Senior Marketing & Communications Manager
Organisation; Grand Central
Location: York
About Us:
We are an open-access train operator linking the North East and West Yorkshire with London, which means we don't get any sort of help from the government and our only loyalty is to our customers - it's in our interest to give you the best journey possible. We've been connecting London Kings Cross, Yorkshire and the North East since 2007. Calling at the smaller stations means we're always looking to be active in the local community, through our various social responsibility programs and helping local organisations.
The Role:
The Senior Marketing & Communications Manager leads Grand Central’s brand, marketing, PR, and digital retail strategy, driving customer acquisition, retention, and revenue growth. They oversee integrated campaigns, digital channel performance, and the evolution of the brand across all touchpoints, using customer insight and data to deliver strong commercial results. Working closely with commercial leadership, they manage key suppliers, guide the marketing team, and ensure effective budget oversight while supporting wider Arriva initiatives to maximise business value.
Principal Accountabilities:
· Lead, implement and develop Grand Central’s Brand, Marketing, PR and Digital Retail strategy. Define, adapt and refine the brand and customer acquisition/retention strategies to ensure the current and future positioning is competitive, customer centric and distinctive. Create the strategies and conditions for industry-leading revenue growth and customer satisfaction through digital retailing and online marketing. Create value for Arriva through proactive contribution to Arriva strategy and project delivery.
· Work in close partnership with Senior Revenue Manager to jointly lead the Commercial team and ensure it delivers and exceeds its objectives; principally by providing expert and excellent commercial services to the 3 businesses within the Rail Services portfolio (Grand Central, ARTS, ATC) and to work with commercial colleagues across the AUKT portfolio to maximise the value of those businesses from working together where it makes commercial sense.
· Develop a holistic marketing and PR strategy that delivers business targets for passenger revenue and footfall, ROI and other KPIs as agreed.
· Lead an innovative marketing approach which identifies opportunities for new customer acquisition and drives quantified customer retention.
· Maintain an integrated marketing strategy and communication plan, which delivers activity in a continuous 12-month cycle.
· Use customer insight and wider consumer intelligence to lead a customer lifecycle management approach which actively drives EBIT growth.
· Maintain a roster of key supplier partners, ensuring delivery against contractual targets and quality metrics. Evaluate fit with brand and commercial objectives on an ongoing basis; tendering for services as required.
· Own and continuously develop digital retail channels (ACE), simultaneously championing customer-centric strategic developments and optimising current performance to increase channel share, conversion and EBIT contribution.
· Overall accountability for Grand Central’s Digital Strategy, Digital Customer Acquisition, User Experience (UX), eCommerce, Data Science, Analytics and Content and SEO Management.
· Identify and leverage external partnerships which deliver commercial benefit, shared brand values and increase brand equity.
· Lead the strategic evolution of the GC brand across all internal and external touchpoints, reviewing its relevance and effectiveness on a regular basis and evolving the visual identity and marketing deployment accordingly.
· Participate in and draw value from AUKT, Arriva Group and RDG initiatives and workstreams.
· Lead the production of the annual marketing and digital retail budget and provide regular forecasts throughout the year. Ensure marketing team expenditure is within agreed parameters and company policies are upheld.
· Proactively explore opportunities to provide MarComms support to AUKT’s non-TOC businesses, using your specialist skills to add value.
Essential Requirements:
· Educated to degree level (or similar) with strong written and numerical skills
· Strong marketing background and experience, and ideally specialist marketing qualifications.
· Membership of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).
· Experience in simultaneously delivering customer acquisition and retention marketing workstreams.
· Experience of delivering and sustaining digital transformation in an environment where digital retailing performance is high profile and business critical.
· Strong people management experience, including dotted line reports within divisional teams.
· Experience of appointing and leading a roster of specialist suppliers as an extension of the in-house team, including inter-agency collaboration to deliver to Grand Central’s business objectives.
· Ability to work within a global organisation, in a regulated industry, and treat these as opportunities to drive value for the business and for customers.
· Passion for understanding customers, influencing them, and creating advocacy which drives EBIT.
· Project management approach to delivering new initiatives.
· Business case creation and delivery of activity against ambitious KPIs.
· Strong financial acumen and >£1m budget management experience.
· Dynamic and positive individual with the enthusiasm for getting to grips
with complex issues and juggle multiple responsibilities.
Grand Central Benefits:
Contributory Pension Scheme: Arriva Workplace Pension Plan (AWPP) provided by Standard Life
Unlimited Free Travel for you and your immediate family on all Grand Central services. In addition, we currently offer concessionary travel on other Arriva Trains UK franchises.
Employee Assistance Programme provided by Health Assured: free, confidential 24-hour telephone counselling and information services.
Benefits available upon completion of probation period (3-6 months):
Friends & Family Passes pro-rata allocation of return standard class journeys (terms & conditions apply)
Company Medical Insurance provided by AXA PPP Healthcare (taxable benefit)
Company Wellness Package (including dental/optical treatment) provided by WPA (taxable benefit).
Child Care Vouchers Scheme
Cycle to Work Scheme
Arriva Village employee rewards and benefits scheme
At Arriva we acknowledge the importance of our people's diverse experiences, talents, and cultures. Embracing diversity and creating inclusion is a key component of our talent strategy. The creation of a diverse, inclusive workforce is central to our ability to unlock potential and enhance our success.