Overview of the Business
Our client is a leading international food business with a strong presence across the UK retail market. Operating across multiple well-established brands and categories, the business partners with all major grocery retailers and is recognised for quality, innovation and category expertise.
With a collaborative culture spanning Sales, Marketing and Category teams, the organisation continues to invest in shopper activation and digital capability to accelerate brand growth across channels. As part of this strategy, they are seeking a commercially driven Customer Marketing Manager to lead the delivery of best-in-class retail activation.
Overview of the Role
The Customer Marketing Manager is responsible for developing and executing strategic shopper marketing plans across key retail customers and channels. The role bridges Sales and Brand Marketing, ensuring that above-the-line campaigns are translated into impactful in-store and online activation that drives trial, repeat purchase and category growth.
This position plays a critical role in delivering return on investment across trade marketing activity, leading agency relationships and embedding a structured digital activation agenda. The successful candidate will combine creativity with strong analytical capability and commercial awareness.
Responsibilities
Customer & Shopper Activation
- Develop and implement customer-specific shopper marketing strategies by channel and retailer.
- Align shopper activation plans with brand campaigns and category strategy to ensure joined-up execution.
- Measure and evaluate ROI of all activation activity, providing recommendations for continuous improvement.
- Lead the online and digital activation agenda, tailoring plans to individual customer strategies.
- Develop retailer-specific marketing creative and activation toolkits.
- Monitor competitor activity and identify best practice across in-store and online campaigns.
- Build strong working relationships with retailer Buying and Category Planning teams.
- Manage external shopper and retailer data agencies.
- Provide regular internal reporting and updates on activation performance.
NPD Support
- Develop and execute shopper marketing plans to support all new product launches.
- Track performance of NPD including rate of sale, distribution, promotional support and in-store execution.
- Monitor competitor launches and share market landscape insights internally.
Retail Sales Activation
- Deliver a structured programme of retail callage and merchandising activity.
- Manage retail activation agencies to ensure high execution standards.
- Analyse activity performance and communicate results with clear recommendations.
Trade PR & Communications
- Build and deliver a structured trade communications and advertising programme.
- Manage trade PR agency relationships and approval processes for press releases and feature copy.
- Develop trade-facing creative to support brand and innovation stories.
Trade Marketing Administration & Budget Management
- Maintain and regularly update the Trade Activation Plan.
- Ensure promotional grids and activation calendars are kept current.
- Track and manage trade marketing spend in line with budget.
- Deliver actionable insights and share best practice across commercial and marketing teams.
Qualifications
- Degree qualified or equivalent professional experience.
- Proven experience in Sales and/or Marketing within food or FMCG, ideally in a retail-facing environment.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret data and evaluate performance against KPIs.
- Excellent presentation and communication skills.
- Commercially aware with experience managing budgets and agency spend.
- Highly organised with strong project management capability.
- Proficient in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook).
- Confident engaging stakeholders at multiple levels internally and externally.