Head of Marketing

About Project:

It is a mobile accounting app for sole traders, freelancers and self-employed workers — income, expenses and tax handled from a phone in minutes rather than evenings.

The market is large, the incumbents are built for accountants rather than for the self-employed, and the buying trigger is unusually sharp: a deadline the user cannot avoid. What we don't yet have is a marketing function. You'd be building it.

The job in one line

You own growth: the channel mix, the budget, the numbers you're accountable for at board level, and the team that delivers it.

What you'll do

- Own acquisition economics. Customer acquisition cost, CAC payback period, LTV:CAC, install-to-paid conversion, subscription retention and churn. Set the targets with the CEO, then hit them. Every channel we run has to justify its place against those numbers.
- Decide the channel mix and prove it. Paid social and search, ASO, organic search and content, creators, lifecycle email, referral, partnerships. Start with a small number of testable bets, kill what fails quickly, and scale only what shows payback within 3 months.
- Own ASO like a primary channel. We're a mobile app — store search and store-page conversion drive a large share of installs. Listing, screenshots, keywords, review velocity and rating are all in scope, not an afterthought.
- Build the plan around the tax calendar, not the fiscal quarter. 31 January Self Assessment, the 5 April] year end, quarterly VAT/MTD deadlines and April Budget changes concentrate demand into a few weeks. Budget, creative and team capacity get weighted to those windows deliberately — a flat monthly spend plan is the wrong answer here.
- Get positioning right. Define who we're for, against what alternative (a shoebox of receipts, a spreadsheet, a high-street accountant, a competitor app), and in what language. Test it, then make everyone use it consistently.
- Build and lead the team. Hire, onboard and develop Content, Social, Influencer and Performance specialists. Set their targets, run the weekly cadence, and remove the strategic ambiguity that leaves specialists guessing.
- Be hands-on for the first stretch. For the first 6 months you'll be running campaigns yourself while the team is still being hired. This is a build role, not a role that inherits a machine.
- Own the measurement stack. Mobile attribution, analytics, dashboards and the honest reporting on top of them (AppsFlyer / Adjust / GA4 / Amplitude). No channel gets credit it can't demonstrate.
- Keep the company safe on claims. All marketing complies with ASA CAP Code and UK GDPR/PECR; every claim about tax, savings or refunds is substantiated and signed off by [our accountant]. In this category, an unsubstantiated money claim is both a regulatory and a trust problem.
- Report to the board. Monthly performance, forecast against plan, and a clear-eyed view of what isn't working. Bring the CEO bad news early.
- Inform product and pricing. Bring evidence from the market into packaging, pricing and roadmap decisions rather than opinions.

What we're looking for

- 5+ years in marketing with at least 2 leading a function or a team, in B2C app, subscription or consumer fintech.
- You have personally owned a CAC and payback target and can talk through the numbers on a real business — what they were, what you changed, what happened.
- Hands-on depth in at least two of: paid social/search, ASO, SEO/content, lifecycle, creators. Credible oversight of the rest.
- Experience building a team from one or two people upward, including hiring specialists better than you at their craft.
- Comfortable in a small company: no agency retainer to hide behind, no established playbook, limited budget, decisions made in days.
- Straight with numbers and with people — including when the numbers are bad.

 Nice to have

- Fintech, accounting, tax or payroll product experience.
- Marketed to trades, gig economy or freelance audiences specifically.
- Scaled a referral programme or a creator programme with genuine attribution.
- Experience with a highly seasonal demand curve.
- Have been self-employed yourself.
- Board or investor reporting experience.

*Rapidum is an equal opportunities employer. We assess every application against the requirements above and nothing else.*