Festive Cheer and The Call of the Beautiful North

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

This is possibly the busiest time of the year for Campaigns so apologies for the hurried, garbled blog. As Kylie says it’s all a mad dash to get everything done before the Christmas break. I feel like a manic parent flailing around Debenhams, willing to scratch eyes out to get my hands on the last One Direction calendar for my precious princess. You’d all better back up because I’ve got some hefty deadlines to hit.  I have to keep telling ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ to pipe down; not yet guys, it’s not time. "But we have music, chocolate, shiny things and bottles filled with joy" 

"No" I say, for it isn't time.

So January Start and UCMK activity is all live and the campaigns are going strong. There will be two advertorials running in January to promote our EmployAble scheme and Business courses, as well as, our Psychology research. The lamppost banners have been confirmed, artwork is delivered and they will go up for the UCMK campaign in central Milton Keynes within the next few days.

I completed the Aylesbury Campaign photo-shoots a couple of weeks back at our Buckinghamshire and Bedford campus.’ The artwork will complement the Winter suite but we have used bespoke imagery.  Graeme from our Digital Team has been hard at work finalising the designs and they should be ready by the end of the week. The two radio adverts went live on Monday so listen out for them on Vibe fm and Mix 96. I am also working on a couple of advertorials to promote the courses in the local press.

We have just updated the online Winter copy again. I was sad to change the festive copy as I’d grown rather attached to it but the open evening has been and gone so I must let go; anyway it’s time to let the world know that they should ‘apply now’ for September 2015 courses. We are utilising our market research agency Statistics into Decisions to delve into the response to our activity so that we can continually make adjustments to the plan to ensure that mediums work for us. I am also liaising with them on wider market Intel and benchmarking against our competitors.  

*cough* don’t leave Clare *cough, cough*

Our new design agency Fabrik has been honing the artwork designs for Pre-Clearing. We have a strong concept to run with, it’s just a case of tweaking and finalising now. I won’t tell you too much about that until the big reveal in the New Year. I have been organising the photo-shoot for that; graduates to take part, location, scheduling, shot list and art direction. It’s tomorrow so touch wood *knock, knock* all will go to plan and I will share the spoils with you in my next blog. I am nearly finished finalising the Pre-Clearing Campaign plan. Once that’s done I will sort the scheduling.

The results of the Radio LaB logo survey are in and the resounding winner is….

I will look to campaign planning to see how we can get the logo out there.

Clearing…. I’m not gonna lie guys I’ve been too busy to do any Clearing Campaign analysis  or gap analysis the past couple of weeks but lets face it the only one who's hurting is me there because I love a pie chart as much as I love pies. Well bring it on in the New year.

*Cough* Clare don’t go *sniff, cough*

So I intend to claw my way through these last couple of days before I set off up North to see my family and friends. I can then relax, overindulge and party hard returning refreshed and raring to go. I hope that you all have an outstanding time wherever you are.

OK ‘festive cheer’ and ‘the call of the beautiful North’ now it’s time…

Happy Christmas All,

Krystle

Starting to wind down for Christmas (I think!)

So, as you can imagine, this week is mostly getting things finished ahead of the Christmas break.

The UG16 prospectus is now at first proof stage, we've had the first draft of the artwork and we’re feeding back to the designers this week. It’s looking really great- really clean and professional with a clear progression from last year. I’m getting excited seeing it all come together, as I've worked on this from the initial design stage.

The February start new student guide is almost signed off now, ready to go out in the New Year. I’m just waiting on some final tweaks and this will be good to go by the end of the week.

Artwork for our PG Open Events
in February

We've also started to implement the PG Open Day plans for February 2015. Google activity and the website homepage banner will be up and running this week, most agencies have been briefed ready for the activity that is imminent after the Christmas break, and I’ll be pushing the event via social media this week, to drum up some awareness and interest before the holidays.

Clare, don’t leave us!

As Clare mentioned in her previous blog, she leaves us on Christmas eve to go travelling in the New Year. We’re not jealous at all! She will be a big miss within the team, but we all wish her the best of luck! We’re all meeting up after work on Thursday to wish her a final farewell.

Merry Christmas!

