Digital PR Executive (12 month FTC)

Please note this role is a 12 month fixed term contract

What's in it for you

Working at M&S means being part of something bigger - helping to deliver quality, value and service to millions of customers every day. We’re inclusive, fast-moving and always evolving, with a strong sense of purpose and a focus on doing the right thing.

Here are just a few of the benefits that make working here even more rewarding:

· 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third-party brands for you and someone in your household, available once you’ve completed your probation

· Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more

· Strong pension and life assurance to help plan for the future

· Tailored induction and training to support your development from day one

· Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal

· Market-leading family policies, including parental, adoption and neonatal leave

· 24/7 wellbeing support, including virtual GP access and mental health services

· One paid volunteer day a year to support a cause that matters to you

What you'll do

As one of the UK’s most loved brands, with a presence on every high street and decades of product innovation, we have an incredible opportunity to acquire the high value backlinks to M&S.com.  

As the Digital PR Executive, you will report into the Digital PR Lead, within the SEO team in the Online department. This is an exciting new role dedicated to supporting the continued growth of our SEO performance at M&S via digital PR and link building activity. You will undertake a critical role that will be a key part of gaining valuable links to M&S.com. Main responsibilities include campaign ideation, research, press release writing, and outreach. You will maximise every opportunity to earn links to M&S.com from relevant and authoritative websites utilising a range of digital PR and content marketing techniques.  

• Research and plan creative campaigns that will excite the media to link back to key categories of the website, while adhering to brand guidelines.  
• Write press materials and outreach emails ensuring everything is engaging and SEO optimised, with multiple angles and hooks to ensure we reach our link goals, ready for approval by the Digital PR Lead. 
• Source relevant press contacts for all Digital PR activities and continually add to our internal media lists, while managing relationships with journalists.
• Acquire high quality and relevant backlinks through various Digital PR tactics, including campaigns, reactive PR, and link reclamation, while trying to minimise affiliate link acquisition.
• Amplify campaigns through influencers to reach more customers and gain additional traffic to the website. 
• Work with Press Officers in the PR and social media teams to optimise press materials ensuring that we are maximising link opportunities in all outreach to media. 
• Spend time each week monitoring industry news, the media landscape and social media to understand trends and opportunities for Digital PR.  
   

Who you are
 

• Excellent written and communication skills, able to write press materials to a high standard, with an excellent grasp on English spelling, punctuation and grammar.
• Demonstratable experience in a digital PR or influencer marketing role, either at an agency or client-side with proven results of media placements and hitting campaign KPIs. 
• Ideally you will have experience using a variety of media databases e.g. Muckrack, Press Loft, Buzzstream and their competitors, with awareness of SEO tools (such as Ahrefs).
• Desirable to have experience in a complex fashion, beauty or homeware retail business with high SEO traffic. 
• Really strong organisational and time management skills. 

Everyone's Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail. We’re disrupting, innovating and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers and suppliers. Join us and make change happen.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and work together to win together.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.

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