A little insight into my week

I can’t quite believe that it’s Friday already – this week has flown by, and what a week it’s been.

Earlier this week some of our media providers came in to present some of the new media platforms that are available. These are always really interesting and informative days as the media providers share some of their market insight with us, as well as their predictions of where the market may be heading. They then present to us some of the new ways available to connect with our audience, to help strengthen the University of Bedfordshire brand awareness and engagement.

The way in which consumers connect with brands continues to change dramatically, and consumers expect more from brands than they once did. Because of this we have been focusing on how we can make our messages more personalised, and some of the options that we were shown will allow us to do exactly that. I don’t think I can say too much more right now, but keep your eyes peeled over Clearing to see what we’ve been up to.

We also had a meeting with our media agency to discuss how our campaign has performed over the last year, and to see what’s in store over Clearing. These meetings provide a good opportunity for us to take the time to reflect on what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what we can do to improve our messaging in the future.

We have a really exciting Clearing campaign planned this year, and we’re excited for you all to see it. One aspect at the heart of all of our campaigns is that we use our own students, rather than models or actors. We believe that this presents a more accurate representation of Bedfordshire, and we try to capture video content as well so that prospective students can hear about our current students experiences. We’ve got our photo-shoots coming up over the next couple of weeks so I’ve been busy contacting our students this week to see if they would like to take part in our campaign, trying to ensure that all subject areas are represented. Although the next couple of weeks will be busy, I always enjoy meeting our students and learning about their Bedfordshire experiences.

I’m not sure I can finish without making a celebratory comment about the sun finally making an appearance this week can I? It’s been a little hot in the office the last few days, but we seem to have found the perfect solution*.

Sara

*Other ice lollies are available from retailers

Looking forward to 2019!

Whilst most people are busy making plans and resolutions for the New Year, the Beds Marketing team have been busy working on the 2019 Undergraduate prospectus. Although 2019 may seem like a long way off for most, the 2019 UG prospectus will be appearing at a recruitment event near you from March.

We’ve been co-ordinating the list of courses that we offer, placing bets on how many times I will have to re-do the flat plan this year (my guess is eight – I’ll keep you updated), and liaising with various departments across the University to ensure that all of the information we hold is correct and up-to-date.

One of my favourite aspects of working on the prospectuses is working with the photographers to capture new images. We work with two freelance photographers (Roy Meta and Scene) who capture a range of images for us, from profile shots, to shots of students in situ.

It’s great to be able to get into some of the sessions and see first-hand what our students are working on, as well as the facilities available. This year we were able to see the new nursing simulation labs at both Luton and Bedford, and had the opportunity to explore the Forest School at our Bedford campus. We also had the opportunity to see some of our media and dance students in action.

This year we have renewed the profiles for most of the subject areas within the prospectus too. This provides us with a great opportunity to meet with some of our students and talk to them about their experiences at Bedfordshire, which we can then use to influence future communications.

We’ve also been getting into the Christmas spirit here in the Marketing department with Christmas jumpers and inflatable Christmas characters galore! As this will be my last blog before the holidays I'd like to wish you all happy holidays and I will see you in the New Year! 

Sara

Marketing Officer

Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Exhibition

This week the University of Bedfordshire hosted the annual Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Exhibition. The event was held over two days at our Bedford campus and welcomed thousands of students on campus to find out more about the different options available to them in the future. 

It was a great two days. The sun was shining (ok that might be an understatement - it was very hot!) and there was a great atmosphere on campus. As well as representatives from over 150 higher education institutions, there were representatives from the Army, gap year organisations, and information on apprenticeships. 

I was helping out on the University of Bedfordshire stand, talking to students about what they want to do after college and giving them more information on the various courses we offer, the benefits of undertaking a year in industry, and how we can offer them more than a great degree. It was a non-stop couple of days but it was a great opportunity to speak to students, staff from local schools and colleges, and staff from other higher education institutions. 

The event also made the ITV news so if you weren't able to attend the event take a look at the news story here. I make a small cameo (ah!).

