Marketing Specialist - Buffalo - Packt

Description

Marketing Specialist

Packt's mission is to help the world put software to work in new ways, through the delivery of effective learning and information services to IT professionals. We are a technical publisher and learning provider with over 400 staff based across the globe, primarily in India and the UK. Our products have global relevance, and our multimedia portfolio includes over 7,000 books, e-books, audiobooks, and video courses.

As the Marketing Specialist, your mandate is to take Packt's new events + newsletter business from strong market signal to scalable traction in one of our verticals Web Dev, Game Dev, Cybersecurity, SysAdmin, Software Engineering, Data Science, and LLMs. You'll define and execute the full-funnel strategy that reaches the right tech pros and converts them into event attendees (primary revenue) and newsletter subscribers (a durable, monetisable audience).

Our growth theory is simple: tech pros buy on peer recommendation. Practitioners trust respected authors, creators, and community operators more than brands or ads. Your job is to operationalise that building repeatable outreach systems, partnerships, and creator/community deals that drive net-new discovery, owned list growth, and profitable seat sales.

You'll be the operational lead across GTM execution, partner distribution, analytics, and light paid experiments. This role suits someone who thrives in 0?1 and 1?N phases and wants to shape the new playbook.

What You'll Do:

Go-to-Market Execution

• Own and execute GTM for vertical-specific paid events (workshops, bootcamps, conferences) and companion newsletters.
• Plan and publish high-signal promo/content in sync with events and newsletter cadence.
• Design and run integrated campaigns per event speaker reveals, agenda teases, clips, tool walkthroughs, and post-event recaps.
• Build and manage partner distribution : authors, creators, community operators (Reddit, Discord, GitHub, LinkedIn groups, Meetups, YouTube/Twitch).
• Structure rev-share/list-share deals, newsletter swaps, co-hosted streams, and "bring-a-friend"/teams bundles to maximise net-new reach and profitable conversions.
• Run small, disciplined paid boosts/retargeting only where it compounds partner traction and preserves margins.
• Coordinate AMAs, contributor co-promotions, quote drops, and partner spotlights that feel practitioner-to-practitioner.

AI-Enabled Marketing Ops

• Use tools (e.g., ChatGPT/Claude, Descript, Whisper, simple clipper tools) to turn raw talks/interviews into shorts, threads, carousels, and email snippets.
• Build repeatable packaging workflows : from long-form assets to channel-native posts and landing pages in hours, not days.
• Implement lightweight personalisation and scheduling at scale without sacrificing authenticity.

Growth Analytics & Optimization

• Define and track KPIs that matter: net-new email capture, cost per net-new attendee, view?register, register?attend, newsletter?event conversion, sponsorship pipeline value.
• Build simple dashboards for weekly reporting across events, partner sources, and newsletters (UTMs/source tags mandatory).
• Analyse performance to refine copy, offers (teams bundles, bring-a-friend), partner mix, and channel sequencing.
• Translate audience and campaign signal into the next two experiments every week.

Content & Distribution

• Maintain a 30-day rolling calendar per vertical with aligned partner slots and creator commitments.
• Repurpose event insights into carousels, shorts, threads, landing pages, checklists, and mini-labs/lead magnets.
• Coordinate contributor assets and deadlines (speaker clips, sample code, slide snippets) to fuel pre/post-event campaigns.
• Support blog/Substack/email with optimised, scheduled content that drives owned list growth and future seat sales.
• Document playbooks for partner outreach, newsletter swaps, and post-event recap loops so they're repeatable across verticals

Community & Contributor Engagement

• Engage contributors and communities across LinkedIn, Reddit, Discord, GitHub, YouTube/Twitch including DMs, tags, and promotion loops.
• Monitor and respond to inbound comments and DMs; harvest FAQs into content and offers.
• Manage AMA logistics, creator interactions, and occasional audience surveys to sharpen topics and formats.
• Uphold good-citizen community practices and GDPR-safe outreach norms.

Who You Are

This role is for a strategic doer someone who knows what it takes to take a product from zero to signal. You move fast, think in systems, and work across creative, analytical, and growth execution tracks. You're not just pushing content you're driving traction.

Experience & Skills You Bring

You've done the hard yards in growth, GTM, or brand marketing roles and can point to real traction and impact.

• Proven impact in growth/GTM roles launching or scaling programs ideally in developer-focused or technical audiences.
• 3+ years in marketing, GTM, or growth with direct ownership from planning to hands-on execution.
• Demonstrated success with partner/creator/community distribution (newsletter swaps, rev-shares, co-marketing, live collabs).
• Strong grasp of events funnels and newsletter economics (list growth, engagement, sponsorship readiness).
• Hands-on with ESP/CRM and analytics (e.g., HubSpot/Salesforce, GA, Looker/Datastudio; ESP/CDP such as Omeda or similar).
• Comfortable with light paid media (LinkedIn, Meta, Google) as an amplifier, not a crutch.
• Skilled in UTM discipline, dashboarding, and interpreting performance to prioritise next tests.
• Familiar with developer-native channels (Reddit, Discord, GitHub, YouTube/Twitch, LinkedIn) and their norms.

How You Think & Work

You move with urgency but think long-term. You value clarity over volume and treat content as a product.

• Outcome-driven & commercial : you balance growth with ?80% event profitability and keep CAC honest.
• Systems-oriented: you connect partners, content, channels, and ops into a repeatable flywheel.
• High-agency: you proactively source partners, negotiate deals, and get creative assets live quickly.
• Channel-native & editorially sharp: you write for practitioners, not corporate personas.
• Test-and-learn: you plan weekly experiments and ship improvements continuously

Bonus Experience

• Background in AI, security, game dev, web/software engineering, data/ML, or developer tools.
• Experience running ticketed workshops/bootcamps and securing newsletter sponsorships.
• Familiarity with outbound automation/enrichment (e.g., Clay/Apollo/Lusha) and partner CRMs.
• Basic knowledge of landing-page testing, attribution, and pricing/offer experiments (teams bundles, bring-a-friend).