Helen Harding

Achieved career growth from Campaign Manager (12/2016 – 09/2017) to Head of Acquisitions (09/2017 – 03/2023), to Head of Marketing (Technology, Photo, Knowledge & Homes Brands) 04/2023 – 12/2023 Head of Marketing (Online Brand-Led) (01/2024 – 09/2024) and Head of Marketing (Grow Brands) (10/2024 to 15/09)

• Leadership role of Head of Marketing held for eight years.
• Strategic planning: Developing and executing marketing strategies to acquire and grow our subscriber base.
• Growth incentives: Oversaw digital marketing campaigns across multiple platforms to drive traffic and increase conversions. Increased investment in paid channels across the grow brands, opportunity to extend out to new audiences and ability to scale. Focusing on how we leverage content to grow subscribers through repurposed videos to drive traffic to the site, editorial brand videos talking to camera and influencer activity. A/B testing on social (Facebook and Instagram) with creative assets and videos. Our Influencer activity in Q1 for Country Life drove 425 new subscribers with a strong CPA of £35 in peak trading. 48% of the volume in January came from the activity alone.
• Upper funnel: DDM and competitions regularly run for prospect data with nurture onboarding series.
• Team leadership: Leading and mentoring a team of marketing professionals. Guided team members towards achieving set objectives and milestones in marketing projects.
• Budget/Channel Management: Allocated budget expenditure to optimise channel effectiveness. Reallocated funds between channels based on performance and lifetime value.
• Performance Analysis: Using Foresight, Bluebird, GA, Piano, and Meta to track performance vs budgeted volume and CPA. Tracking and monitoring against agreed KPIs and benchmarks in place. Influenced positive change by consistently analysing and optimising campaign performances.
• Stakeholder management : Collaborating with brand editorial teams (including design, brand values and guidelines), paywall operational team, video production teams, CRM, performance marketing, retention team, wider subscription team, ELT, and SLT. Initiated partnerships with external agencies for collaborative promotional activities. Fostered strong relationships with key industry influencers, increasing brand visibility.
• Analysed competitor activity regularly to stay ahead on market trends.

• Omnichannel activity implemented full mix of marketing channels (owned and paid) cross photography and knowledge verticals to effectively drive acquisitions.
• Own, devise and deliver an effective plan for designated vertical acquisition performance, market trends, customer behaviours, pricing, previous performance, positioning and CPA to drive decision-making.

• Implemented marketing strategy by proposing, creating, and co-ordination marketing campaigns for both existing (renewal) and new (recruitment) campaigns across entire range of Imagine magazines. Updated profit and loss (P&L) details for each campaign in financial database. Managed email marketing initiatives, such as implementing email marketing plan, writing copy, and providing briefs to design team for HTML templates and banner/online adverts.
• Supported sound decision-making regarding future initiatives by forecasting, monitoring, and reviewing campaign outcomes using lifetime value model, whilst continuously monitoring all results.
• Drove 30% increase in conversion rates for subscription sign-ups by launching targeted email marketing campaign.
• Collaborated with design team in creating visually appealing promotional materials, attracting more prospects.