A rookie's opinion on Clearing

As the newest member of the team, I’ve been asked to do a couple of blog posts on Clearing, as:

1) I haven’t experienced working one at the Uni yet, and 2) because I’ve most recently been through the uni process.

When I was in Year 13 the word 'Clearing' was whispered in hushed tones behind closed doors. Nobody wanted to have to go through Clearing. I'm surmising, but I think these are the reasons why:

1) Clearing symbolised failure. Going through Clearing usually meant you hadn’t gotten the grades you were expecting, so was seen as a huge ‘I messed up’ sign above your head. 

2) Clearing equalled panic. We all had visions of hundreds of students fighting over limited university places. (Whether this was strictly true I have no idea, but the thought was enough to scare us all senseless).

3)  Not every university was in Clearing, so if your first choice was one of those institutions and you didn’t quite make the cut, you’d usually end up ‘downgrading’. 

4)  The uncertainty of it all. The assumption was that you’d end up going to a university you hadn’t looked around, staying in accommodation you hadn’t picked, and doing a course that might not have ultimately been your first choice. 

I have absolutely no relevant pictures for this blog post, so here is a happy doggo instead!

Five or six (I’m getting old, no need to remind me) years on, and Clearing is a whole different ball game. Let me try and explain in response to the points above. 

1)  Clearing doesn’t mean failure. We’ve interviewed students recently who went through Clearing because they did better than expected in their A-Levels, and decided that they did in fact want to come to university after all. Clearing can also be just a sign of someone indecisive, changing their mind, or having their circumstances change. And that’s not failure at all, that’s just life.
2)  I can’t speak from experience yet (having not worked through Clearing), but what I can assume is that there’s no need to panic. Clearing lasts an awful lot longer than it previously has, so even though ringing on the first day will probably give you the best options, you could also ring a week later and still be offered a place. 
3)  Almost every university in the country has courses in Clearing this year. Including the likes of Oxford and Cambridge. So you could probably even upgrade if you wanted.
4)  I think the uncertainty is still there, if I’m honest. But most universities run campus tours and visits for those people who have come through clearing, or have ‘virtual tour’ options on their websites so you can get an idea of where you’ll be studying. A chance to email or speak to the academics running your course is also a possibility, so you can ask any questions you may have. And guaranteed accommodation for first year students means you’ll be exactly where you need to be to meet new people and make potential friends for life.

I hope this cute bunny makes you feel less panicked about Clearing, it's certainly working for me.

So there you have it. After some consideration, I’ve decided most of the changes to Clearing are due to the sector, rather than changes to the process itself. It sort of feels like the weight of Clearing has been reversed. Whereas the panic used to fall on students, with universities not caring as much because the intake was quite slight for them, now Clearing is a MASSIVE DEAL for uni’s. Students can get pretty much whatever they want while universities are stressing over filling places. It’s a slightly unwelcome role reversal for us, but one that benefits our millennial’s, so that must be kind of a good thing, right? They are the future, after all.

Until next time.

Over and out.

Tips for using a professional Twitter account

Like many people I have a Twitter account that I use for work purposes. I generally tweet about what I’m up to at work, what stories and projects I’m working on and just general gubbins about my working life in the press office at the University of Bedfordshire.

I’m not a Twitter by any means – most of what I know I've learnt on the job and through trial and error. But if you’re thinking about setting up your own Twitter account for work and are not sure where to start, here are a few tips to get you going:

Think before you post

Let’s start at the beginning. Before you post anything, ask yourself this question – would I want my mum to see this? Or, more importantly, my boss? If the answer is no, it might be better not to post it

Ask yourself what you want out of Twitter

I post the occasional photo of my dog, because who wouldn’t want to see this gorgeous face(by the way that’s Bowen, he’s a six-year-old GSD cross and the love of my life).

After a mental Monday, a cuddle with this beautiful boy is just what I need ❤️ pic.twitter.com/F0IgtlqBrA

— Caroline Jacobi (@CJacobi16) January 8, 2018

Saying that, I rarely mention anything outside my working life. It’s worth thinking about what you want to get out of using Twitter in a professional capacity.

Do you want to link up with journalists? Or connect with fellow PR professionals. Most of these people will be interested in news about your organisation, but not so interested in photos of your boozy night outs. It might be an idea to have two accounts, one for work, one for outside work, just so there’s no cross-over.

Use it or lose it

I see so many accounts that are never used. My heart sinks when I see an account for a department in the University, and then I see that nothing has gone out from it since 2015. They just sit in cyberspace looking empty and sad. Get into the habit of tweeting at least once a day.

Don’t be afraid of images and tag, tag away!

Not only do photos increase engagement by up to 300%, they have a nifty function where you can tag other accounts into your tweet, rather than using up your precious word count with Twitter handles. Tagging also increases engagement and will help you get noticed. Hashtags have the same effect, though too many can be a bit much - two of three is a good number.

