Marketing Director – Construction

The Marketing Director’s responsibilities include providing direction, guidance, inspiration and leadership to the construction marketing team and its portfolio of 10 events that operate throughout the Middle East and Africa.

Within this sits the flagship event – The Big 5 which has run in Dubai for over 40 years and is one of the largest and most recognized events across the Middle East and Africa. It is an exceptionally important and exciting annual gathering of local and international construction product manufacturers, specifiers, and contractors. The Marketing Director will play a pivotal part in continuing to grow this event making it a must-attend event for the global construction community.

For both The Big 5 and the rest of the portfolio, the Marketing Director is responsible for developing a high performance and motivated team ensuring activities are delivered to exacting standards, on time, and to budget. They will also work as a senior manager with the portfolio Vice Presidents and SVP to maximize opportunities, revenues, profits, and market share.

Experience Required

A minimum of three years in a senior marketing role. The Marketing Director must have had responsibility for a cluster or portfolio of events with different feature sets. They will also need to have proven experience in managing a team of marketing resources.

Main duties & responsibilities:

• Create or review, sign off and monitor holistic marketing plans and budgets specific to portfolio and event goals
• Ensure deliverables are as per plan, and delivered to the highest possible standard
• Work with the divisional senior management to develop existing events and markets and to seek and develop new ideas and activities
• Set brand and portfolio level marketing goals with measurable success metrics to drive better results and spend marketing budgets more effectively
• Within the above, work with VP’s/ED’s to set and manage budgets always seeking ways to work within those figures and to reduce costs where possible
• Together with the marketing teams hold regular face-to-face meetings with sales on quality of MQLs, additional lead generation support, customer feedback and objections, and effectiveness of sales collateral
• Work with the marketers to identify key competitors to create a proposition that differentiates us and takes market share
• Create a customer satisfaction strategy and ensure its rigorously implemented
• Adapt existing frameworks to create a robust social and content marketing strategy that builds brand awareness, captures new contact data and converts to customers
• Coach teams on the guiding principles of great copywriting that influences our customer to take the next action
• Devise and develop realistic budgets, ensure they are maintained and not exceeded. Identify areas to reduce unnecessary cost
• Create a series of visual standard guidelines to ensure the brands are represented in a professional manner and applied consistently across all channels and touchpoints
• Continuously look to bring innovation and tactics into marketing campaigns to achieve goals, build the brand and increase market share
• Ensure yourself and the team are frequently collecting customer feedback on the brand and industry to tailor messaging and proposition accordingly (via face-to-face focus groups, online surveys etc.)
• Analyze available data insights to identify trends for growth and pre-empt risk
• Work with the data team to devise a data build and verification strategy to maintain contact health and marketing reach
• Assist and in some instances directly orchestrate partnerships with government bodies, associations, and media that will give your brand credibility and awareness
• Support Event Directors within the division in researching and identifying new commercial opportunities

Team development and leadership:

• Coach and support team members through the marketing campaign, offering best practice advice and guidelines
• Ensure teams are adequately trained across company platforms and aware of any process and company policies
• Create a high functioning and team that is motivated, focused on the right goals, has a growth mindset and is happy within their role
• Develop your teams to progress in their career giving them clarity on the next step requirements and how they can achieve this
• Recruit and train new hires
• Provides constructive and timely performance evaluations
• Handles discipline and termination of employees and in accordance with company policy.

Essential technical skills:

• Marketing technology proficiency i.e. at a minimum in-depth experience working on any email sending and database platforms
• Excellent understanding of digital marketing fundamentals, particularly email, social media, paid media and content marketing
• Strong understanding of brand fundamentals
• Strong project and time management skills
• Vendor management
• Strong analytical and data-driven decision-making skills
• Experience working with database software & CMS platforms (no coding)

Essential soft skills:

• Strong supervisory and leadership skills
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Excellent organizational skills and attention to detail
• Curious, creative and innovative mindset
• Ability to work in a pressurized, fast-paced environment
• Strong problem-solving skills