I'm also helping out at another UCAS exhibition tomorrow at the University of East London (UEL) where I'll have another opportunity to talk to students about the different opportunities available at the University of Bedfordshire! I'm hoping for an air conditioned room!

Thanks for reading!

Sara

Marketing Assistant

Location, location, location

Last week I spent two days in Bedford with Spectrecom filming a location video to showcase our Bedford campus and some of the highlights of the town. The weather tried to hold us back on Wednesday so we focused on indoor shots, capturing footage from one of our dance classes, a performing arts class, and our very own SU bar, before heading over to the Harpur Centre to get some shots of the shopping centre.

Luckily for us the rain stopped around lunch time so we ventured outside and got some shots of the market, Bedford Corn Exchange and St. Paul's Church. We were then off once again, first to Priory Park and then to the cinema (to film I promise!).

The sun was out on Thursday so the team got some lovely shots along the Embankment, and, quite surprisingly, I was only asked once what we were doing! We also captured shots of the train station, Silver Street, Bedford Park and Bedford International Athletics Stadium; so a jam-packed couple of days!

The team also spent two days at Milton Keynes (thanks again Jenny and Pete!) capturing footage for a MK location video. We're already excited to see how they're going to look and we can't wait to share both videos with you in a couple of months.

With the video shoots last week and the photography shoots the week before, it's been a busy couple of weeks in the Marketing Department! This week I'm back in the office and working on our 2018 undergraduate prospectus (yes, already!), our applicant newsletters and some open day emails.

I'm also trying to arrange to film some industry talks and master classes, and some student interviews so I'm sure you'll see me around campus sometime soon.

A varied few weeks

Over the last week or so I’ve been away from my desk more than usual; helping with photoshoots and filming, and attending media presentations. The last few weeks and been super busy and really varied, from the more creative aspects (photoshoots) to the less creative (proofreading publications). But that’s what I enjoy about marketing, it can be so varied and it keeps you on your toes!

As Sara mentioned last week, we’ve had three days of photoshoots for our clearing and annual campaign. They were hectic but exciting, and we’ve just received the images from the photographer. We’ve been looking through all of the images and choosing the best ones to take forward for our campaign, taking into consideration the different platforms they will be used for. It’s now over to the photographer to work more of his magic and edit the selected pictures. We’re hoping to get these next week so our designers can start working on the visuals and we can start working on the microsite.  

I’ve also been filming student videos for a forthcoming e-zine edition – and as the weather has been so nice, I even took the opportunity to do the filming outside which was great! So I’ll be editing these over the coming weeks as a start to put my e-zines together.

There are also a few publications I’m currently working on:

1. The PG 2017 prospectus – this is at first proof stage, so I’ve been proofing my allocated sections; five sections down, one to go…  

2. The UCAS visitor guide – we’re hosting a UCAS Exhibition in June at our Bedford campus for the third year running and I’m working on the main guide. This is at final proof stage and I’m expecting to send it to print on Tuesday

3. Welcome 2017 guide – each year we produce a welcome guide that we send out to all of our applicants following results day. This gives an overview ahead of students starting with us – how to register as a Beds student online, social events taking place in the first week, finance, student support, campus maps and lots more! I briefed this in to the designer yesterday and first proofs are due wc 16 May

Our UCAS Exhibition guide

We’re also looking ahead to the 2017 cycle – I sent the first enquirer edition of our B4Beds e-zine last month, and we’ve got some email communications going out over the next month or so. This is the part of the year when it can often get confusing as we’re working on the 2016 cycle and the 2017 cycle at the same time. All in a day’s work! 

Speak soon,

K

A constant state of change

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Back to the day job
after a wonderful few
weeks!

This weeks post is focused on change. No matter how much we all try to resist sometimes, its the one thing that's always remains constant. And for us fellow Marketers, embracing change, and being responsive to change is all in the job. The sector and marketing environment is constantly adapting and changing, and therefore so must we!

Slightly off topic, but a change nonetheless, is me! After three long weeks, I'm back in the office and back to the day job after taking a few weeks off to get married. So, if you start to see Sarah De Guzman popping up every now and then in your inbox don't be alarmed, it's just me!