Ignore the trolls

Tempting as it is to get into a Twitter row with an idiot with too much time on their hands – don’t do it. Trolls thrive on attention and you just end up stoking the fire if you engage with them.

A wise person once said (probably on a social media platform somewhere): “Arguing with a Twitter troll is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it’s won.”

Just ignore it, and if it gets really nasty, block them and report them to Twitter and let them deal with it.

If you’re interested, my Twitter handle is @CJacobi16 – feel free to pop over and have a look.

Spinning straw into gold at Youth Marketing Strategy LDN 2018

Insta selfies, bunny ear filters and stalls manned by twenty somethings with a skin fade wearing Augmented Reality headsets. Yes that is what I walked into last week when I headed down to Brick Lane in London’s East End to present at Voxburners Youth Marketing Strategy (YMS) LDN 2018

Two days of discussions from organisations on how to engage young people with brands and products. From Snap Chat to Love Island, Google, to well Bedfordshire, there was a range of insight shared from brands across the event.

So, I was asked to speak on day one alongside four other universities as part of the higher education strand. It was great for Bedfordshire to be asked to share or story of how we engaged young people into converting their offer with us during clearing into an accept. To be honest the story is a pretty good one and one worth sharing. So here is a quick synopsis.

As part of our clearing operation we needed to up our game with conversion. Each year we generate thousands of calls to clearing hotline and make thousands of offers, but we often fall down when it comes to converting those offer holders into actually accepting. During Clearing 2017 we pioneered something new. Now it’s not often we get to say we pioneered something, especially one with such impact, so stay with me, it gets good.

We bought the licence for an app called Bonjoro, it’s a tool that lets you film short personalised videos to an individual and send them via email. We asked our academics to record some to offer holders and send as a follow up to the call they had received where the offer had been made. It sounds simple right?


The most labour intensive part was actually uploading all the email addresses, which isn’t too bad as I initially thought the worst bit would be getting buy in from the academic to take part. You see quite often academics and marketing don’t mix, unless it is a poster created using clip art and Publisher. With this proposition though they seem to love it, possibly something to do with the personal nature of it and they got to talk, and academics love to talk.

But here is the good bit, over clearing we sent 672 Bonjoro videos via email to offer holders. Of those 534 recipients opened their emails; that is a 74% open rate! Pretty good conversion right there.

Of those who opened the videos 316 were watched; that is a 47% watch rate. Of those who watched 288 accepted their offer with us.

The cost for a 12 month license was under 5k however, the 288 undergraduate offers that we accepted after receiving a Bonjoro would, after completing a three-year undergraduate degree, have generated £2.5m revenue for the University. No other conversion tool has spun straw into gold the same way as this during clearing. The moral, it is a tool we will be using again.


It wasn’t just Bedfordshire talking personalisation though, it seemed to be a major theme in many of the brands presenting, and was certainly coming through in all the research presented as something young people want more and more of.


The rest of my day at the event consisted of learning more about how young people want to be engaged and a big part of this was around authenticity. One of the challenges I have brought back from the event is asking how do we tell the student story without endless amounts of case studies that risk being seen as edited and manipulated? How do we strip back our messaging to begin telling our student success in a raw authentic unedited form, while still being part of a brand? I’ll leave that one there to perhaps pick up on a future blog. 


While we ponder the above, the one thing we can definitely continue doing is personalising beyond sending an email and inserting name here. Let’s hope we have a new, exciting, creative tool to present at next years conference, and in the meantime, here are some of the Bonjoro's sent during Clearing 2017.

An update from Bedfordshire’s press office

Being a communications officer with writer’s block can be an absolute nightmare. For my first blog of 2018, I was really struggling to think of something to blog about, which is annoying when you make your living from writing!

So I have decided to fill you in on what I have been doing in recent weeks and write about some of the stories I’ve been working on.

I had the pleasure of meeting a lovely Mental Health Nursing student called Fern, who has been shortlisted for not one, but two awards in this year’s Student Nursing Times Awards, which is a huge achievement.

Congratulations to @uniofbeds student @Fern45075972 who has been shortlisted for two Student Nursing Times Awards! #SNTA @NursingTimes pic.twitter.com/535yfVtf3M

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) February 27, 2018

While on a placement, Fern did a great deal of work on helping young people in CAMHS services transition into adult services. I worked for a mental health trust in a previous life so I’m very aware of how difficult this transition period can be. It’s fantastic to see that Fern has been a driving force for making things better for her service users.

You can read more about Fern here.

Bedfordshire students seem to be on a roll at the moment when it comes to awards. Students from the TV Production and Media Production courses have been shortlisted for accolades in this year’s Royal Television Society’s (RTS) East Student Awards.

We have had students shortlisted in five categories which is absolutely amazing, and testament to all their hard work, and to the dedication of their tutors. I’ll have everything crossed for 15 March when the students will find out if they have won anything.

If you get a chance, check out the students' work here.

