Thought provoking forums

As promised in my last blog post, I have an update on my first PG forum- An Introduction to Postgraduate. This was an all-day session, attended by people from numerous universities, who are all new to the world of postgraduate. We covered a lot of topics throughout the day, from the landscape of postgraduate recruitment, challenges within the postgraduate market and quick wins in terms of growing our postgraduate offering and how we market this to potential students. We were given presentations, had discussions within the room, and carried out group activities and fed back to the room on our thoughts and ideas. There was a lot of information provided, and some thought provoking questions that came from this- I certainly felt I came away with things to think about. We even had a student panel come in and talk to us about their experiences of studying at PG level, from how they researched courses to important factors in making a decision on institutions. The student panel was a really valuable part of the day for everyone; after all, they are the people we want to appeal to and impress.

UCMK prospectus

After some late night proofreading, we are ready to make the final few amends to the 2015 UCMK prospectus and it’s looking really good! The team will be briefing the design agency later today, and once the final tweaks are sent back to us early next week, we will be sending the final version to print ready for the UCAS event at our Bedford campus on 23 and 24 June. I’m feeling a mixture of emotions- relief that we are almost finished (and on schedule), nervous as it is an important publication and I want it to be perfect for print, and excitement as it is my first publication for the University and I love seeing the final hard copy of something that has taken up so much of my time over the past few months- I’ve really enjoyed working it.

What else is happening…

The work on our PG prospectus in still on-going, we’ve had the second version back from the agency this week, it’s starting to come together. We have two undergraduate open days approaching on 7 June (Luton campus) and 14 June (Bedford campus) so I have devised a plan for these events and have been implementing these over the last two weeks. As mentioned earlier, we are hosting the Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Convention at our Bedford campus in June, so I have been producing some course specific items for our stands, which will be going to print next week. And finally, I have been working on the next edition of our monthly e-zine, B4Beds, which will be going out today. As part of this, I have been out videoing people from various departments, and compiling interesting content for our loyal subscribers.

Holiday

Lastly, I couldn’t end my blog without bragging that I am going on holiday on 3 June, a week in Egypt! I’ve not been abroad for 7 years, so I deserve it, right?

Look forward to updating you all soon.

K

Campaigns Update

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

On Wednesday I attended the New Staff Induction Day at Putteridge Bury.  It was a beautiful location.  This was a great chance to meet other new starters and share our experiences.  A range of topics were discussed including the Student Experience, Student Union, Higher Education market and the Vision, Mission and Values of Beds.  I learned a bit more about the Universities internal departments and external organisations.  It was an informative and enjoyable day.

So what is happening in the world of Campaigns…

Pre-Clearing

We are currently in the midst of Pre-Clearing; a multichannel campaign has been running since January to recruit late applicants and maintain the University’s brand presence.  We have added additional outdoor billboards in Bedford and Luton to amplify our message.  Open Days will be running on Saturday 7^th June at Luton campus and Saturday 14^th June at Bedford campus where applicants can find out more about enrolling for September 2014 or 2015.

Clearing

The Clearing Campaign plan has been devised and approved.  We’ve got a very robust plan spanning across a range of channels; digital, social media, print, outdoor, radio, cinema; you name it, we’ll be advertising on it!  I have been looking into alternative advertising options and am in the process of media buying.

A level results day can be a scary and uncertain time, especially for those who are uncertain of what they want to do.  We want to inform candidates on what Clearing is and provide them with as much advice and guidance on surviving the process as possible. 

I have been liaising with faculties and students to find inspirational students to appear in the Campaign.  We will be using Beds students who have been through Clearing themselves; you will be able to read their stories online, see their advice on the best places to research and handy hints on the day, as well as, hearing about the courses that they chose and their career aspirations.  There’s nothing better than hearing from someone who’s been there and knows what you are going through.    

I have also been working with our in-house team and design agency on new artwork concepts.  Student views are very important to us so our Market Research team have set up an online survey and focus group to get students thoughts and opinions on the draft concepts.   The group will be held in Vicarage Street, Luton, from 3pm to 4pm on Tuesday 27 May.  I will let you know the outcomes.

Type to you soon,

Krystle

It's all in the Heist...

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

On the first day back after my week away in sunny Greece I came back to the most exciting news: The Marketing team have only gone and got themselves short-listed for a coveted Heist Award!

#heist2014 nominations released. See the full list. http://t.co/QEjCNqRSnx #goodluck #lovehe @havaspeople
— Heist Awards (@heistawards) May 12, 2014

The who's who of Marketing:
The Annual Heist Awards 

I must admit it was a rather last minute entry, and so a big thanks go to Andy Kingston our Market Research Manager, and Michelle Ramsumair our Marketing Administrator for helping me put the entry together in record timing. Usually it would take approximately one month to have an entry worthy of entering, and that's only if your stats stack up! For this particular deadline, we had the almost impossible task of putting together an entry in less than a week. So, to say that we were excited at the news was a complete and utter understatement. For us, and for many other Marketing professionals, the Heist awards is our version of the Oscars - the pinnacle of a HE Marketers career, and benchmark of best practice amongst the sector. A little over the top you may think, but to even make it to the short-list is an achievement in itself, so we're going to enjoy every moment in the run up to the big awards dinner. It may even warrant a new dress for the occasion :-)

Pretty pleased to hear that the @uniofbeds Marketing Team has been short-listed for Best UG Prospectus at this years' @heistawards #Excited
— Sarah Hampton (@Sarah_Hampton) May 12, 2014

Our short-listed entry for:
Best Undergraduate Prospectus

Up until this point I've only ever written award submissions for our Postgraduate work, and so this is the first (and hopefully not the last!) piece of Undergraduate work to be short-listed since I've been in the post of Marketing Manager. I was joking with other colleagues in the department to say that I find quite a lot of my time is spent compiling and writing awards these days as opposed to getting on with our actual Marketing work, but laughs aside, we are always looking to benchmark our work against industry and demonstrate best practice, as not only is it a great pat on the back, but helps raise the profile of our work, and always helps our cause when liaising with academics and the wider university in being able to prove that we really do know what we're talking about! We're up for the title of Best Undergraduate Prospectus (for our 2014 publication), against 12 other universities, including the likes of Manchester Metropolitan, Edge Hill, Loughborough and the University of Leicester. You can read the full list here.

