PR Executive

Do you have PR experience? Do you have great copywriting skill and looking for your next career move? What to join a growing business? We have an opportunity for a new PR Executive to join our Brand Marketing Head Office team based in either our York or Leeds offices. This is a full-time permanent role with hybrid working available 1 day per week and flexible start and end time to the work day.

Pavers has been trading for 50 years and is a highly profitable family owned-and-run retail business with a strong balance sheet, over 170 retail locations, and a rapidly expanding digital presence. We also own the Jones Bootmaker and Herring Shoes footwear businesses, remain acquisitive, and employ over 1600 people. We were recently recognised by Best Companies as one of the UK’s Top 10 Retail Employers, are Carbon Neutral, have donated more than £1m to charity in the past 3 years, are currently applying for B Corp accreditation, and are imminently undertaking a significant expansion and modernisation of our Warehouse, Head Office, and Retail estates.

You’ll join a small, busy team brand team working within a growing wider marketing team in an environment where there is a healthy balance of fun and hard work. Pavers is a growing retail business, and this is an excellent time to join! We love to invest in our people and actively encourage personal and professional development across the business.

Key objective of the PR Executive role

Maximise press coverage for Jones Bootmaker, Pavers Shoes and Herring brands in both print and digital media.

Key Responsibilities:

With the Senior Brand Manager formulate a season-by-season monthly plan of press communications, which the executive will then put together and distribute. This will be a combination of traditional press releases, e-shots, research-based releases, infographics, gifting and invitations to meetings and press days

With the Senior Brand Manager and the SEO team actively contribute ideas, formulate a plan and execute press releases for brand-relevant stories that can be sold into press with the specific purpose of generating inbound site links for SEO benefit

With direction from the Head of the Pavers Foundation, distribute Pavers Foundation press releases and follow up on their publication

With input from the Retail team, write and distribute press releases relating to store re-fits, new openings, moves and closures

Help to plan and execute the seasonal press days

Be a reliable and trusted PR contact for press and stylists, responding to requests in the same day, ensuring samples are sent on time and that returns are processed

Monitor and report on all press coverage using the media clippings service and identify, save down and record all coverage metrics. Update the call ins record and manage the loan of new season samples

Requirements to be our PR Executive:

Digital PR, traditional PR or agency PR experience – minimum 3 years

Excellent copywriting skills

High attention to detail

Ability to 'see' a story that will be appealing to press and write it up and sell it in

Good relationship building skills (friendly and professional)

Ability to generate relevant brand ideas

Good time management and general organisation skills

‘Can do’ friendly attitude with a passion for PR

Pay & Benefits of our PR Executive:

Salary: circa £25,000 depending on experience

Flexible working – core office hours 9.30am-3.30pm

1 day per week working from home – if office-based (once probation complete)

Generous staff discount

Discretionary bonus

Holiday entitlement (Increases with service)

Company contribution pension

Access to RetailTRUST (Financial & Wellbeing Support)

Access to the Pavers Foundation: an employee-led grant application and charitable giving scheme

Access to Pavers Academy, learning and development environment

About Us

We are passionate about providing comfort and happiness to our customers, and we make sure to employ people who are as passionate as we are. We always look for happy, confident, upbeat people, and we provide great jobs in a supportive family environment for them. We know that without our colleagues there is no business, and so the better we look after you, the better service you will provide our customers. We always try and do the right thing by our people.

We strive for diversity of thinking across the business and believe strongly in supporting our local communities. In 2018 we donated over £2.2m to establish the Pavers Foundation, with the specific purpose of providing grants for causes important to all our colleagues in the areas of health, education, and community. In terms of the environment, we are constantly seeking to reduce our impact. Since 2021 we have been fully carbon neutral, and we also have one of the largest solar arrays in the North-East of England on our warehouse generating clean energy. Because every year we give a percentage of our annual profits to our Foundation, our overarching aim is to be financially successful, but to achieve this in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

If this sounds like the kind of business you’d like to know more about, we’d love to hear from you - please apply today for the role of PR Executive