Making your marketing strategy work in a Digital Marketing age

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

It's an exciting time to be a marketer. But equally, it's also a challenging one. Our customers' preferences are ever changing, and at a fast pace. And, with a digital first attitude our prospective students are 'always online' and are 'constantly connected', often will the expectation that we are too!

Modern day marketing -
always online.

Our potential students, or 'Millennials' as they are otherwise known, have grown up in an electronics-filled and increasingly online and socially-networked world. It's therefore become a pivotal moment in marketing, where the offline versus online debate falls to the way side, and the focus is firmly being placed on digital marketing just being the new norm for marketing, and our previously 'tech-savvy online users' are simply now just known as our potential customers. In other words, digital marketing is no longer an experimental innovation for us, it's a daily marketing necessity and a fundamental means through which to talk to, and reach, what we hope to be the newest crop of Bedfordshire students.

For us, failure to jump on the digital band wagon, would leave us out of touch with our millennial audience and lagging behind our neighbouring competitors. But simply placing ads isn't enough. The need to create communities, content (of the relevant sort) and rich media has never been greater.

With that said, we're going to be incredibly busy over the next few months as we start to implement the start of this year's Clearing campaign which will be predominately digitally led. Our photoshoots are about to take place in the coming weeks, where we'll be gathering a range of image-led and video content to support our digital drive over this important recruitment period.

Digital vs mobile first

Operationally, we've experienced a significant shift towards digital in recent years, which opens up a vast selection of tools and channels at our disposal. We're constantly seeing new digital platforms, websites and social media options springing up. Thankfully, we have a Media Planning and Buying agency to support us with that; helping us track down the latest innovations, trends and digital products so we can make sure we're promoting in the right spaces and are talking to the right people, whilst ensuring we're getting the best return (more on this in a future post). We're also working closely with our Digital Consultant on a regular basis who works alongside us to monitor the quality of our web traffic, and keeps an ever watchful eye on where online conversations are taking place so we can continuously refine our audience targeting and make sure our advert placements and content strategies are working hard and yielding the desired results.

Making good data decisions:
Analyse to optimise 

Ultimately, the one thing that we can not forget is that data is king. The amount of data which we can collate, monitor and observe on a daily basis provides a wealth of insight into our markets (existing or new) potential customers, and campaign performance as we track their journey. As Kylie mentioned in the previous blog post, the analytics we work with can tell us a lot about our customers, and how our promotions have performed, so we can make regular adjustments to ensure we're getting the desired results, whilst constantly learning, and adapting to ensure we're keeping ahead of the curve and are providing relevant information to inform decision making.

The ability to track all of our digital output provides valuable insight which informs our future working. We're looking forward to getting some dashboards set up ahead of our next campaign, enabling us to see in real-time how our work is performing and how we can optimise further.

An understanding of data, and the need to formulate digital and social content plans is key as part of our ongoing strategy. And, with an ever increasing competitive market place, and with more Russell Groups competing in Clearing each year, it's becoming crowded with more online marketing noise than ever before, and so the need for us to hold our own, digitally, becomes paramount.

Keep an eye on this blog for more updates on the Clearing campaign, coming soon. Interested to see what other universities are doing? Then why not take a look at Market Research Manager, Andy's Clearing blog to keep on top of the latest competitor innovations and observations.

Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything

By Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

So much data, and so little time
to write awards...

As the 2015 September recruitment cycle officially comes to a close, it's time for us marketers to bury our heads in the mountains of metrics that we've put in place, on our usual quest to evaluate our performance and effectiveness, to demonstrate ROI, and to churn out those all important reports which provide valuable insight to inform our future work. Whilst on the one hand it's quite an intense aspect to our roles, with many an hour spent crunching numbers, and getting bogged down in the data wondering why I didn't pay more attention in maths classes at school, I quite like ploughing through the reams of insight and analysis to do a round up - it's always nice to see our contribution, and to assess our highlights and successes (as well as identifying what we can do better, which is a constant learning curve and central to all that we do). But as many of our regular readers will know, I'm also guilty of writing reports for dual purposes. That's right, I'm a cereal award-writer, and I'm not ashamed to admit it!

