Media Relations Consultant

Join us as a Media Relations Consultant
- Join us in our External Communications team in the Retail Bank, which serves 17 million customers and help promote and protect the reputation of the business
- You’ll play a key role in coordinating our proactive press office to deliver a regular drumbeat of positive media coverage
- This is a great opportunity to join a collaborative and forward thinking team, where you can keep building your knowledge and expertise, and gain valuable exposure across the bank
- We offer a hybrid way of working where you’ll be based in our London office at least two days a week, with the rest of your time working from home

**What you'll do**:
As a Media Relations Consultant, you’ll help to create and maintain an annual calendar of press office stories, based on the annual communications strategy and business priorities, and pitch and place stories in national and regional media, while building a personal network of media contacts. You’ll also have the opportunity to support the development and delivery of large-scale creative consumer media campaigns.

In addition, you’ll manage the reporting rhythm on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis, working with the external and internal communications and insights teams. You’ll also support the media team with reactive issues management, coordinating input and approvals from across the bank on a range of challenging issues.

Your role will also involve:

- Coordinating quarterly horizon scanning meetings with the business units and the wider communications team, to validate and update the communications strategy and brainstorm new ideas for the communications calendar
- Ensuring the timely escalation of issues to senior communications colleagues and coordinating the preparation of holding positions and internal briefings
- Producing first drafts of proactive media materials and reactive media positions, and coordinating input and approvals from communications leaders and the relevant business units
- Contributing to the development and delivery of multi-channel consumer media campaigns, working with the central campaigns team and PR agencies
- Looking for opportunities to incorporate more digital elements into traditional media strategies, to support reach, engagement and SEO
- Representing the External Communications team on incident or project groups as needed and taking part in the out-of-hours rota for press officers

**The skills you'll need**:
To take on this role, you’ll need the ability to understand personal finance product information and data, and turn them into simple and effective communications. Your concise writing skills will be key, along with a keen eye for detail when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Along with experience of data visualisation to support content development and reporting, you’ll need an understanding of how social media can be used to inform and amplify media and SEO campaigns. You’ll also need working knowledge of IT programmes and media databases, paired with experience of dealing with the national and regional media, with some journalist relationships in place.

You’ll also have:

- Experience of working with consumer-facing financial services brands and media
- Experience of pitching and placing media coverage through a range of tactics, including newsjacking, press releases, op-eds, data-driven insights, case studies and events
- A digital-first mindset with an interest in experimenting and evolving communications
- Experience of tracking KPIs and producing regular reports for the business
- Strong organisational skills, with the ability to multi-task, juggle priorities and deliver on deadlines under pressure
- Excellent interpersonal skills, with a proactive approach to building networks internally across the bank and externally with media