I also got the chance to do something a bit different and go along to watch a live interview with Hollyoaks actor Duayne Boachie. Duayne was studying at the University when he got his big break into acting a few years ago and it was great to see him return and share insight into his career and offer tips and guidance to current students.

I have also been preparing for our graduation ceremonies taking place in March. I always enjoy covering these and this year I’m really keen to find some fantastic student success stories to share with the wider world – watch this space!

At our Luton campus today @Hollyoaks actor and former Beds student @DuayneBoa gave a masterclass to Media Performance students, here's a snippet of his Q&A pic.twitter.com/tKuaqckyW4

— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) February 14, 2018

How to get media coverage during ‘silly season’

As it turns out, this is my last blog post of 2017. Where has the year gone?!

As some of my fellow PRs will know very well, this time of year is affectionately known as ‘silly season’ – a time of year when journalists far and wide have run out of stories and content.

Journalists take annual leave and leave their newsrooms short-staffed and their websites lacking in news. Anything that pops up in their inboxes is more likely to get their attention now than at any other time of year, simply because they are desperate for content.

So I thought I would pull together a few tips on how press officers in universities (and other organisations for that matter) can take advantage of this time of year to get some publicity.

Be creative

With so little news around, this could be your chance to flag up ideas that might be overshadowed at busier times. A funny story, an inspiring case study, some quirky research – all these things might grab a journo’s attention.

Piggy-back on stuff

There may not be much news around, but as we all know, that can change in a heartbeat. Has an airline gone bust? Pitch out your tourism academics! Specific health issues making the headlines? Dig out your researchers who can offer some words of wisdom. Even if it’s just a line in an article, it’s better than nothing!

Be a journalist’s best friend

A mentor once told me that we as PRs provide a service to journalists, and as such, we should provide the best service we can. If you can’t help a journalist with their enquiry, direct them to someone who can – even if it’s a competitor. There’s nothing in it for you, but the journo will remember the kind gesture and may come to you again in the future with something you can help with.

Get festive

Don’t underestimate the power of a good Christmassy story. Whether you’re fundraising for charity or encouraging colleagues to wear daft festive jumpers, all these are potential news stories, especially if you’ve got good images to go with them.

Pester your SU

Students’ Unions are a brilliant place to find news stories, especially around Christmas. I have found that quite often SUs are rushed off their feet with other things, so if you can give them a helping hand to get some media coverage for their festive events, they’ll love you forever!  

With that said, there’s nothing left for me to do but wish you all a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year, full of excellent PR opportunities and lots of media coverage!

Reflecting on last week’s Graduations, and why I didn’t go to mine

Last week we had graduation ceremonies at the Luton campus, which are exciting and hectic in equal measure.

Though not as busy as the summer ceremonies, the November graduations as just as important for recognised the achievements of our students, and we attend as many as we can to capture the joy and excitement of the day.

Here's a few snaps yesterday's #BedsGrads - the full album can be viewed here: https://t.co/0ShBKihNyo pic.twitter.com/DQ0sEvWP3a

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) November 17, 2017

I‘ve sat in on countless graduations, tweeting (using the hashtag #BedsGrads), writing down quotes for the press release later, and there is always a danger of forgetting how special the day is to the students graduating, as well as their family and friends, especially when your head is down and you’re furiously scribbling away.

Then you’ll hear a name you recognise. When you look up, there is a student you interviewed for a press release a year or so ago collecting their degree. It’s during those moments that I feel a sense of pride, especially if I know they have been through a tough time to get to that ceremony and collect their degree.

I detested my graduation –I begrudging went to the ceremony after I got my degree, but refused to go to the one after I finished my Master’s. Sometimes I regret, mostly I don’t!

It was mostly because the year I spent doing my Master’s at Kingston University was one of the hardest of my life so far, so much so I nearly quit. So when it came to the end, I was glad to see the back of it.

But whenever I go home to see my parents, there are two photos on the wall you can’t fail to notice. The photos are of my sister and me in our graduation caps and gowns (my sister graduated a few years before me from Southampton Solent.)

Both my parents had very successful careers - my dad was an air traffic controller and my mum until recently ran her own business. Neither of them went to university. They were from working class backgrounds in a time when going to university was just not an option for them. So the fact that both their children went through Higher Education must mean an awful lot to them.

My point is that behind every student at graduation is a family – parents, guardians, partners, children and friends – a small army of supporters willing them on to succeed. And every student has fought their own battles to get their degrees, many of which were probably fought in private.

Congrats to the @uniofbeds #Classof2017! #BedsGrads 🎉🙌🎓 pic.twitter.com/GJZUxhN2YZ

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) November 16, 2017

So to the Class of 2017, I salute you!    

By the way, our press releases about graduations are now online, so please do take a look.

Navigating the PR minefield of Clearing

A level results day and the opening of Clearing for University PR teams is competitive in the best of years and this year by anyone’s standards is not the best of years.