Getting back into the daily grind always takes some time, especially when there's literally hundreds of emails to catch up on. And so that's exactly how my first few days have been spent. It's amazing how quickly you can switch your mind off as you go into holiday mode, and then all the information, meetings and work updates come flooding back upon your return, as though that holiday was a thing of the past. I wish the same could be said for the jet lag!

Pretty much what my desk
looks like at the moment!

Well, it's now week two, post holiday, and the emails have been read, the calendar has been updated, and it's pretty much back to normality for me. Clearing is still underway, just about - we expect this to slowly tail off in the next week or so, as we firmly focus our attentions to the 2016 cycle, which has quietly been ticking along in the background since April this year.

Change in tactic
Ok so back to the focus of my blog post - change. The main focus of the marketing team has been in supporting the Recruitment team in the promotion of the September open day and lots of changes have been made to this years plan; from the media inventory selected to the times of communications. We've implemented a much more aggressive Digital Marketing campaign this time round, pulled back some communications based on intelligence learnt from previous plans, and we're very pleased with the results. If you happened to be on campus (Luton and Bedford) on that day you'll have seen that it was very busy indeed, and had a great vibe on campus, and that's always great to see. Take a look at our open day picture gallery - kindly taken by Sara, Marketing Assistant. And a big shout out to the recruitment team who really pulled it out of the bag with the number of schools in attendance. The day was a resounding success. That's one event down and on to the next, as we're already busily preparing a promotional push for our October events.

Krystle, far left, is setting off for
new adventures

Team change
This week will be offering up a bit of a mixed bag for the Marketing team. Krystle, our Campaign Officer is sadly leaving us on Wednesday, after being part of the Marketing team for about 18 months now. We're really sad to see her go, and to see our mighty marketing team reduced to just three colleagues now. In the relatively short time that Krystle has been with us, she's made a significant difference to the way in which campaigns are planned, implemented and evaluated, and she will be very much missed by us all. We'll be sending Krystle off and wishing her well over lunch on Wednesday. And, to pick up our mood, the remaining Marketing team will be heading off to Homerton College in Cambridge on Thursday, for this year's coveted CIPRide awards. We're up for two awards: Best Integrated Campaign for our 2014 Clearing campaign, and Best Low Budget Campaign for our September 2014 open day promotions. So a good evening out shall definitely pick up our moods, and provide a much needed evening out to re group, celebrate our achievements and look ahead to the future.

Keep everything crossed for us, and follow @CIPR_Awards to watch the evenings events unfold!

So change can mean many different things to many people. And boy are we experiencing a lot of it at the moment. From changing the way we do things and implemented planned changes to be more effective, all the way through to adapting to unforeseen changes, and changes in team resource and dynamics, we remain a positive marketing force to be reckoned with - it may just take us that bit longer to reply to your email, so please bear with us!

No rest for the wicked

Some of you would think that now most of the students have finished for the summer our work might start to wind down...well let me assure you, you are very, very wrong! We seem to have entered a very busy (but very exciting) time in the Marketing Department!

This week I've been out of the office for a couple of days helping with the photo shoot for our annual campaign. It's something that I'd never done previously so it was great to meet the photographers, get an idea of how it all works and, most importantly, meet some of the students and graduates that were taking part in the campaign. As cliche as it may sound it was a really great experience for me to meet our students, past and current, and hear their thoughts and find out about some of the amazing things they've been getting up too! I also managed to get a sneak peek at some of the shots we'd taken and they looked great (even if I do say so myself!) so make sure you keep an eye out for them later on in the year!

Graduations have been taking place this week so there's been a lot of smartly dressed students and their families around campus the last few days! On Friday I'll be filming one of the graduations at St. Mary's so I'll have another chance to talk to some of our students and find out about their plans now they've graduated.

We're also sending the final proof of our PG prospectus to the designers this week. I couldn't tell you how many times I've read it but it's really great to see it all come together! I can't believe it's nearly over but there's already talk of the UG 2017 prospectus so I'm sure that'll keep me going!

You may have seen that our Clearing campaign has already started (if you haven't check out our micro-site) so I've been working on a few bits here and there to help Krystle. It's been really good for me as I'm getting to see all the different sections of the annual cycle!

