There's always more than one reason to celebrate

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Trying to wrap everything up
is no small task!

It feels like an age since my last blog post, and now it's finally come around to 'my turn', it's already somehow become my last one - at least for a while anyway. That's right, because, in a matter of weeks (4 to be precise) I'll be taking some time away from Marketing HQ to have a baby. So, for my first, and last post in a while, I've got quite a bit of ground to cover - so please excuse the slightly self indulgent theme this week, but I wanted to take the time to reflect on the many great initiatives going live, and there's also been quite a few causes for us to celebrate recently which I wanted to share with you...

Video content strategy
For any regular readers of this blog, I'm sure you'll have come across me talking at lengths about the need for good quality video content. And that's exactly what we've been investing in this cycle. Following on from the launch of our Milton Keynes and Bedford location videos earlier in the year, we've been working really hard over the last nine months (yes it really does take that long to produce great content!) to implement my video content strategy - which is basically, a more focused and strategic way to generate, and seed out meaningful content to support recruitment (or at least I hope!).

Take a look at our big brand 'Hero' content

After enlisting the help of Clearhead Media, our School of Performing Arts, and two current dance and acting students - Harry and Donatella, we were all set to bring the strategy and our unique marketing proposition to life!

I'm really proud of the videos - if you haven't yet seen them, be sure to give them a watch - and keep a look out in August at a cinema near you, as we go live with our national campaign - and a particularly rare but exciting opportunity to get our brand 'out there'.

10 year work anniversary

That's a whole 1/3 of my life!

Not only have we been celebrating seeing nine months of hard work finally come to fruition, with the launch of the video strategy and the clearing campaign, but I've been celebrating my very own personal landmark moment this month - after reaching my 10 year work anniversary. As I start to slowly but surely 'wind down' and begin the most epic of hand overs to the team, it's been great to reflect on just how much I've accomplished during my time at Beds, and just how far we've come as a team since I started way back in 2007.

Heist Awards
And if that wasn't enough of a reason to celebrate, I was more than delighted to see that we'd been short-listed for not one but two Heist Awards this year! Now I have definitely mentioned these awards countless times over the years within this blog; after all, it's the 'Oscars of the HE Marketing world' where the creme de la creme are nationally recognised - and so it's always something we aspire to achieve. Beverley and I worked really hard on two entries this year: Best Undergraduate Student Recruitment Initiative, and Marketing Team of the Year - very much focused on my marketing mantra and narrative of being small but mighty. And all the hard work definitely paid off!

The Silver for The Best Undergraduate Student Recruitment goes to BOTH @lborouniversity and @uniofbeds!! Well done all!! #Heist2017

— Heist Awards (@heistawards) July 13, 2017

Celebrating our big win on stage

To be short-listed was flattering enough, but to actually scoop a Silver in one of the most competitive categories of the night for our 2016 Clearing campaign was a completely out of this world experience; beating off some seriously stiff competition from the sector.

The comments from the judges: ''The University of Bedfordshire team should be praised for their hardworking approach to a challenging situation in an increasingly competitive market. They should be immensely proud of the significant successes that have been achieved by this campaign.''

We made the nom's list - woo!

CIPRide Awards
To really top off our week, we've just found out today that we have been short-listed for another two awards - this time it's the CIPRide Awards within the Anglia, Thames and Chiltern region. We've made the short-list for Best Integrated Campaign, and Best Education Communications Campaign for our sterling work on Clearing last year - and not wanting to be greedy, but I do secretly hope that we win - we've been the current Gold title holders for Best Integrated Campaign for the last two years - so the hat trick really would be the icing in the cake. And our Communications team are also bouncing around the office after scooping two short-lists themselves - Best Low Budget Campaign, and Outstanding In-house PR Team. We have taken the Pride awards by storm in our bid to showcase our work as sector leading - so keep everything crossed for us as we await the big awards dinner in September.

A big pat on the back for the @uniofbeds Marketing team who've been short-listed for two @CIPR_Awards - time to celebrate 🤩🎉 #PRideAwards

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) July 21, 2017

It's not goodbye, it's see you soon!

If in doubt, email
marketinginfo@beds.ac.uk

I'll be spending the last few weeks beavering away; trying to implement as much of the campaign work as possible, to alleviate the pressure of the team once I've gone - after all, it's no easy task to drive the clearing campaign forward, and to keep all the other plates spinning. So please bear with the team over the coming weeks and months! We are indeed small. We are indeed mighty, but we also only have a finite number of hours in the day :-)

There's lots of exciting initiatives still to come as the team launches into the 2018 annual campaign, and they start work on the 2019 suite of prospectuses - so stay tuned for more details on this in the not too distant future. I'll be keeping a look out for all this exciting work going live myself and can't wait to see the next phase of creative ideas coming to the fore.

Really guys - check the folder!

And for my team members reading this - if in doubt, if in despair, just refer to the nice big black folder I've put together - it really is all in there! Promise!