The number of people applying for UK university places has fallen by more than 25,000 (4%) compared to last year. Top that with the lifting of the student number cap, Brexit, bad press around tuition fees and student perceptions around value for money and it’s tough out there.

The priority for the Press team at the University of Bedfordshire has been to stay on message. We recognise the challenges our students are facing but we champion the benefits of a university education, the support we can offer our students, and the life changing experiences available to those who choose to study at Bedfordshire.

In the build up to A level results days our strategy has been to put a human face to our messaging. The press team can shout about it but it’s much more effective if it’s a first-hand experience. To that end we showcase the experience of successful graduates who have come through Clearing to inspire potential applicants. We also field our student support staff to discuss all the help, support and advice available to our students, and help students who have benefited from that support tell their story.

On A level results day – it’s a whole new ball game - we’re pitching for broadcast media. Regionals are interested in the story after the opening of the results envelope, while nationals are looking for a broader sector message.

Luckily we were able to do both; while we may not have had Lenny Henry answering our phone lines aka Birmingham City  (yes I was jealous) we did manage interviews across national and regional broadcast media on the day letting applicants know we are here, we have places and to please give us a call.

However Clearing isn’t over in a day and the press team has continued to look how it can best support the University’s recruitment efforts through the long tail of Clearing with case studies, messages around student support , value for money and of course the wonder of Freshers!

Clearing and the countdown to Canada

It feels like the Communications Team at Bedfordshire hasn’t stopped for the past couple of weeks. We had preparation for Clearing, then we had Clearing itself, and now we have a moment to take stock and catch our breath (famous last words!)

The majority of my prep for Clearing was around case studies. I’ve spent a lot of time digging around looking for former students who went through Clearing and went on to have successful careers. We have graduates all over the place, working as BBC journalists, actors, nurses and many other professionals, but we also have those who have gone on to start their own businesses, including Ann Akin, who set up her own theatre company.

.@Harts_Theatre AD & @uniofbeds alumna @Ann_Akin reveals what it's like to work in the #theatre https://t.co/Uz8EXA8Bcn #MakeitBeds pic.twitter.com/GeZXuUNm5P

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) August 30, 2017

I’m always really grateful to all the students and graduates who agree to be case studies. We can be incredibly busy during the working day, and the fact that these guys take time out to talk about their experiences and read through the content of their case study is amazing.

.@uniofbeds student @OneWalshMeister shares his experience of going through #Clearing #MakeItBeds #BedsNews https://t.co/A0xSsEHEyF

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) August 17, 2017

I was also saddened to hear about the imminent closure of one of our local newspapers, the Bedfordshire on Sunday. This will be a huge blow to the local community and also local journalism in general. I completed many a work experience placement on local papers, and although I never had what it takes to be a 'real' journalist, I loved every minute of my time working as one and the experience ultimately helped me get into the ‘dark side’ of public relations, which I love! Best of luck to the Beds on Sunday team and their future adventures!

I’d also like to mention that I’m on Canada countdown – next week I’ll be jetting off to Toronto for some much-needed downtime with my parents. It is a country I have always wanted to visit and though I’m only there for a week, I fully intend to take it all in and enjoy every moment, and hopefully see a moose!

I wonder if I could bring one home as an office mascot...

Digital first clearing

How many blogs in the HE bloggershere will, over the next few weeks be about clearing? Answer – Probably a lot.

So why move away from what everyone is talking about, let’s add to that with this week’s blog, by me, on clearing.

In the digital team we are definitely getting clearing ready.

The website has been live for two months, and is constantly evolving as we climb further up the rankings in various league tables and awards. The site this this year also boasts a wonderfully enhanced section on our success stories. Here we highlight those alumni who used clearing as an option to choose a university, who perhaps without the clearing process may have taken a different path.

They all break down that stigma that going through clearing means you weren’t good enough to get the place you wanted. We know that this wasn’t really ever the case though, and now more than ever, as behaviours change applicants are shopping around and leaving it later to apply to university. Some of the brightest are looking for the best deal on a degree course. Clearing worked for the students we feature here though, and who’s laughing now hey? The system... no, the students, because most of them are earning more than me!

Another new addition to the clearing site this year is the way we capture data. Introducing Wistia, the video players with inbuilt data capture. Or as they refer to themselves, 'your friendly neighbourhood video platform', whatever that means. We still have our traditional call back form and click to call options to capture leads, but this year the full-length version of our epic clearing video can only be viewed once you have entered your email address. Clever huh?

A beautiful, jam packed site is wonderful, but we need to get users to the site to view all these wonderful messages.

Well the latest figures from Google show that clicks on ads for education grew by 37% last year.

There was a steady 7% growth on users searching for ‘clearing’ on mobile during the first few hours of A-level results day. With this in mind we will be running some very bespoke mobile adwords campaigns, geo-targeted and optimised minute by minute on the morning of the big day.

