about dance. It is a very important part of our ecology as it provides accessible rigorous training for young people regardless of their backgrounds and supports them to consider and pursue a creative higher education path.

London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) offers circa 280 students from all over the world, a creative education in dance through a BA in Contemporary Dance and four postgraduate courses (MA Screendance, MA Dance: Performance and MA Dance: Participation, Communities, Activism). Its reputation thrives and continues to expand through the work of its 3000+ alumni who make waves and transform the sector across the globe, both within and outside the world of dance.

SALARY & CONTRACT TERMS

SALARY

The salary for this position is £29,823 per annum.

Salaries are reviewed in August each year when any cost-of-living increases are made. No salary changes are made until after successful completion of a probationary period.

CONTRACT TERMS

This is an open-ended, permanent contract. This is a full-time position (equivalent to 40 hours per week). These hours are inclusive of a one-hour paid lunch break each day. Your hours of work will be agreed with the line manager.

Whilst in the six-month probationary period the notice period will be two weeks. Once this period is successfully completed the post holder will be confirmed in the post and the notice period will be six weeks.

CLOSING DATE

The application closing date is Mon 10 Feb 2025 at 12:00pm (noon). We reserve the right to close applications early depending on the volume of applications we receive and so we advise it is better to apply early.

For an informal chat about this role to answer any questions you may have before applying, please email Theo Hooley-Unwin, Head of Marketing: Public Programmes.

INTERVIEW DATES

We anticipate that interviews will be conducted on Wed 19 Feb 2025 either in person at The Place or remotely via Microsoft Teams (or similar platform as necessary).

PERSON SPECIFICATION

ESSENTIAL CRITERIA

KNOWLEDGE

• Good understanding of the opportunities to market and promote theatre/dance work.
• Awareness of the competitive environment for student recruitment.

SKILLS

• Excellent IT literacy skills (including Microsoft Officer 365) and website content management systems.

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience supporting the delivery of marketing campaigns for the cultural sector or higher education sector (including print production, digital reciprocal marketing, advertising, etc.).
• Ability and interest in ensuring students or other stakeholders feedback to feed into campaigns.

ATTRIBUTES AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

• Excellent communication skills and written English, including copywriting skills for different mediums and audiences.

DESIRABLE CRITERIA

KNOWLEDGE

• Good knowledge of the dance higher education and conservatoire sector.
• Good knowledge of contemporary dance.

SKILLS

• Familiarity with Dotmailer or some form of bulk email software. 

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience of working with a range of artists or on various artistic projects simultaneously.
• Experience with a CRM system such as Spektrix, Tessitura, Salesforce, etc. and a CMS such as Craft, WordPress, etc.
• Experience supporting the marketing of digital artworks.
• Experience of building and maintaining strong relationships with a range of stakeholders.
• Experience in campaign evaluation.
• Familiarity with Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere (or other video editing software).
• Experience in social media campaign planning and delivery, and building an active engaged social media audience.

ATTRIBUTES AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

• A flair for design and good attention to detail.
• Enthusiasm for contemporary dance, The Place, and its values.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

CAMPAIGN PLANNING

• Work with the Head of Marketing: Public Programmes to build, implement and evaluate marketing campaigns for The Place’s theatre programme, including season announcements and overseeing specific campaigns at the venue and on tour.
• Collaborate with the Classes & Courses team to reach more participants and increase term enrolment.
• Work with the Marketing Manager (Education Programmes) to design marketing campaigns for events, performances and workshops (LCDS summer schools, CAT sharings, LCDS graduations and performances, postgraduate sharings, and open events).
• Liaise with visiting companies and artists to maximise marketing potential and campaign impact across all our activities.

CAMPAIGN DELIVERY

• In collaboration with the Head of Marketing: Public Programmes and the Marketing Managers, write and edit copy for promotional material, including for print, posters, advertisements, email, webpages, online posts and videos.
• Manage the production of print and digital marketing materials on specific campaigns for the theatre programme, LCDS, Classes & Courses, and CAT, including briefing and liaising with designers, proofing and overseeing the work of printers.
• Support in managing the work of photographers, filmmakers and in-house content creation.
• Organise the distribution of marketing materials on specific campaigns through emailing programmes, social media channels and distribution runs.
• Create engaging email campaigns, working with strategic segmentation of audience data.
• Ensure relevant sections of The Place’s website are up to date, tailoring online content to maximise its promotional effectiveness.
• Deliver social media plans for specific campaigns 
• Monitor ticket sales to maximise marketing impact at The Place modifying campaigns in line with sales trends.
• Ensure that data is collected from audiences and participants to inform current and future campaigns and run evaluation campaigns from available data.
• Liaise with Press and PR Manager to provide information for national press releases.

GENERAL 

• Along with the rest of the Communications team, ensuring that The Place’s website is up to date and optimised.
• Stay up to date with marketing trends across social media, best practice, equality and inclusion.
• Occasionally lead on ad hoc marketing projects and callouts.
• Build strong working relationships with a range of stakeholders including artists, producers, venue marketing teams and programmers.
• Attend production press nights, Higher Education fairs, networking meetings and act as an ambassador for The Place and LCDS.
• Any other duties as may be required from time to time required by the Senior Marketing Manager.

PHOTO CREDIT

LCDS Graduation Show 'A Death Has Occurred' by Kennedy Muntanga | 2023 | Photo by Foteini Christofilopoulou