In 2022, Birmingham played host to the largest Commonwealth Games ever held, which was a golden opportunity for the West Midlands. The West Midlands welcomed an unprecedented 141.2 million visitors in 2022, smashing the previous record set before the COVID-19 pandemic. The figures represent a 38% increase on tourist numbers in 2021, and a 5% rise compared to 2019 data, which was the last research to be carried out before the tourist industry was severely impacted by the global pandemic.

The Marketing Manager – Business and Sporting Events role is to capitalise on this unique opportunity and to establish the West Midlands as truly globally competitive in the coming years, delivering Global West Midlands – the West Midlands Growth Company’s business plan for July 2023 to March 2025.

The Marketing Manager – Business and Sporting Events is responsible for planning and delivery of business tourism (MICE) and major sporting event campaigns that drive awareness of the region’s expertise, capacity and capability in these areas; supporting marketing and bid collateral, strategic marcomms plans and manage the business as usual activity to promote business tourism and major sporting events. The breadth of destination marketing will be covered by this role, from strategic relationship development, B2C and B2B marketing, domestic and international campaign management, brand application, trade and press events, press and PR, website and digital development and management, social media strategy, and procuring and managing contracts.

Main Responsibilities and Key Activities

• Managing marketing activity across business tourism (MICE) and major sporting events in the West Midlands
• A passion for destination marketing, underpinned by research and intelligence and focused on measurable outcomes.
• Support Global West Midlands marketing strategy and delivery for business tourism and major sporting events, supporting the delivery of our core services, campaigns and projects to ensure objectives are met
• Managing the delivery of business tourism (MICE) and major sporting event marketing assets including complex collateral – activity includes writing briefs, producing copy, obtaining quotes, managing agencies/creatives, through to delivery.
• Lead on event (exhibitions, conferences, fam trips, dinners) marketing through stand design, developing marketing collateral, audience and stakeholder communications, and reporting 
• Work with domestic and international media partners, building relationships and developing marketing plans 
• Develop social media plans to raise awareness and drive engagement to for B2B audiences for business tourism (MICE) and major sporting events
• Writing creative briefs for in-house creative team and external agencies to deliver a variety of marketing collateral for both print and digital media
• Supporting procurement processes including optimising value for money, effective tendering for services to deliver required project activity over a 12-18 month period, managing contracts and working alongside the contracted suppliers to ensure project-specific deliverables
• Manage accounts and integrated campaigns/projects, ensuring all work is proof read, complies with brand and has been signed off by WMGC account lead
• Manage budgets and overall time allocation
• Internal stakeholder engagement to ensure delivery is on-track across the business tourism (MICE) and major sporting event programmes, working with the workstream leads, and dovetailing activity across the marketing teams 
• External shareholder management with the seven West Midlands Local Authority destinations plus DMOs, and business tourism (MICE) / major sporting event partners
• Support activity to refresh, develop and manage the core visitor economy marketing channels and campaigns including visitbirmingham.com and meetbirmingham.com
• Supporting work with internal teams to achieve successful outcomes in marketing and communications, research, monitoring and evaluation
• Report against key milestones, deliverables and outputs, providing evidence as required
   

You can view the full job description including key skills and competency requirements, here.

If you are interested in applying for the role, please send your CV to recruitment@wmgrowth.com