Now I can’t reveal my hand on this too much, but it has got us in the office all hot and bothered at the thought. So over all there is a lot going on to enhance our clearing messaging and experience for 2017.

I’m more excited about it all than Donald Trump is when ever he hears Kim Jong-un mentioned at a dinner party.

Check out www.beds.ac.uk/clearing more all the latest on our 2017 campaign.

A lesson in live tweeting

For this blog I thought I would talk about my experience of covering the Vice Chancellor’s Student Experience Awards.

This was the first time I had been able to attend these awards and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Luckily I was privy to who the winners were beforehand and was able to prepare in advance (Comms team perk!)

The stage is set for today's ceremony. Now we just need our winners! #VCSEA17 #BedsNews pic.twitter.com/5rPax9BIIq

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) May 3, 2017

Twitter on a smartphone has a lovely function where you can save draft tweets – this has saved my bacon on a number of occasions when I have been live-tweeting.

Armed with the trusty #VCSEA17 hashtag, I wrote a tweet for each winner and saved it as a draft, ready to slot in a photo and send out when the time came. I also took a bit of time to find out if the winners had Twitter accounts that I could use while tweeting. Working at Bedfordshire has taught me many things, but when it comes to live tweeting, preparation is everything!

The hard work paid off when I got back to the office the next day and realised that the Twitter activity as a result of my tweeting had earned us 14,000 impressions in just one day!

Fantastic afternoon Not to be forgotten! Very kind words from @gurchrandhawa . Thank you to @CJacobi16 @uobnews @Profgailk @divhealthpsych https://t.co/R9JjdLsdZk

— Jolel (@JolelMiah) May 3, 2017

Once the awards got underway, it was fantastic to see the reaction of the winners as they went up to collect their awards. One highlight was Customer Services Advisor Arsalan Sheikh who jumped for joy when his name was called out (no jokes, he actually did!)

Another highlight for me was that I was aware that PhD student Jolel Miah, who I know well, had won the Deputy Lieutenant Community Engagement Award. He of course didn’t know this, and keeping it quiet beforehand was a challenge, but the look on his face when he realised he had won was priceless!

I’d like to say a huge congratulations to all the winners of this year’s awards. You can see the full list of winners here.

.@uniofbeds PhD students @JolelMiah & @Hamdi_Lemamsha honoured at Student Experience Awards: https://t.co/U2NoOB1yHe #VCSEA17 #BedsNews pic.twitter.com/J5TIKYIpDG

— UoB Press Office (@uobnews) May 5, 2017

Prospectus, and panels and pitches; oh my!

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager


Whilst a large element of my role can be desk bound - crunching numbers, planning campaigns, writing evaluations, and putting my organisation hat on to drive initiatives forward, one of the bits of my role that I happen to love the most are the chances to be 'creative'. So it's no surprise to read that this week was Prospectus pitch week. Hurrah!  

Searching for the perfect agency
to partner with.

We've been running a tender to appoint a creative agency to work alongside us on the latest publications for 2019 (2019 already, you say!). So after getting through all the paperwork, questionnaires, budgets and admin, we're at the bit I love best - the creative presentations. It's great to meet different agencies, breathe new life into our work, and ensure we're future proofing our designs, our brand and our proposition to drive recruitment for the coming years (so no pressure then?).

It's always a crammed packed day of back-to-back presentations - but it definitely gets the creative juices flowing across the team. Colleagues from the Recruitment team, and International office joined us, to ensure we had key stakeholder views taken into account, and it made for a fun day for everyone (or at least I hope). We're still deliberating over which agency to work with, and so after we've totaled all the scores I'm sure we'll be able to share with you who we've selected, and some exclusive sneak peaks as to how the visuals could be developing for our future recruitment campaigns. Stay tuned!

Can you ever be too organised?

As the chair of the panel, it's my job to lead the day, keep us on time, and to drive the questioning to ensure we get all of the information we need from each of the agencies to make a good, informed decision. (This is where my organisational hat comes into play again). After all, it's not just a pretty design and nice prospectus cover that we're looking for. A key part of producing the prospectus is all about the processes and structures in place (boring! I hear you say). Ok, so perhaps not the most exciting part of the pitches, but for me, whose produced more than 20 Bedfordshire prospectuses I know a thing or two about the logistical nightmare that can be the prospectus, and if you don't have the right people, processes and infrastructure in place to deliver your publication the whole thing can be absolute torture to deliver. Don't get me wrong, creative is definitely important, but my key driver is making sure we have a company who can deliver on the creative - there's nothing worse than having high hopes for your publication, and half way in, finding out the end result is far from your grasp.

The team (left to right: Sara,
Beverley, Kylie and Sarah).

In other news, we've sadly said farewell to Kylie, our Marketing Officer this week. She's left the team this week for pastures new - and is relocating back up north to Newcastle University. We're all really sad to see her go, after three years as part of the team. For those of you who have worked with Kylie, I'm sure you'll agree she's been an instrumental colleague in running our open day campaigns. We wish her all the best, and am sure we'll still see her round on the university circuit in the not too distant future.