Who needs sleep when you
can write awards!

Since I started writing awards in 2013, we've gone on to win eight awards, with two award wins and a Heist short-list in this year alone, which we're mightily proud of. Winning, and even being short-listed for these coveted awards is a massive coup for the team, and I'll be the first to admit that it's nice to see the office adorned in our achievements. Not only is it a great big pat on the back and morale booster, but it's great to be recognised by our peers and the wider sector, as being the best in the region, or nationally at what we do.

And so, with all of the report writing that's going on at the moment, we'll soon be able to see if we have some pieces to enter early next year, when awards season for us typically kicks off. In the meantime, I thought I'd share some helpful hints and tips on writing a winning award entry, should you choose to give it a go for yourself in the new year...

Before you start

Look beyond the marketing hype
- do the facts speak for
themselves?

First things first, before you do anything you should assess your goals and ask yourself these questions:

• Why I am doing this?
• What do I want to get out of it?

Writing awards is a lot of work, so make sure it's worth your while. In other words, be brutal. Is your initiative really good enough? Remove the bias, and look at the facts. Does it stand out, and do you have the evidence and hard facts to back up your claims?

Getting started

Be individual - sometimes small
or niche can win big

So once you're certain of what you're setting out to do, it's time to search through the different awards, and scour the categories to see what's on offer, and where you think you might be able to contribute and make a submission. It's always worth noting the deadlines at this point, to make sure all your award writing won't be in vain. Once you've selected the categories it's time to write that entry!

Tip: Really consider your category and who you may also be going up against. Whilst we all want to win big, sometimes the niche categories make for an interesting and successful submission. And whilst we fully believe our initiative is amazing, you never know what, or who, you're up against.

Writing that award winning entry
So it's time to write that entry. Anyone can write and submit entries, but to secure the short-list, it requires time, effort and dedication.

1. Research previous winners - and take a look at their entries - most winner's entries are hosted online, and can provide a great resource when looking at format, and the level of detail needed
2. Really look at the entry criteria - and the questions that you're being asked. Stick to the point at all times, and keep the entry focused on fully evidencing the success and ROI of the work
3. Keep it concise - brief and to the point. Most awards have strict word counts, and so you have to make every sentence and every word count - cut the waffle
4. Keep it simple - whilst it's important to include the relevant lingo and jargon in the entry to showcase your expert knowledge, remember who your reader is - they may or may not be a specialist in that particular area, and they have many to read! Keep it simple and understandable - after all, if they don't get your point, you won't get the marks
5. Be bespoke - tailor the information to what is being asked, and the specific category - especially if you're entering the same initiative for multiple awards. A simple copy and paste job will not do
6. Make it pretty - spend sometime on the layout, and devise the sections so that they correspond with the criteria and questions being asked, to make it easy for the judge to give you marks. But make sure you know the restrictions on including graphs and images (in most cases you can place these in an appendices if these are allowed). 
7. Make it stand out - showcasing new initiatives, or novel ways of working and achieving your objectives provides a great way to catch the judges attention. Think our Clearing Flash mob from the 2014 Clearing campaign. Different is interesting. But only include it if it's relevant and you have a point to make.
8. Make it personable - in some entries they ask why you should win. Whilst the stats are great here to evidence this, don't shy away from adding a personal narrative. If it's relevant, talk about the people involved and play on the emotive aspects. Celebrating real people and real achievements is great, and adds a bit of personality to the entry.

Failing to plan, is planning to fail

But most of all. It's important to allocate time to this. Balancing writing award entries alongside the day job is a challenging task. Conducting research and analysis to collate the evidence is time consuming but a crucial aspect, as without the evidence it's just an opinion piece. And carefully constructing an entry to satisfy the criteria takes focus and determination. So be prepared to put in the hours if you take it on. But if you secure the short-list it's always a nice rewarding feeling.

