The Company

Usborne is an independent, family business, creating books which spark curiosity in children of all ages. These range from books for babies such as the bestselling THAT’S NOT MY® series of touchy-feely books, to YA fiction from acclaimed authors such as Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé and Ravena Guron – with everything from Sticker Dolly Dressing to Philosophy for Beginners in between.

Whilst the company is now a market-leader in children’s publishing and one of the best-known brands in children’s books globally, the company retains a friendly and familial feel. If you want to work somewhere close-knit enough for people to know your name, but which has a first-class reputation around the world, Usborne is the place for you.

The Department

Reporting into the wider Global Marketing function, the Digital team supports Usborne’s global publishing and Usborne Community Partnerships teams in all aspects of digital marketing. This includes a platform of global websites (which you’ll find at usborne.com), and the UK website which is a key e-commerce channel for Usborne. In addition, the team manages social media, trade and consumer email, and provides digital marketing expertise to all other teams at Usborne.

The Role

We are looking for a highly organised and data focused individual to join our Digital Team to be responsible for ensuring the smooth operation, usability and effectiveness of our global Usborne websites.

The successful candidate will be happy working across multiple systems and play a crucial role in optimising the customer journey on our website, ensuring our books are beautifully displayed and our content is up to date to maximise book sales and engagement.

The role will involve working with colleagues from across the entire Usborne business from book editors to metadata experts, therefore strong collaboration skills are essential.

You will have the opportunity to build new skills quickly in this role, so we are looking for someone who is eager to learn, proactive in solving problems and comfortable asking questions. 

Other key tasks of this role include:

• Building website pages and merchandising English language websites with new books and seasonal promotions.

• Troubleshooting and resolving website issues such as website bugs, book information issues or user difficulties.

• Working with Usborne’s website agency to develop and test new features and functionality, including writing requirements and user testing to ensure all developments improve the customer journey and experience.

• Managing the feed between our book database and website.

• Uploading additional content to websites including activity sheets, videos and audio content.

• Managing website and internal search categories to ensure books are well merchandised and users can easily find relevant books.

• Improving ranking of websites via search engine optimisation.

• Building and running reports (in Google Analytics and other tools) to understand website and campaign performance.

• Microsoft Excel reporting and data manipulation.

• Presenting key website statistics and insights in monthly meetings.

• Managing the eBook creation process including ensuring eBooks are compliant with new accessibility legislation.

• Supporting colleagues who manage non-English language websites with technical expertise.

The Successful Candidate

We are looking for an individual with 2-4 years’ experience of digital marketing, including hands-on experience working with website content management systems.

The successful candidate will also demonstrate:

• Experience with website content management systems (i.e Magento, Shopify or other CMs) including building web pages and working with developers.

• Good Excel and data manipulation skills (pivot tables, formulas etc).

• Good numeracy skills.

• Google Analytics experience (running reports and creating simple queries).

• Good writing skills with strong grammar and the ability to craft concise, SEO-friendly and impactful copy.

• A meticulous eye for detail including ability to check text for accuracy.

• Ability to work with a wide range of stakeholders (developers and IT, marketers, book editors) in a professional and effective manner.

• Ability to multitask with excellent time management skills.

Though not essential, the successful candidate would ideally also demonstrate:

• Knowledge of website performance monitoring tools and techniques.

• E-commerce experience.

• Knowledge of search engine optimisation tools and techniques.

• eBook creation experience.

• Html and user experience knowledge.

• Digital accessibility and GDPR understanding.

• Experience with project management/ workflow tools such as Asana.

• Simple graphic design skills (for example creating images in Canva).

• Experience with PPC (Google Adwords).

  Publishing experience is not required, however an interest in children’s books and publishing is a plus.

Location and Benefits

We offer a 35-hour working week from our offices in London (nearest tube: Farringdon).

After a short initial induction period we offer a hybrid working model of 3 days in the office and 2 days working from home which we feel optimises our opportunities for collaboration and contact with our colleagues. Wednesdays are our core office day, when all staff are in the office.

In addition to our transparent salary grading structure, for this role we also offer a range of benefits which include:

• 25 days paid holiday entitlement plus bank holidays rising with service to 30 days

• Industry-leading Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.

• Employee Assistance Programme through Health Assured and Mental Health First Aiders.

• Healthcare cashback scheme.

• Virtual GP service.

• Paid Volunteering Day.

• Rewards and discounts on services and shopping.

• Cycle to Work Scheme.

• 75% discount on Usborne books.

Usborne is dedicated to building a diverse taskforce that reflects the wide range of communities that read our books globally. Decisions are made based on the individual’s skills and experiences and we particularly encourage applications from underrepresented demographics in Publishing.

We are unable to offer visa sponsorship for this role and therefore applicants must have the permanent right to live and work in the UK.

Recruitment Process

After an anonymised shortlisting process, we anticipate first interviews taking place via Teams in early April, with second round interviews (and a short exercise) taking place in person shortly afterwards (these dates are likely to fall around the Easter weeks).

We are looking for the successful candidate to commence the role as soon as possible.

Please let us know if you require reasonable adjustments at any point during the application and/or recruitment process.

AI

We kindly ask that you refrain from using any AI tools for your application.

Whilst AI is undoubtedly a useful tool in some instances, we need to see that you're able to demonstrate your ability to originate ideas and write them in a compelling manner, not just generate them using a tool.

Therefore, any suspected AI usage may result in your application being rejected.