But to cheer us all up, and stop us feeling all sorry for ourselves as our marketing team of three has dwindled to a team of just two, we were absolutely delighted to find out just now, that we've been short-listed for not one, but two, Heist awards - for Best Undergraduate Student Recruitment Initiative, and Best Marketing Team of the Year! Now Heist had been keeping us on our toes, and fully in suspense as to when the big reveal would be, and it certainly didn't disappoint. It's been some much needed excitement in the office as we can reflect on our achievements, and celebrate our successes - small we may be, but mighty and effective we are! Usually, we've just entered submissions for our work, but this year I decided this was the year to celebrate us as a team - and boy am I surprised to see we've been short-listed. To have been short-listed for team of the year is a massive coup, and a particular career high for me on a personal note. For our regular readers, you'll often see me banging on about awards, and how much we love them - but it's a big boost for the team, and a lovely end to the week!

Absolutely thrilled to see we've been shortlisted for 2 @heistawards. The @uniofbeds team are celebrating in the office as we speak 😜😬

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) May 19, 2017

The importance of working with a good agency

The team are currently looking ahead to the 2019 publications. I’ve recently updated the tender briefs and met with agencies.

As the HE landscape becomes more competitive, we need to find different ways to engage with our audiences and ensure our campaigns and publications work harder to showcase the benefits of studying at Bedfordshire. This is why working with a good agency on these projects becomes ever more important. Working with great agencies is imperative; an agency needs to understand the sector and challenges within HE but also the challenges and direction of the University.

We realise that as the landscape changes, we as a university are becoming more demanding in our requirements and expectations of agencies. And also being a marketing team of three, means we’re looking for an agency that can very much be an extension of the team whilst supporting us on our publication projects; from quickly understanding our needs and reacting through creative solutions, to seamless project management, which in turn makes our job that little bit easier.

3 steps to finding the right agency:

We're currently testing our undergraduate
2018 prospectus, to see what
prospective students think  

• Look for companies who have sector experience – they need hit the ground running but also come up with solid creative approaches to briefs
• Set up an initial chat – meet with agencies to find out more about them and also give them an opportunity to find out more about you. This in turn will mean should they tender, there creative approaches will hopefully match the brief and give us something to consider/worth with 
• Be specific – be clear on what is it you need/expect from an agency. Make sure briefs are clear and take into account market research (we’re currently testing the UG 2018 publication). Tenders should also allow you to showcase relevant proof points, to ensure agencies are capable of delivering what is needed 

It’s also important not to expect a ‘readymade’ creative solution to briefs – when we meet new agencies we want to see a clear rationale for design concepts being presented, and a good understanding of the audience and the brief set. We’re then happy to take a readymade option – if one is presented – or work with the appointed agency to develop a design approach.

So as we embark on the 2019 publication tender, I’m excited to see what agencies can bring to the table!

Speak soon,
K

Reflections from the IoIC Excellence Awards

I don’t think anyone starts out in their career with the goal of winning awards, unless you’re an Olympic athlete or something like that of course!

A lot of the time, because what you do at work becomes second nature, you don’t realise how amazing it is.

I’m definitely someone who likes to work away in the background and I find praise difficult to take in, often because I think ‘I’m just doing my job’ and don’t deserve it.

Winning one of these would be nice!

I’ve been thinking a lot about awards recently. Not only because our Marketing colleagues are busy with their submissions for various things, but myself and Jenny, Bedfordshire’s Internal Communicates Manager, recently returned from York after making the shortlist for an Institute of Internal Communications (IoIC) award.

Sadly we didn’t take the top prize but we did get an Award for Excellence which we were very happy with. We also got a certificate which has pride of place on our desk.

The National Railway Museum was the perfect venue!

Although my background is in media relations and external communications, I have been more and more involved with internal communications as my career has progressed, something that I’ve really enjoyed.

I felt like a bit of impostor at the ceremony because the staff newsletter is Jenny’s creation which she set up and took care of long before I joined the team. But when I stopped and thought about it, I remembered that the newsletter is a team effort.

Me and Jenny work together to get it out every fortnight and we work hard to make sure it is full of things our colleagues across the University want to know about.

So I guess I want this post to be a reminder to everyone to take a moment and look at what you have achieved recently. Look at the do-to list you’ve managed to complete. Look at the piece of work you’ve finished that you’ve been working on for weeks. Think of the impact you made to a colleague by helping them out or making them a cup of tea when they needed it.

When you are close to something, you forget what a positive impact you’re making. We don’t have to be rocket scientists or anything that fancy but our efforts in our jobs do matter and do make a different. So take a moment to give yourself a little pat on the back - you deserve it.