Festivities

So, over to Christmas! We’ve got two Christmas lunches in the calendar this week; one today and one on Wednesday. We’ve then got a University wide staff party on Friday afternoon.And as Friday is my last day in office before Christmas, it’s a nice way to start my holidays early! I’ll be travelling up to Sunderland straight after to spend Christmas up North. I’ve got my woollies packed and I’m super excited! The best thing about Christmas is spending time with friends and family. Or is it all the yummy food?! Hmmm….

Speak in the New Year,

K

Spreading festive cheer; Xmas parties and planning

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

We've got our list, we're checking it twice, and we're going to find out who's.... leaving on time to make the Staff Christmas party next week.

Full speed ahead as
the Jan UCAS deadline
approaches

For many offices and departments, as the festive season approaches it's a time to start winding down; a real chance to kick back, relax and enjoy the masses of mince pies and festive cheer as the holiday season approaches. But that's not quite the case for the Marketing team over in the Atrium, as December is often one of our busiest months, second only to August when it's Clearing. It's a real crunch time as we make the most of the last few weeks available to communicate with our enquirers and promote the many benefits of joining the University of Bedfordshire before the UCAS deadline in January. So, whilst term may have officially ended and the cold winter weather sets in, things are truly heating up over in Marketing HQ as we go full speed ahead to action our core enquirer activity.

Today is the day of our open evening! There is still time to book: http://t.co/yXOmx1LvST pic.twitter.com/UbeWXTxF5M
— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) December 10, 2014

The last week has seen the Marketing and Digital Marketing teams working hard to promote a festive open evening. This event wasn't originally planned into the recruitment schedule, but was a quick response to some unforeseen events taking place in the town which resulted in our November event having to be postponed at the last minute. Not to be deterred, the team set out to rework all of the campaign visuals, and devise new marketing plans to push out the new event details, with the help of our CRM team as they communicated the new event details out and encouraged sign ups. The event was a real success overall, and we're pleased that we were able to successfully retain some of the enquirers who had originally signed up to attend the event in November.

New 'Apply Now' artwork

All change, all change!
Now that all open days are officially over for the year, it's time for a quick change of all the campaign artwork again, as we move from plugging our on campus visits, to driving applications directly to UCAS for 2015 entry. We're also busily working away on our conversion newsletters, 13 applicant newsletters to be precise. These are the very first communications that our applicants will receive from us, and so we're aiming to get them off to print just before Christmas, so they're ready to be mailed out almost as soon as we get back.

For those who know me well, you'll know I love a good report and a bit of Marketing data. And so in the last few weeks we've been exploring how we can better track the impact of our work. After a number of meetings and after bouncing a few emails back and forth between the marketing and digital teams, we've finally got a new tracking url system agreed and in place, thanks to Paul in the digital team. It's much easier to recall and recognise than the previous tracking we used, and should provide us with much more insight into engagement with our materials. So watch out for this url popping up in the new year across our marketing materials.

Although it's an incredibly busy time, we always somehow manage to find some time to have some fun along the way. And what better way to get into the festive spirit than by donning our best festive favourites for Christmas Jumper Day.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree (left to right):
Krystle, Clare, Sarah, Beverley and Kylie.

As the year comes to a close, we wish you a very Merry Christmas from everyone here within the Marketing team. Stayed tuned to read more about our key initiatives in the new year.

Team away day

This Wednesday the CRM, market research and marketing teams escaped the office for an afternoon of team bonding at our away day at Putteridge Bury campus.

It provided the perfect opportunity to step back and look at the great things we've achieved as a team over the past year, and gave us a chance to have some fun too. From quizzes to photograph missions to drawing challenges, the day had something for everyone.  I was almost entirely useless during the quiz, but a highlight was my team's creative efforts during the Christmas selfie task.

The team put some serious effort into our selfie...

It was great to get out of the office for an afternoon, and to have some festive fun with the whole team.

Amongst all the fun I've been working hard on lots of different jobs, from the 2016 undergraduate prospectus and departmental conversion newsletters, to verbal brand notes and video filming for the next virtual open event. As always, there's a lot going on and there are lots of deadlines on the horizon.

On a slightly different note, this may well be my last blog post! I'll be leaving the University and my last working day will be Christmas Eve. In the new year I'll be going to America for a couple of months to travel. I've really enjoyed working for the University and a huge bonus has been working with the really great people in the MARC department. I'll definitely keep in touch!

Have an excellent holiday and a very happy Christmas.

Clare