Freelance Marketing and Audience Growth Partner — Case Studies and Measurable Results Required

This is a remote position.

About the opportunity

An early-stage South African lifestyle and e-commerce brand operating in the books, reading and community space is looking for a strategic, hands-on Marketing and Audience Growth Partner.

This is not a conventional social media management role. The business needs someone who can help build, test and initially operate an integrated marketing system that connects social media, content, storytelling, the website, email, products, partnerships, events and community-building activity.

The successful freelancer will help the business understand who its audience is, why people should care, what encourages participation and sharing, and how attention can be converted into a loyal community and paying customers.

Key responsibilities

• Assess the existing brand, products, website, social presence and previous marketing activity.
  

• Define primary and secondary audiences and turn audience assumptions into testable hypotheses.
  

• Develop a practical audience-growth, content and storytelling strategy.
  

• Establish repeatable content pillars, formats, platform approaches and publishing rhythms.
  

• Identify opportunities across organic social media, creators, authors, publishers, reading communities, collaborations, events, referrals and user-generated content.
  

• Explore how digital and real-world marketing can support one another.
  

• Develop the website into a broader content, SEO, email and audience-building platform.
  

• Design and run focused marketing experiments using realistic budgets.
  

• Define appropriate success measures and track meaningful audience and commercial outcomes.
  

• Analyse results, identify what is and is not working, and adapt the approach accordingly.
  

• Help operate and refine the system, with involvement increasing during launches, campaigns, events and growth experiments.
  

• Advise on where limited marketing resources will produce the most useful result or learning.
  

Requirements

Applicants must currently be based in South Africa.

• At least two to three years of relevant, current digital marketing or audience-growth experience.
  

• A strong understanding of how audiences behave across different platforms, age groups and online communities.
  

• Experience developing content, community, audience-growth or digital marketing strategies.
  

• Comfortable working strategically and executing hands-on when required.
  

• Able to test ideas, interpret performance data and make practical recommendations.
  

• Commercially aware and capable of working effectively with limited budgets.
  

• Strong understanding of brand storytelling and how it supports audience and business growth.
  

• Curious, adaptable and comfortable working with an evolving brand.
  

• Willing to challenge assumptions respectfully and change direction when evidence suggests a better approach.
  

• Able to work independently on a flexible freelance basis.
  

This role is not suitable for someone whose primary focus is

• Scheduling posts or maintaining a monthly social media calendar.
  

• Producing content simply to keep channels active.
  

• Creating basic Canva posts without a broader strategy.
  

• Following every trend without considering its relevance.
  

• Measuring success primarily through follower numbers.
  

• Treating virality as the main business objective.
  

• Applying a rigid marketing formula developed for another brand.
  

Initial engagement

The initial assignment will follow a practical process:

1. Diagnose the current marketing and audience position.
   

2. Recommend priorities and areas for improvement.
   

3. Build the initial marketing, content and audience-growth system.
   

4. Run a manageable number of deliberate experiments.
   

5. Measure and interpret the results.
   

6. Adapt the approach based on what is learned.
   

7. Help operate and improve the system over time.
   

How to apply

Please provide:

• Your CV or professional profile.
  

• Relevant case studies or examples of audience growth, community building, content strategy or digital experimentation.
  

• The measurable outcomes and lessons from those projects.
  

• Your availability.