Job Title:           Retention Executive                                    Reporting to: Head of Retention

Department:    B2C & Product      

Role Purpose

The Retention Executive plans, executes and iterates campaigns to improve subscriber engagement and reduce subscriber churn, contributing toward the ambitious subscription growth goals at Mediahuis Ireland titles including the Irish Independent, Belfast Telegraph and 11 regional titles.

You will join a team of retention specialists to deliver a wide variety of initiatives across onboarding, activation, targeted content marketing, loyalty programmes, predictive AI modelling, reactive churn management and winback.

The role requires close collaboration with colleagues in marketing, acquisition, product, data and customer care to deliver on the wider B2C & Product team strategy: the successful candidate will be experienced in B2C marketing best practices, CRM and customer base management and should show a proven ability to optimise and iterate customer communications at all key subscription touchpoints.

An experimental approach with a keenness to quickly test new initiatives and operationalise successes is highly desirable: the successful candidate will be provided with the resources and supports to test and learn at pace. You will develop collaborative relationships with colleagues in the wider Mediahuis Group across Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany to share insights and best practice learnings.

You should show strong organisational skills and have the ability to manage multiple initiatives at once. You learn from campaigns that do not work and are curious to tweak and evolve more successful campaigns. You have a creative mind and an ability to get our message across to our customer as quickly and clearly as possible.

Interest in and awareness of news media and/or the subscription economy is welcome but not essential.

Role Responsibilities (Overview)

• Optimise and iterate customer experience at all lifecycle stages from welcome to winback.
• Develop subscriber touchpoints by growing opt-ins and collecting first-party data.
• Ownership of retention and engagement KPIs and achievement of ambitious targets for each.
• Manage targeted social media campaigns focusing on engagement of dormant subscribers and communication of core benefits and products.
• Utilising predictive AI modelling tools, develop cross-channel campaigns to engage and retain at-risk subscribers and upsell most loyal customers.
• Continually improve customer experience by close collaboration with colleagues in technology and editorial.
• Grow customer revenue with upsell initiatives and price increase campaigns.
• Issue clear and insightful reports on performance of campaigns and recommendations for next steps.
• Liaise closely with Customer Care function to plan and improve outbound campaigns.

Experience & Qualifications (Minimum Experience & Essential Knowledge)

• 3 years’ minimum experience of data-driven lifecycle management.
• Large-scale CRM and customer base management experience is essential.
• Customer segmentation experience, with predictive modelling a bonus.
• History of advocating for customer needs to deliver UX improvements.
• Experience operating across multiple projects in a dynamic industry is critical.
• Experience with Google Analytics and deriving user insights from data.
• Strong understanding of below-the-line email and social marketing best practice.

Skills and Attributes

• Excellent written communication skills, in particular with regard to email and social media marketing.
• Diligent and data-oriented personality with a logical mind-set and strong attention to detail.
• Customer-centric perspective with an ability to advocate for end user experience improvements.
• Awareness of media industry challenges and best practice; ability to conduct thorough competitor analysis and customer research.
• Data literacy; ability to formulate data-led strategic and tactical initiatives.
• Collaborative approach with personal characteristics that engender trust and confidence.
• Comfortable working to deadline across multiple projects in a fast-paced environment.
• Excellent presentation and communication skills.
• Ability to influence others and challenge assumptions. 

Fixed term contract approx 7 months to cover maternity leave