On my travels to the
University of Birmingham

In other news, I took a trip over to the University of Birmingham last week to attend the '2015 Postgraduate Market Changes Conference', run in conjunction with FindAMasters, Heera and UKCGE. I must admit I didn't have high expectations at first, purely based on previous one day training sessions I've attended over the last few months, but as soon as the sessions started I was very impressed with the quality of the sessions and speakers, and how willing people were to share their PG initiatives. I was frantically scribbling throughout the whole day and came back feeling very inspired.

Feeling like a student after
spending a day in the
Learning Centre

Sessions which stood out to me in particular included the talk from Future Index on 'Making Postgraduate Education Marketing Brilliant' - which focused on current and future trends, and some exemplary case studies of Universities not just in the UK, who have some interesting initiatives set up for PG Marketing. The networking sessions with other Universities were great also. I was able to pick the brain of a key competitor, unknown to them, which proved very insightful. I'm hoping to find a quiet hour or two this week to revisit my notes, and to see whether I can progress a few ideas in time to make it into our 2015 Postgraduate Annual Plan.

Stay tuned and I'll keep you informed once I've organised my thoughts.

In the middle of the action

By Michelle Ramsumair, Marketing Administrator

In Marketing it's always a learning curve, whether you are learning new skills or discovering what you enjoy doing. I am definitely learning that I enjoy being away from the desk, interacting with people, rather than on a PC. Nothing wrong with desk work, but it's just not me.

Last week I joined Paul Fryer and Sarah Hampton at the Inside Government 'The Future of HE Marketing" Conference 2014 in London. I enjoyed being able to give some support and be a friendly face in a sea of the unfamiliar. There were many people scribbling away and nodding throughout which is always a good sign your audience are engaged, and shows how insightful their presentation was.

Straight after, there was no time to break but I was onward bound to Newcastle to join Josie from Student
Recruitment. Always wanted to go there so volunteered to assist at the UCAS convention at the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena. En-route I had Disney's Frozen to keep me company (highly recommended by the way).

The event took place the next day, and once we finally found the entrance, set up our stand and doors opened, it was game on to speak to as many potential students as possible, providing them with the information they wanted about the course, application process and how they can find out more. It's like a one stop shop where potential students can visit stands from universities from across the country to collect information to help them start thinking about where to study. I love to talk so perfect opportunity and as a graduate of the University of Bedfordshire, I have a lot to promote! Usually it's a great excuse for students to pick up as many freebies. Then they soon realise that they've only reached halfway round the stands and already have a pile of prospectuses which they can barely balance.

One day was down another to go, but we had to travel to Middlesborough ready to do the same the next day. Didn't get a chance to see the Angel of the North unfortunately, but determined to one day!

Thankfully then came the bank holiday weekend. Sleep and catching up on TV shows were on my agenda, and the only things on there. I booked a second holiday to Israel for later this year. This then looked rather small compared to my mum and sister's impulse holiday purchase to Dubai and Thailand in two weeks time. At least I still have something to look forward to!

Shaping the future of HE Marketing

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

The Future of HE Marketing Conference 2014

This week saw the culmination of a months hard work and preparation as Paul Fryer (Digital Marketing Manager) and I made our way to London for this year's Inside Government 'The Future of HE Marketing" Conference 2014. Paul and I were invited to speak at the event, focusing on "Enhancing Postgraduate Recruitment Through Developing A Digital Presence." Well, we were more than happy to oblige, after all, PG is one of my favourite subjects!

Paul and I taking centre
stage

Before we knew it, the day had arrived, and there we were armed with our nifty USB stick (always carry a back up!), ready to share our PG knowledge with approximately 100 delegates, most of whom were either Directors or Heads from other universities from across the UK. After overcoming some initial nerves and stage fright (bar Paul who was raring to go!), we successfully delivered our presentation to what we thought was a really engaged audience. There's nothing like a room of frantic pen scribblers to make you second guess whether you've over shared or not. Nonetheless, we were pleased to be sharing best practice and have our work recognised by our peers, after our recent success in generating a 30% increase to PGT applications for our September 2013 intake, especially given that the national picture suggests that universities are experiencing a 12% decrease year on year.

And the feedback from some of the delegates was great...

@Sarah_Hampton @deep_phat @InsideGovt fantastic presentation.. Thanks for sharing some of your secrets ;-) #ighemarket
— Joe Etchells (@JEtchells88) April 29, 2014

Back in the office, things have been equally exciting, as we push forward with our conversion activity and publications; both the PG 2015 and UCMK 2015 prospectuses. We're fast approaching the proofing stages, so it's always great to see how your work slowly comes together. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for some sneak peaks into how some of the visuals are progressing.

Heading on out to Koz
in search of sunshine

For the next week I leave you in the very capable hands of the Marketing team, as I take some very long awaited annual leave in search of a spot of sunshine. I'll be back soon with more updates on our new CRM system, and may even share some of our PG secrets from our presentation earlier this week.