Job Description
* Location: London or Manchester
* Salary: Dependent on experience (£35k-50k, with the option to consider a commission-based arrangement)
* Basis: Full-time (but also open to part-time arrangements)
* Office/remote: Two days per week in our office in the city centre, otherwise remote
* Start date: April/May 2025
* Application deadline: Friday 21st March, 2025
To be clear: We are NOT accepting applications made directly on LinkedIn. If you want to apply, please email us with the things listed at the bottom of this ad.
About Mill Media
Since being founded in June 2020, Mill Media has become a new force in UK media, publishing award-winning journalism in Manchester, Glasgow, London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield. We’ve been described as “One of the most interesting and impressive media startups of the last decade,” by the FT’s John Burn-Murdoch and as “very, very impressive” by the Wall Street Journal’s Emma Tucker. Two years ago, we raised money from a group of our readers, including the CNN chief executive and former New York Times and BBC boss Mark Thompson, who said he was investing because of the “exceptional quality” of our work. The FT and the Observer have recently covered our expansion to London and Glasgow.
Until now, most of our revenue has come from reader subscriptions, which will continue to be our core business model. But in the past year, we have been growing our ads business, focusing on high quality, high-impact sponsorships from organisations and brands that want to speak to our valuable audiences. We typically only have one sponsor per newsletter, so this advertising appeals to clients who want to get key strategic messages across, appearing alongside our deeply trusted media brands. Our clients include the Financial Times, the Royal Horticultural Society, the Lawn Tennis Association and the University of Manchester.
About the role
We are looking for someone who has the contacts and the energy to sell big deals that will grow this crucial part of our business. The ideal hire will be someone who is very proactive about approaching leads, can work independently and will enjoy being part of a growing startup team that currently includes 20 members of staff. They will also be someone who relishes the challenge of growing a new part of our business and taking on the varied tasks involved, including approaching and selling to clients, managing those relationships as they go on, drafting great ad copy for the sponsorship slots and helping to design and evolve our strategy.
You will be working with larger partners who want to advertise across all of our titles as well as local sponsors in each city, including organisations like Manchester Museum and the Science and Industry Museum. You will be alert to who is advertising at any time and able to spot potential partners, finding ways to explain our company to them and showing the value of working with our quality titles. We need someone who can speak fluently and persuasively about the value of our journalism and what makes us unique.
About you
* You will have experience selling advertising slots for media, and a good range of contacts among bigger clients. We’re aware that many of the national organisations we’re looking to work with are based out of London, so contacts there will be particularly useful
* You will be able to cultivate a wide range of sponsors from different sectors
* You will be able to exercise good judgement, avoiding working with advertisers who might be seen to affect our editorial impartiality
* You will be able to write engaging copy in the voice of our titles, in a way that doesn’t feel corporate or stale
* You will be self-motivated, proactively finding leads and converting them to clients, regularly reporting back and working to hit targets
How to apply
Email hiring@millmediaco.uk to apply by the deadline of Friday 21st March, 2025. Please include:
* A few paragraphs in the email body explaining why you’re a good fit for this role and why you want to do it.
* A few paragraphs about your relevant experience, including details of the kinds of clients you worked with and what you were selling.
* Your CV or a link to your LinkedIn.