I also helped out with the UCAS convention (I can't believe that was a whole month ago!) at the Bedford campus. This was a really fun day for me as I got to go over to Bedford and see the new Gateway building and speak to members of staff that I wouldn't normally come into contact with regularly. There was a really great atmosphere at the convention and it was nice to meet some potential students. It did however bring back a few memories of when I attended a UCAS convention which made me feel quite old!

I've also been keeping busy outside of work too (I told you there was no rest for the wicked), and a couple of weeks ago I took park in the 10k Race for Life in Stevenage. I only walked it but, as I'm not the fittest of people, it was a big achievement for me! I love doing the Race for Life as there's always a fantastic atmosphere in the air! One of the local radio stations was there to support the event and after crossing the finishing line we asked if they could play Taylor's shake it off so we could celebrate in style (no pun intended...it really did just happen)!

Where have the last two months gone?

I can’t believe that it’s over two months since I started working at the University! When I was writing my first blog post I was only a couple of weeks in and was just finding my feet – just over two months later and it feels like I’ve been here forever (in a good way!)

As promised I’ve been kept really busy with a lot of different tasks which has been a great way for me to get my head around all the different areas the MARC department are involved in. I’ve been writing content for the new PG prospectus, the UCMK prospectus and the new student welcome guide, sourcing images and liaising with various staff members. We’re now in the proofing stages and it feels great to see all of our hard work coming together!

I’ve also filmed a couple of videos which have appeared in the e-zines. It’s been a while since I used video and editing equipment so it felt really good to get back into it!  It was also a nice way for me to meet both staff and students around the university. I’ve got a couple more videos planned this month so don’t forget to smile at the camera if you see me about!

I sent my first edition of PG Life last week which was rather exciting. If any of you read it, I hope you enjoyed it! At the moment I’m beginning to plan the next edition as well as content for a couple of other e-zines for potential students and new starters.

Later this month I’ll be helping out at the Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Convention, which is being hosted at our Bedford campus on the 22 and 23 June. I’ve participated in open day events when I was on my placement year but this will be the first UCAS fair that I’ve attended since I went to one when I was in college so I’m looking forward to helping out and seeing what goes on (maybe I’ll grab myself some freebies whilst I’m there too…).

All in all June is looking like an exciting month with prospectus sign-offs, e-zines and UCAS conventions! Not to mention that it’s my birthday this month and I’ll be celebrating it by singing along to Taylor Swift at Hyde Park! And I’m also going to Download festival next weekend! If you’re thinking that Download and Taylor Swift don’t really go together you’re probably right but what’s life without a little diversity eh?! 

All change, all change on the marketing front

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Lots of new friendly faces!

A lot has been happening on the staffing front since my last blog post a few weeks ago. I think I've spent most of my time sat on interview panels lately, but it's great that we'll be welcoming lots of new friendly faces to the Marketing team in the coming weeks.

First up; we've been joined by James Blackburn, a final year BSc (Hons) Advertising and Marketing Communications student from the University. He's joined us for 10 weeks as Temporary Marketing Assistant to help us during a busy time in the recruitment cycle. It's great to have James on board as he's able to provide some valuable student insight to enhance our marketing initiatives.

As I mentioned above, I've been on countless interview panels, with the most recent one being for the recruitment of two brand new and shiny Faculty Marketing Assistants. We've only just appointed and so it's still very early days, but we're really looking forward to being joined by two new recruits. I'm now looking to get out and about into the Faculties in the next few weeks to discuss key priorities and to cement our focus on collaborative working before our new colleagues join us. More on this in early March.

New recruits - coming soon!

And what better way to round of my week, than by sitting on an interview panel once more; this time for our vacant Marketing Assistant position. We'll be meeting a group of fantastic candidates over the next two days, and we're really excited, as the quality of applications has been really high, and so I'm sure we're going to be in for some tough decisions. Hopefully by early April our team will be fully replenished, and so we'll be back up to full speed as we approach what we can only describe as our busiest time of the year, also known as Clearing!

