Invitation to Quote – Communications and Marketing

Good mental health is an essential building block for quality of life. Middlesbrough and Stockton Mind’s goal is that the people of Middlesbrough and Stockton-on-Tees sustain good mental health, enabling them to manage and enjoy their lives.

Established in 1995, they have 23 years’ experience of providing a broad range of high quality mental health services across Teesside and are the leading, local charity in their field. They provided support services to 8,000 people during 2017/18. They employ more than 120 paid staff members and over 100 people support us each year by volunteering. They are independent but have the weight and strength of the national Mind brand and network.

They believe they are unique because of how they work. Their values – caring, welcoming, trustworthy, determined and professional – are crucial to us.

They are looking for a communications and marketing professional to help them further their work and push the organisation to become more proactive in their communications.

They are committed to producing good quality communications that are meaningful and add value to the organisation and the work that they do.

While they have continued to progress with their communications work, including being active on social media, a new website and a fundraising microsite, they are at a point where they would benefit from some additional expertise to help us review their thinking and shape their plans going forward.

There are potentially three elements to this work, and they are flexible in how these are packaged.

1. Developing a communication strategy

They would like help to review and refresh their approach to external communications, and develop a communications strategy to take us forward. They want to consider their wide range of stakeholders in the strategy. They want to consider whether or not there are other, new approaches they could be using, such as targeted and paid for social media posts to get the right people into their services, or different ways to market their services to individuals and other businesses who are able to pay. They want to be bolder in how they communicate and consider reaching people in different ways, such as focussing on their vision, culture and values rather than their projects and activities. Their strategy should be co-produced with us so people across their organisation understand its importance and potential impact.

2. Implementing a communication strategy

They will want to embed their strategy across the organisation, but they also know they will need practical help and expertise implementing it. This might include, for example, producing marketing materials, podcasts and videos, developing content for different uses/audiences, design and print management and providing guidance/training to staff. From the start, they will need to understand the resource implications of implementing their strategy.

3. Support with regular communication activities

Until recently, they employed a communications officer, who undertook weekly external communications for us, including identifying stories to share, posting on social media, updating their websites and co-ordinating print activities. They may recruit again to this post or similar but are also interested in discussing other ways that these tasks could be maintained.

Requirements

They expect the person or organisation who helps us will

• Have substantial relevant marketing and communications experience including but not limited to the Charity sector
• Have up-to-date knowledge of marketing and communications approaches and techniques
• Have demonstrable experience of developing and delivering communication and marketing products and campaigns, including digital, print and events
• Be able to work closely with us, and engage staff and volunteers in communications and marketing
• Share a passion for their goal and share their values.

Your submission

Your submission should include details of

• the processes you would follow to support us with the 3 elements of the work
• the costs associated with each of these
• your relevant experience and your approach to working with us.

Please limit your main submission to 6 sides of A4, although supplementary information will be considered if relevant.

Timescales

Contacts

Emma Howitt, CEO emma.howitt@middlesbroughandstocktonmind.org.uk

Michelle Dawson, Programme Manager michelle.dawson@middlesbroughandstocktnomind.org.uk

01642 257020