Dave Yard, Head Of Marketing at the arts centre Gulbenkian, in Kent talked to us about his career path into the arts and how he got into Marketing for cultural organisations. 

Job title / industry
Head of Marketing / Arts

Average starting salary
16 000 â€“ 21 000 per annum

What qualifications / experience do you need?
Non-specific but a marketing qualification is becoming more common and will help.

In a nutshell, what is your job?
Getting audiences to come to see performances and film screenings at Gulbenkian.

Best part of the job?
Getting to meet and work with artists.

Downsides to the job?
We have 1,000 events per year, so there is never enough time to put the energy you want into every single event.

What does a typical day look like?
Very PC based, but with lots of meetings too. Every day is different, but likely to be at the PC writing text, sizing images, creating social media, uploading events to the website. Maybe two - three meetings per day to meet with the internal team about what is coming up, artists or promoters about future work, or networks (other venues, other marketers who can help promote our work).

How did you get into Marketing?
I volunteered at a historic house, and they wanted a volunteer to help with Marketing. I had studies Economics so was put forward, the I moved on to a paid position, and I’ve been doing it ever since!

What one piece of advice would you give to someone wanting to go into Marketing?
Marketing is very process driven and you need to be great at organisation and juggling lots of different tasks and priorities. Be prepared that it can be very frustrating – results can be hit and miss so you can do the same amount of work on two events and one will be successful and one will fall flat – it is difficult to know exactly what will work when.