Why every HE marketer should own more than one hat

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

From the woolly to the wacky variety, I've never really been a big fan of hats. No matter where I look or what I try I just can't seem to make it work for me. It's either the wrong size, or style, or in most cases the wrong price. Whatever the reason, it's always something extra to carry! But over the years I've had a change of heart, and have warmed up to the idea of an extra accessory, both literally and figuratively speaking.

Up until a few months ago, the marketing team pretty much took care of itself. We wrote and actioned our plans, we produced publications, and we worked towards our own objectives and corporate priorities. However, the scope of our role is always changing, and never more so than now. And that's why owning more than one hat becomes all the more important, whether you like the look or not!

Take a look below to see just how many hats a HE Marketer needs:

Everyday Flat Cap - business
as usual

The first hat of the day is the Flat Cap, otherwise known as the everyday hat - a must-have staple for any marketer. This is the run-of-the-mill, day-to-day operations that forms the back bone of any team and its output. From processing prospectus requests and crunching data, to formulating briefs and campaign plans, to monitoring budgets and platform performance, the daily role of a university marketer is a varied beast. Our day-to-day roles involve rolling out and implementing a series of marketing plans and initiatives, optimising and modifying existing work, whilst planning for, and working on, 3 consecutive recruitment cycles at any one time. Did I also mention juggling skills are essential?

Creative hat - brimming full of
inspiration and ideas

Without any doubt, a marketer will always need a Creative Hat. Whether it's conducting photoshoots to get that impactful image, writing dynamic copy to hook in the reader, or conjuring up new ways to reach an audience and appeal to their interests, there's always an element of creativity involved in a marketers day job. After recently writing a creative brief, I've spent some time meeting with three design agencies over the course of the last week, to discuss their artwork interpretations, and to shape the look and feel of our impending campaigns: Clearing and 2017 Annual. We've also just launched our 2017 Undergraduate prospectus, which has been 5 months in the making, and another creative outlet to showcase our points of differentiation, and market positioning. It's also been great to see that my More than a degree brain child has manifested itself as a brand-new section of the website, courtesy of our Marketing Assistant, Sara. Again, it presents another creative outlet to market the University and present a niche against our competitors.

Safari explorer hat at the ready - on an
Open Day discovery

A quick change of costume and it's on to the Safari Explorer Hat for us. Over the last few weeks the Marketing team has been working hard to promote Open Days as the perfect opportunity to discover more about university and student life, to both applicants and late enquirers alike. But we haven't just been supporting on the marketing frontier. It was all hands on deck recently, as we helped set up for the big event over at our Luton campus (and I gave the team, and our Head of Recruitment a master-class in the art of table origami aka folding the corners nicely, much to their amusement). We also manned the open day registration desks and were chatting with, what we hope to be the newest crop of students come September, and getting them to sign in, whilst talking them through the wealth of shiny new publications and information we had on hand. It was great to see all of the marketing materials that we produce being used and so warmly received.

Future-thinking - a digital shift

Back in the office, and there's another switch to be made. This time, we've got our Digital Hat on to complete the task in hand. Over the last few months the team has been undergoing a series of (very) early Monday morning training sessions to up-skill in the digital arena. We've been adding another string to our bow, progressing on from being a 'traditional' marketing team, and predominantly print-led. This has seen us leading on the implementation of Google Search, Display and Re-targeting, as well as driving forward the text, artworking and targeting for paid Social Media content.

Whilst all the extra work makes for a busy day, with us sometimes having to wear all hats at once, it definitely adds even more variety to our roles and makes us even more versatile and knowledgeable about our craft. We're well on our way to making the move from a traditional team to multi-tasking, multi-function and multi-platform marketers.

To make it in marketing you have to be able to adapt with the times and move within a constantly changing environment. For us, if something isn't changing, we're wondering why it's still standing still and why we're getting left behind. For us this has meant diversifying our skills and our remit to ensure optimum performance and results, even it if it has affected our head wear, or in my case, the previous lack there of.