Springing into action

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

The January UCAS deadline date may now be a thing of the past, and Clearing still remains some way off, but life for the Beds Marketer hasn't quiet quietened down yet. Far from it actually! This so-called 'in-between' period, is a critical part of our recruitment cycle - where simply driving applications and pushing 'apply now' messaging isn't enough.

Conversion is key

Between January and June, we're working on a campaign known as Conversion - where the focus is firmly placed on nurturing leads. We do this through sending out a series of tailored, personalised and bespoke communications to our applicants and offer holders at key times over the Spring months to keep them engaged, as we support their decision making and guide them through the next stages of the recruitment funnel. There's a lot of content curating that goes on in the team - so you may see us out and about on campus quite a lot as we showcase the student experience, our fantastic facilities, and provide a lot of functional information that helps inform and influence.

A treat to get out of the office

On top of the day-to-day marketing work, March presents a nice treat for the team, as we get to get out and about even more than usual, as we get involved in graduations.

I'd like to say that a lot of planning goes into this, but we just embrace the mayhem. We've discovered over the years that to get the most from the events (from a marketing perspective anyway), you have to get right into the very heart of it - so no pre-planning and scheduling of interviews. We're there as they come out of the church, are diving out of the way of all the hat throwing, and are capturing those very real, raw and genuine emotions of celebration.

A really nice, warm and fuzzy part
of our jobs :-)

Graduations are a really nice thing to be part of. Yes it can be chaotic on campus, with swarms of excited graduates trying to get their gowns, get their pictures taken and make it in to the Church on time, but for us, it's really rewarding to see the ultimate 'end goal' - our students achieving their dreams, as proud family and friends look on. It's also a time for us to have a touch point with our outgoing students, and to hear their experiences, their stories, and share their words of wisdom; after all they are the people who have lived and breathed the Bedfordshire experience over the last few years, so who better to speak to and hear from?

Award season has sprung

Not only is it a busy time in the recruitment cycle, and a busy and bustling time to be on campus as we see our students graduate and celebrate their success, but it's also the start of award season (did I mention the word busy enough here?). And that means many an hour spent dusting out the evaluations, reflecting on our metrics and performance, and crunching data in our best efforts to cobble together a solid entry or two! Beverley and I have spent a good few hours devising our award entries over the last few weeks - after all, these things take a big commitment to carve out the perfect submission. The Heist awards are notoriously difficult, and there's always a lot of fierce competition amongst the creme-de-la-creme of the HE world all vying for those coveted marketing accolades; and so to stand out from the other university big boys, we have to really know our data, be able to evidence our success, and convey a compelling story about what we've achieved.

Hurrah! That's our 2nd award submission done and dusted, and entered for the @heistawards. Go #TeamBeds #heist2017 #marketingteamoftheyear pic.twitter.com/vpQxoiFHoU

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) March 16, 2017

This year we've entered our Clearing 2016 campaign for the Best Undergraduate Student Recruitment Initiative, and we've also had a go at entering Marketing Team of the Year. We've never entered a team award before, but we've implemented some great projects and strategic initiatives over the last 12 months, which in turn have yielded some great results, and so we've decided that this is the year to share the story of the Beds HE Marketer. Wish us luck! We'll keep you posted on the short-list in the coming months, but for those of you who, like us, are well into awards season, take a look at the work you've done and see whether you have what it takes to enter - check out my previous blog post on writing award entries, and assessing whether you've got the evidence base to lead you to success.

What's in an award?

Beverley Hoare, Deputy Director of MARC

Why do we bother to enter awards?  It’s a lot of time and effort for potentially nothing, isn’t it?

Gearing up for awards season

Well the Marcomms team have been busy submitting entries for a range of marketing and communications awards with HEIST, CIPR and IoIC, so I guess they think there’s a point, but here’s a few thoughts from me on why I think they are important.

A win or making a shortlist is a pat on the back - recognition from our peers that we are achieving the highest, most innovative standard of work.

We can learn from others who are showcasing their own best practice – they set the bar and we try to raise it.

We gain clarity about our achievements and what we had to do to make them happen.  The looking back exercise, pouring over data and evaluating ourselves is critical for future performance; the award submission provides the focus and motivation to make us reflect.

Busy cobbling together this years' @heistawards entry for @uniofbeds. Nothing beats an afternoon of number crunching data 🤓💼📊📝 #heist2017

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) February 22, 2017

It helps us to network; awards ceremonies are some of very few opportunities to get out of the University, share experiences with others and cement relationships with peers.

We can dress up and celebrate our achievements together, as a team – being nominated has a contagious effect on our mood.

Our @Beds Newsletter has been short-listed

I can say that all this effort has given us a pretty good run of award winning over the last 5 years, but wins at HEIST have alluded us recently.  So we’ve tried even harder and submitted a more solid entry this time.

I’m delighted that in the latest run of awards we have been shortlisted by the IoIC for our staff newsletter ‘A new lease of life for staff news’.  Jenny and Caroline will be attending the ceremony in York later this month and will hopefully come back with a piece of crystal for the bulging trophy cabinet. Watch this space…

Insights from the press officer who couldn't stay away

I should probably start by introducing myself. I’m Caroline Jacobi, the Communications Officer here at the University.

