Clearing: a path to your future

Clearing 2014

With colleagues from all over the MARC team working so hard on the Clearing campaign, we’ve witnessed it gaining a lot of momentum over the last couple of weeks. 

Campaign visuals are looking fantastic in situ – they're absolutely everywhere and so very hard to miss! Bus backs, billboards, bus stops, posters, big screens, lamp posts, banners… You name it, we’re there! Even as I prepared to leave the country on holiday at the start of August, the clearing message flashed up on the check-in screen at Luton airport; rest assured, all bases have been covered!

As well as the more traditional marketing activity, Krystle’s organisation of a Clearing flash mob created a real buzz in Luton Mall this week. On Wednesday 40 dancers entertained the public with flash mobs dancing throughout the afternoon. The atmosphere was brilliant and Lutonians young and old had lots of fun, all in the name of Clearing!

Here's just a couple of the mentions we got on Twitter after the event:

RT @chelsgomes: the flash mob done by @uniofbeds was so good haha! so excited to be there in September :-) -> Good work yday! C U in Sept :)
— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) August 14, 2014

Great fun at @TheMallLuton with @uniofbeds! pic.twitter.com/72NSq7ErEY
— Holly Patel (@holly_patel) August 13, 2014

Student Ambassadors outside the show van

I’ve enjoyed getting involved in the Clearing efforts not least because it’s given me a reason to get out of the office. On Thursday I manned the Clearing show van with two of our wonderful Student Ambassadors. It’s great to step away from the computer screen, get out into the local community, and talk to the public face-to-face; who knows, someone I’ve talked to this week may end up studying at Bedfordshire later this year. 

As the Admissions and Recruitment teams continue to work hard over the weekend and beyond, I’m glad I’m able to play a small part in the University of Bedfordshire Clearing operation this year. I have a great feeling that all the positive momentum created so far will carry us through!

PG 2015: Hot off the press!

PG prospectus 2015

While most of our minds are focussed fully on Clearing 2014, it’s hard to believe that the Marketing team has now completed the full suite of 2015 publications! Copies of the brand new postgraduate prospectus for 2015 entry arrived on our desks this week, and we’re delighted with the finished item. If you haven’t already seen a copy, feel free to pop over to the Marketing pod to take a look. 

Clare

Pride of place: Beds Marketing team going for Gold

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Making the final cut: Short-listed
for two CIPR Awards

With Clearing activity now in full swing, I completely forgot that Friday (1 August) was a very special day in our working calendar - it was the short-list announcement for the CIPRide Awards 2014! As it suddenly dawned on me what day it was, I had a sneaky peak online and was very excited to see that we'd been short-listed for not one but TWO awards this year: Best Publication (for our 2014 Undergraduate Prospectus), and Best Low Budget Campaign (for our work on increasing PGT Sport applications by 60% for 2013 entry).

We're up against, 4 and 5 other organisations respectively in our short-listed categories, and will find out the final result later this year in November, so watch this space (and keep everything crossed for us).

Yay very pleased to see that we're short listed for not one but TWO @CIPR_Awards - Best Publication and Best Low Budget Campaign #CIPRide
— Sarah Hampton (@Sarah_Hampton) August 1, 2014

As many of you will know from my previous posts, writing award entries is no easy task. You always know when an awards deadline is approaching, as both Paul (Digital Marketing Manager) and I are scrambling around to get our entries in on time - a fine juggling act when you have your day job to carry on with too! And as always, a big shout out to the Market Research team whose data filtering and analytical skills are always much appreciated :-)

Entering awards has become quite an important focus of my role. Not only is it a great pat on the back, and testament to all of the hard work that the team has completed over the year, but it's a great benchmark against our peers and the wider sector - a glowing example of best practice. For me personally, it's a great way to elevate our teams' profile amongst the wider University, further reiterating that we are specialists in our field, with tried and tested initiatives that yield great results.

Planning ahead for 2016
and beyond...

Ok so back to work, and back in the office. Aside from Clearing, there have been a number of other exciting projects going on recently. The first of which has been preparing the 2016 tender documents. Yes, you read that right: 2016! It's an interesting challenge here in the Marketing team, as in any given day we can find ourselves working on collateral across three consecutive years: We're still working on the 2014 intake (through our Clearing campaign); and we're already engaging with our 2015 enquirers and gearing up for enquirer open days which will take place from September in preparation for the 15 January 2015 UCAS deadline. And now to add to the mix, we're planning ahead for 2016 intake, which involves the production of our core corporate publications.

Over the past few months we've been meeting with a selection of new agencies to discuss the tender process, our suite of publications, and to find out a little more about their structures and ability to deliver on a series of quite demanding and time sensitive projects. The tenders have now gone live, and we're excited to see which of the companies will submit to work with us over the coming year, and help shape the look and feel of our publications - we'll keep you posted on this process, and may even share an exclusive first-look of publication visuals, once an agency has been appointed, so stay tuned!