Mark Sand Email & Phone Number

Newcastle Upon Tyne, Gb

Sunderland, England, United Kingdom

Tynemouth

In this role I am responsible for controlling all of the marketing output to ensure we meet visitor number targets and revenues. Working in the Leisure and Tourism industry this involves using many different approaches to target different audiences and sectors. I have full control of planning and budgeting, ensuring we get a good ROI on all marketing spend. Digital media is a key tool in this sector and I have increased views and interactions across all of the aquarium’s social media channels leading to increased online ticket sales.I have improved visitor numbers year on year whilst in this role and encouraged a good spread of sales across different channels. I have also gained experience of commercial sales to businesses, selling bulk tickets to large organisations.In 2019 I have overseen the rebrand of the aquarium, creating a new brand identity. We relaunched as Tynemouth Aquarium in October 2019 giving the brand a modern and dynamic look and feel. In 2020 we have opened a new restaurant with its own individual branding. This being a separate entity, it needed to have a different style and feel to it. Part of this role is being on the management team. This involves managing staff and handling customer issues whilst being the responsible person on duty management shifts. I have also been co-opted on to the digital team for Aspro UK, working to develop new websites for our 9 UK sites and identify and select a new digital marketing agency for the group.

Gateshead

In December 2015 Kids 1st was acquired by Busy Bees and I was promoted to Marketing Manager giving me the sole responsibility for marketing output at Kids 1st. I worked across a variety of channels and mediums to ensure that nursery occupancies were kept high and new nurseries filled up quickly. I had full control over the marketing budget and I adapted the marketing output to fit in with budget constraints. This role has given me experience of important decision making, to help get the best return on investment for our promotions.

Gateshead

Prior to Kids 1st being sold to Busy Bees I worked for their previous parent company HMC Group, the group was made up of Kids 1st as well as Helen McArdle Care. My function in this role was to support the marketing manager in all aspects of marketing for the brands which make up the company. This role was varied and I had to be flexible and effectively manage my own workload unsupervised. My day to day duties included; updating website content, responding to enquiries, placing adverts (both digital and printed), overseeing internal communications, marketing evaluation and writing copy.A large part of my role was to write copy for print, online and social media, as the company is split into two main brands; care homes for the elderly and children's nurseries, I learned to adapt my writing style for different brands and mediums. A keen eye for detail was also key to this role, as I conducted marketing audits of all the individual sites to ensure they all met the high brand standards.