I’ve been in the role for around 6 months but this isn’t my first time working at the University. I first joined in 2011 as Communications Administrator. I was a rookie, a journalism graduate who had struggled for a couple of years to find a ‘proper’ job after graduating – I don’t think I was alone in that struggle. Finding a job, especially a job you love, can be tricky.

One of my favourite shots of the Campus Centre

After a stint in the Communications Team, I moved onto pastures new, a couple of them actually, gaining more skills and knowledge with every new role I took on. But my heart stayed with Bedfordshire, so when I got the chance to return, I couldn’t’ say no. So here I am!

So what are the main changes I’ve noticed since returning? Well, the number of people in the team is probably the biggest one. In 2011 there were 5 of us, now there’s only 3. So as you can imagine, it’s never quiet, but we secretly like it that way. I mean, who wants to sit around all day with nothing to do?

Luton itself has also had a bit of a face lift. Being a local girl, it’s great to see that people are really working hard to make Luton better. The amount of investment in the town is also very exciting and it will be interesting to see how these plans become a reality.

Lovely photo of Luton in the sunshine

The media in Luton has changed somewhat too. BBC Three Counties Radio has moved out of their headquarters on Regent Street to new premises in Dunstable, and we’ve sadly lost one of our newspapers, the Luton on Sunday. But there’s plenty going on to keep the Luton News busy!

While there have been changes over the past couple of years, a few things have stayed the same. The MARC department is still full of talented and dedicated people working hard to recruit students, help students apply for courses and marketing what the University does.

The University is still full of teaching staff passionate about their work. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a couple of them but as time goes by, I want to discover even more and really shine a light on the great work that goes on here.

Graduations are my favourite events to cover

And of course, there’s still students. Lots and lots of students! I’ve come across some great stories already about our students doing all sorts of interesting and exciting things. If you want to keep updated with all our news, visit our news page.

If a picture tells a thousand words, what does a video do?

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Keeping on top of the latest
information and content trends

My last blog post was focused on the importance of imagery in marketing work. This post follows a similar theme, but this time highlights the value of video content. With online communities on the rise, as well as a real appetite for quick information, marketers have to evolve their content strategies to make sure they are getting their messages out in the most effective way. Video content is fast becoming the future of content marketing. That is, if it already isn't an expectation of many students.

Here in the Marketing team, we've been working on producing a series of location videos to support our 2017 Conversion campaign which launches next week, following on from the January UCAS deadline. As part of our conversion strategy we send out a series of communications to applicants to help them make an informed choice. But this year, we wanted to build on our work further, by telling stories, and through adopting a 'show don't tell' approach to our communications.

On location in MK

Our work has culminated in the production of two new location videos - one for Milton Keynes, and one for Bedford, as well as some social media teaser edits. It's been a big team effort to bring these videos to fruition in quite a tight time frame. There may be more of a desire for video content, but it definitely requires a lot of planning to make sure the creative output is both of a good quality and most importantly, relevant to our audience: from appointing a video production company, setting the briefs, working with the local town Councils, agreeing the film schedules and timings, all the way through to accompanying the film crew on location, and working on the edits, there's a lot of elements to fit into our working day.

Happy Birthday Milton Keynes!

But why the tight time frame, you may say? Good question! And for that, there are two answers. Firstly, our conversion campaign kicks off from next week - it's a key time in the recruitment cycle to deliver key information to encourage applicants to pick up as one of their top two choices (firm or insurance). Secondly, in order to get the best engagement from our location videos, and specifically our Milton Keynes video, we wanted to release the video to coincide with #MK50 - Milton Keynes' 50th birthday anniversary which is taking place on 23 January. And so being able to seed out the content at the optimum time is almost as important as the content itself.

Multi-channel marketing - the recipe
for success

A key part of producing any new content is considering how to get the content out and seen by the right people, and so a seeding strategy is needed. For anyone who is a regular reader of this blog, or indeed an avid social media user you couldn't help but notice our location campaign last year. It was a great success and even landed us in the top 100 University social media league table for the first time – securing a top 50 position. Social Media forms a key part of our seeding strategy, but in order to be successful, a multi-channel approach is needed. In order to realise the video's full potential and to maximise on engagements, we need to make it as easy as possible for our audience to find it and share it..

Taking inspiration from Sean Bean

For many marketers original video content is starting to dominate their strategies, and it's really not difficult to see why. Videos have the potential to go viral, or if done well, can demonstrate their share-ability, meaning our potential students will spend longer viewing our content, visiting our website and interacting with our brand - all important aspects of building up brand advocacy. Keep your eyes posted on our social media channels: Twitter and Facebook over the coming week's to see our big reveal of video content and the first pieces of what we hope to develop into a longer video content strategy.