As we come to the end of February, the team is rejoicing as our 2016 publications have now finally made their way to print. We're working with a new printer this year, so we're really keen to see the finished product in early March. But if you can't wait to take a look, then why not have a sneak peak at our Undergraduate 2016 Prospectus and Undergraduate 2016 Mini Guide online - go on, we know you want to!

Checking out the new Gateway building, Bedford

In other news, of the none staffing variety, I was able to spend an afternoon over at the Bedford campus yesterday, and so I took the opportunity to check out the new Gateway building whilst meeting up with colleagues from the Department of Education Studies to discuss short-term and longer-term marketing and recruitment strategies for our PG courses. It was a really productive meeting and it's always a real treat when we're able to step away from our desks for a while and mingle with the wider university. Dave, our Head of Recruitment was there also, and so I was able to get a quick tour around the building, which I have to say looks fantastic. It's always really useful for us to be able to get out and about once in a while to see the new facilities and developments around campus, as it helps us to keep an ear to the ground and get a good feel for what our students experience, which in turn helps the way in which we market and get our messages out.

As I come to the end of this weeks blog post, I can't help but feel sad that my partner in crime and digital counter part, Paul Fryer, Digital Marketing Manager, is leaving the University for pastures new. I've worked with Paul for a number of years now, and we're all really going to miss him. And the office will certainly be a quieter place without him! We are however, looking forward to giving Paul a great send off in the usual Brewery Tap after work drinks style,  and we'll look forward to hearing all about his new adventures with Kier Construction.

All this talk of 'winter' is getting me excited for Christmas!!

Some of our Recruitment Team
and student Ambassadors waiting to greet
PG students on campus  

From recent blog posts, you will certainly be aware that we have now launched our Winter campaign. Winter is definitely the most used word around the MARC office at the moment. The teams have done a great job pulling it all together and the artwork looks really good.

We’re also in the middle of the open day rush. Since my last blog we’ve held a PG open day on 16 October and another UG open day on 18 October at our Bedford campus. Our Bedford event saw 183 prospective students on our campus, not to manetion schools we had in attendence. There is also another UG open day this Saturday (25 October) at our Luton campus. And let’s not forget our November open days too (15 November, Bedford campus and 22 November, Luton campus). Once the November open days have taken place, we have a couple of months before the next events, so we can evaluate the pre-January events, which will influence our planning for the post-January open day events. So far we’ve seen some good sign up numbers , so hopefully this will continue. We currently have 656 student signed up to our event this Saturday.

Photography
As part of the prospectus project, we have our annual photography session this week and next. We have five days of photography booked in total, giving us the opportunity to get new student profiles and photographs of our new and upgraded facilities. As our prospectuses hold a lot of images, it’s really important that we get the images right, to really show off our campuses and reflect what we can offer our students. A picture speaks a thousand words, as they say! Clare spent two days with the photographer this week to get shots of students and video interviews and I will be working with photographers next week to get shots of our facilities and campuses. I’m excited to be art directing the shoots, as it’s the first time I’ve done photography at the University and it will give me the opportunity to meet some more of our academics and students, as well as experiencing some of the facilities that I have not yet seen.

My lovely CIM certificate

My CIM Training

I recently went to London for a one day CIM course on how to write an integrated marketing plan. I was really keen to attend the session as one of my main responsibilities in the team is putting together our open day plans, which this year need to produce a 25% increase in footfall. The day was quite useful, it was a good refresh to some of the things I learnt at university (which seems like forever ago) and also gave me a few things to think about. Now that I have been at Bedfordshire for eight months and I have been writing integrated open day plans for the past five months, it was really good to leave the course feeling reassured that what we do in terms of our planning is really robust, and we really use insight and evaluations from previous events to influence our future plans, which is key to improving. I also got a little certificate at the end of the day, to show I had taken part in the course.

Welcome to Maria

And finally, on behalf of the marketing team, I’d like to give a warm welcome to Maria, our new marketing administrator, who will be working with the team two days a week for the next six weeks. She is a recent University of Bedfordshire PG graduate and we look forward to working with her in the coming weeks!

Speak soon,

K