Head of Marketing in Colchester

Find out more about this role by reading the information below, then apply to be considered.

Location: Hybrid - Can be worked from our London, Birmingham or Leicester office

Salary: Competitive + benefits!

Contract Type: Full Time, Permanent

What We Can Offer You:

• 25 Days Annual Leave
• Additional Holiday Purchase
• Hybrid Working
• Performance-Related Bonus
• Life Assurance
• Vitality Private Healthcare
• Subsidised Gym Memberships
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Discount Vouchers
• Access to Wellbeing Resources

Why Do We Want You

This is a role for someone who likes to be close to the business. You’ll be part of Wilmington plc, but fully embedded in Mercia Group – working alongside its leadership team, getting under the skin of its markets, and taking clear ownership of how marketing supports growth.

You’ll be Mercia’s marketing lead and point of contact: setting direction, shaping priorities, and making sure the right support from our central marketing teams is focused on what matters most to the business.

You'll Be Responsible For:

• Translating Mercia's objectives and growth ambitions into actionable marketing strategy and quarterly plans, with accountability for pipeline contribution, marketing ROI, and ongoing competitive analysis (including market positioning and win/loss patterns).
• Identifying, quantifying, and building business cases for growth opportunities across new geographies, product launches (GTM), market expansion, customer segments, revenue streams, and marketing investment.
• Partnering closely with Mercia's Managing Director, Sales, Product, Operations, and leadership teams to align priorities, review performance, understand customer and market dynamics, and uncover upsell and cross‑sell opportunities.
• Owning marketing engagement with strategic professional body partners, aligning joint objectives, commercial priorities, and shared reporting requirements.
• Completing detailed, insight‑led campaign planning briefs for central marketing teams, including commercial objectives, target personas, key messages, competitive positioning, success metrics, and channel strategy.
• Working closely with the Director of Demand and Director of Content to ensure campaign strategy aligns with execution capabilities, best practices, and business priorities.
• Tracking and analysing marketing performance using Mercia’s dashboard, monitoring pipeline contribution, conversion rates, campaign ROI, cost per lead/opportunity, and competitor marketing activity.
• Translating performance data into commercial insights, optimisation priorities, and actionable recommendations for central delivery teams.
• Participating in quarterly website and digital journey reviews, identifying friction points, conversion barriers, and content gaps, and working with Web and Operations teams to prioritise improvements based on commercial impact.
• Ensuring Mercia’s digital customer journey, messaging, and positioning consistently reflect business priorities and competitive differentiation.

What Is The Best Thing About This Role

You’ll get real ownership and visibility. You’ll be the marketing lead for Mercia Group, working closely with its leadership team and having a genuine say in where the business focuses its effort. There’s a lot of freedom to shape the agenda, set priorities, and focus marketing on the areas that will make the biggest difference. You’ll also have the backing of Wilmington’s central marketing teams, so while you’re the only marketer in the business, you’re never working alone. You get the best of both worlds: autonomy within the BU, plus access to specialist skills and support when you need them.

What Is The Most Challenging Thing About This Role

This isn’t a role with a team to lead or direct control over resources. You’ll need to work with central marketing teams, who support several business units, and help them understand why Mercia’s priorities matter right now. That means being clear, persuasive and comfortable making trade‑offs.

To Be Successful In This Role, You Must Have:

• A strong background in B2B marketing with a demonstrable commercial track record, including measurable pipeline growth, ROI contribution, and experience translating business objectives into marketing strategy.
• Proven experience in demand generation, content marketing, campaign measurement, marketing technology, performance analytics, and briefing/managing agency or internal teams.
• Strong commercial acumen, including the ability to build business cases, justify marketing investment, understand sales processes, customer buying journeys, revenue models, and quantify market opportunities.
• Strategic thinking capability, with experience in competitive analysis, market intelligence, identifying growth opportunities (geographic, product, or segment), and translating win/loss and performance insights into action.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to influence and partner with senior leaders and cross‑functional teams (Sales, Product, Operations) without direct authority.
• Strong communication and briefing skills, able to distil complexity into clear, focused direction and priorities.
• Comfort operating as a solo marketer embedded within a business unit, while effectively leveraging central marketing resources, managing ambiguity, and balancing competing priorities.

We know it’s not a skill, but the successful candidate must have permission to work in the role’s location by the start of their employment.

At Wilmington plc, we celebrate individuality and are committed to fostering an inclusive workplace. As a Disability Confident employer, we shortlist all applicants who meet the essential role criteria and guarantee an interview for candidates with disabilities who meet these criteria. For reasonable adjustments or to apply under our interview guarantee scheme, please use the contact details provided once you have clicked “apply”.