Tip: Carefully select your award categories and make sure that the stats stack up. After all, no matter how proud of the work you are, if you've spend ages pulling an entry together which has weak evidence, you won't get very far. It's important to remember quality over quantity.

What to do if successful
After submitting, make a note of the short-list confirmation date - after all that hard work, you want to make sure you know if you made the cut!

If you've made it to the short-list, here's what you do next:

• Shout about it - it's great news, why wouldn't you? But get in touch with the press team and give them all the details
• Get your seats booked - for the coveted 'do, and get planning what to wear (check if the 'do has a theme or dress code)
• Befriend twitter - especially on awards night. Many awards have their own twitter handle and hashtag and encourage you to tweet throughout the evening - great for fun and profile raising 
• Talk to us - keep the MARC department (and the press team) informed of the evenings events - whether it was a win, or not! Being short-listed in itself is an amazing achievement
• Make space - in the office to proudly display your winners or finalist certificates and awards

Writing awards has many rewards, and I'm not just talking about the certificate if you win. Quite often, we're so busy with our day-to-day work that taking the time to truly reflect on our achievements and performance passes us by. Being able to see success, and just how well a piece of work or an initiative has performed is great. So if you do write award entries and go on to win, great! But remember, it's not just about the winning.

In the heart of the Clearing data jungle

Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer 

It’s all about the analysis right now.  As current campaigns have been delivered and some are now coming to a close I have begun evaluating the activity. The ‘mother of all evaluations’ is Clearing, which is currently at about 52 pages and counting. I have been looking at trends in the market as a whole, as well as, our direct competitors. Our Market Research, Admissions and Digital teams produce reams of quality data and I have been able to use their findings to measure the success of the campaign in greater detail. You want it; they’ve got it, the old ‘kid in a candy store’ chestnut.

I have created a campaign map that indicates what activity ran where across the country and it is really telling. It captures the sheer volume of advertising that we ran and our practical utilisation of geo-targeting. I nearly broke google maps (don’t be giving me none of that ‘no more layers’ google, no one’s got time for that). I have then been able to plot that against applications and enrolment figures. Outdoor and print based activity has been the most challenging to pin down as these platforms are notoriously difficult to track and evidence, so I have been formulating more innovative metrics to squeeze as much information as possible.

Really, I need to bring it to a close now, for my own sanity’s sake. There is such a wealth of data that you can really get lost in it if you’re not careful. *David Attenborough voice* Here we are in the heart of the Clearing data jungle, and it really is a thing to behold. To my left the radio schedule, its rich spots on full show. To my right the digital display stats scrap; the Student Room ready to do battle with Hotcourses. In the distance the tall bars of the SOI graph waving in the breeze, Google adwords towering over his brothers; perched just on the edge we catch a rare glimpse of the regal twitter bird flying high above its social media counterparts. Here we have a bright outdoor demographic pie chart spreading its wings to ward off predators; a young print readership line graph looks to its mother and cries ‘what are my proof points’…Like I say, for my own sanity…

The next step is the campaign plan. I already have a head start on myself last year and grand plans afoot. We have highly ambitious targets to hit so I am determined to use all the information that I have gained on performance to produce the most robust plan to date. The team has already been discussing what bright ideas we can come up with to give a unique spin on Clearing; I’m looking forward to seeing how they develop. Lest we forget, keeping it fresh, at the forefront and allowing room for experimentation is essential.

What else; I have been doing some gap analysis looking at the platform spend across campaigns to determine where we have made cost savings and where there is room for negotiation. I have really been scrutinising and crunching those numbers and made some interesting findings. Sometimes it isn’t until you really strip apart the components of a project that you really find clarity.

Over the past couple of weeks I have delivered the last bits of Aylesbury and Pre-Clearing copy, the Radio LaB brand guidelines are pretty much complete, just a case of final approvals, and I have been monitoring current activity to see if there is any room for optimisation. I have also been updating some of our online profile copy. We now have an enhanced profile on WhatUni.com with new images, video and content. Lots of other little projects chugging along in the backdrop too. And back to the jungle I go.

Later skaters,

Krystle