Sales & Marketing Lead - student accommodation (6 month contract)

• Own day-to-day sales delivery against approved occupancy, application and booking targets.
  
• Maintain visibility of leads, waiting lists, applications, offers, bookings, check-ins, cancellations and beds available.
  
• Drive follow-up activity across call centre, residence and admissions teams to improve conversion.
  
• Identify underperforming residences, channels or stages of the funnel and implement corrective action.
  
• Support school, tertiary institution, bursar, parent and student engagement where required.
  

• Translate portfolio priorities into practical marketing and promotional plans.
  
• Plan and coordinate digital, direct, school, campus, event and residence-level campaigns.
  
• Develop briefs, campaign messages and collateral requirements and coordinate delivery with the digital marketer, designers, agencies and suppliers.
  
• Monitor market trends, competitor activity and campaign performance and recommend improvements.
  
• Ensure communications and collateral comply with approved brand standards.
  

• Lead and coordinate the Pretoria sales and marketing workstream and support Stellenbosch onboarding.
  
• Manage handover and implementation of digital assets, social media accounts, listings, application links, databases, templates, collateral, photography and brand material.
  
• Coordinate application, admissions, waiting-list and enquiry processes and related student and parent communications.
  
• Maintain the workstream action plan, dependencies, decisions and risks and escalate blockers promptly.
  
• Coordinate internal stakeholders and representatives to ensure an orderly transition.
  

• Develop and implement intake readiness plans, including timelines, staffing, training, activations, showrooms, collateral, processes and escalation routes.
  
• Coordinate sales agents, call-centre support and residence teams and confirm product, pricing and process readiness.
  
• Ensure enquiry channels, scripts, FAQs, application pathways and reporting mechanisms are ready for peak intake.
  
• Monitor service levels and resolve or escalate operational constraints.
  

• Support planning and coordination required to ready portfolio for occupation.
  
• Coordinate agreed sales, communications, stakeholder and onboarding activities with internal teams.
  
• Maintain actions, deadlines, dependencies and required information.
  
• Support other approved onboarding activities where aligned to the role’s purpose and capacity.
  

• Prepare accurate weekly and monthly sales and marketing reports covering target versus actual performance, funnel movement, campaigns, risks and corrective actions.
  
• Manage day-to-day relationships with agencies, suppliers, residence teams, finance, systems, operations and other stakeholders.
  
• Track budgets and commitments within delegated authority and escalate anticipated variances.
  
• Maintain organised records, approvals, briefs, data and action trackers.
  
• Provide clear status updates and decision requests to the Managing Director.
  

Requirements

• Relevant diploma or bachelor’s degree in Sales, Marketing, Business Management, Communications or a related field.
  
• At least five years’ relevant sales and marketing experience, including responsibility for targets, campaigns, stakeholders and reporting.
  
• Demonstrated experience leading workstreams, projects or cross-functional delivery.
  
• Proven ability to manage lead pipelines, application or admissions journeys and conversion activity.
  
• Experience coordinating agencies, suppliers and internal teams against briefs, budgets and deadlines.
  
• Strong numerical, reporting, presentation and written communication capability.
  
• Valid driver’s licence and willingness to travel between residences, campuses, schools, events and stakeholder sites as required.
  

• Experience in student accommodation, higher education, education sales, hospitality or property.
  
• Experience with portfolio onboarding, acquisition integration or operational transition.
  
• Understanding of the South African student funding, bursar and tertiary education environment.
  
• Experience with CRM, application, call-centre, digital marketing and marketing analytics platforms.