Want to share best practice? We’re on the CASE!

So I recently attended the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) European Annual Conference 2015 in Manchester. For those who may not be familiar with CASE, it’s an organisation that helps people within the education sector to share knowledge, best practice, and training. Each year they hold an annual conference, and this year I got the opportunity to attend.

An informative three days of networking and sharing knowledge!

It was a three day conference in Manchester (starting off with a 6am train the day after Bank Holiday Monday!), and it was three days packed full of presentations, case studies and interactive sessions. There’s something for everyone; people working in communications; alumni; marketing; management (strategy) and fundraising. And there were even people from the Netherlands and Australia in attendance. So lots of networking, note taking and learning!

I tried to mix up the presentations that I attended. I attended mainly marketing focused sessions, but I also went to some communications ones too.

A couple of things I’ve taken away from the conference:

• The contribution of location to the HE service scope
  
        A really good session which was run by Portsmouth Business School looked at the research they had done into how UK universities talk about themselves and how the majority of universities use location as a main focus. They also spoke about other factors such as physical, social and sociological dimensions that universities use when communicating to their audiences, and there was a group discussion about whether an emotional or cognitive response is more important. The conclusion was it doesn’t seem to make a difference in ‘who’ a university is or where they are in the UK; all universities want to ‘tick all boxes.’ As we’ve recently embarked on a verbal branding project, which we are now rolling out across the University, this was a particularly interesting session for me to take part in.

• Working with your research community
  
        Another great session run by the University of Huddersfield in which they presented the ways they worked with their research community to produce valuable content to show the gravitas of the university and its achievements. This was really interesting as the University of Bedfordshire have had a real focus on this, and it was good to see how another university has tackled this. They discussed the research literature they produce, including how items are distributed and to which audience and also discussed how they encourage academics to use social media to showcase their work and also link in with the universities core strategy around research. Food for thought…

The overarching themes that stood out in the sessions which I attended were the value of authenticity, producing more dynamic content and being more interactive are key to reaching the student audiences in 2016 and beyond!  

Events like these are invaluable for networking, meeting peers and sharing knowledge with people in the same industry. Market research is a big part of Marketing, and events like these go that little bit further in terms of discussing what’s happening within other institutions and learning from each other.

I hope I get the opportunity to go again next year.

Speak soon,

K

Who knew I could juggle?!

It’s been quite a while since I blogged! As the team is expanding, we are sharing the blogging, so I don’t get to bore you quite so much! Hurray! The team have all been really busy over the last couple of weeks, this is our busiest time of the year as we gear up for Clearing, start to evaluate the academic cycle and start to look ahead to next year’s cycle too. We're juggling a lot of work between such a small team, but we always manage to do what we gotta do!

How I think I look juggling all of
my work

Next stop…my desk!

Well, I’ve been out and about a lot since I last blogged. I’ve been assisting the Recruitment team with UCAS events. I attended one day of the event in London last month and I also attended one day at the Leicester event last week. It’s really nice going out and talking to prospective students and not only showcasing what Bedfordshire has to offer but also offering advice and guidance to people who have some big decisions to make about their future and careers. I’m not sure I would want to go back to that age! We had a lot of people come over for a chat, and got some really nice comments that we had provided them with some useful information, which is lovely.

I also attended a CASE conference in London on Tuesday. For those not familiar with CASE, they offer support to people working in the Education sector through the likes of forums and conferences, where people who work in Education can network and share best practice. This particular event looked at student communication. There were a couple of really interesting presentations on the use of social media, and using students in communication, through blogs (which we already do might I add).  It was great to see how other institutions run similar activities, but managed in a completing different way. Food for thought!

Take a look at our blogger page here.

Open days

Not again, I hear you cry! I feel like I always mention open days in every blog, so I won’t bore you too much with the details, but we had our latest (and last) undergraduate open day on 25 April for this academic cycle. And we’re currently working on our last PG open day campaign for this cycle on 21 May. So lots of emails, media, and social media activity taking place.

Reports

Which leads me nicely on to another thing I always mention…REPORTS and EVALUATIONS! I’m still working on my annual evaluation reports for our UG and PG open day campaigns, which are progressing slowly but surely. We’re at the end of this year’s open day cycle now, so I can now get on with analysing the full cycle of open day campaigns. They’re providing some good insight and showing some great successes in terms of the activity we have put together which is really nice to see. I look forward to sharing them with the wider MARC team.

Conversion communications

We’ve also now started sending two monthly e-zines to undergraduates, so I’ve been out filming videos and creating some new content for these. They went out yesterday, so it’s now on to this month’s editions - we’re in May! Woah! But fear not, I have my content planned for each edition up until the end of August, so all is under control.

Publications

Work is well underway on our 2016 UCMK prospectus now; we’re due to get the second proof from the designer on Tuesday and it’s looking nice. The PG prospectus is moving a little more slowly, but we’re starting to get there, so in the next few weeks we’ll be fully consumed by all things PG! I'm also working on the new student guide for this September. There’s lots of work going on behind the scenes around our ‘Welcome’ for new students, so I can slowly start to work on this publication and feed in new information once decisions are finalised. Working to a tight deadline of 6 weeks! Crikey!

You guessed it- how I look right now
in reality

I’ve also been working on some adhoc bits such as a flyer for our UCMK campus and a pull up banner for an event that’s being held in the Computing department next month. Oh, and a fair few meetings.

Hmm, I think that’s enough for now. Roll on the bank holiday...I’m going to Newmarket races so let’s hope the sun comes back out.
   

Speak soon,

K

CASE Conference 2014

Last week I travelled to Edinburgh for the CASE (Council for Advancement and Support of Education) Europe Annual Conference 2014, along with almost 1,000 delegates from countries across the continent.

I boarded a flight from Luton airport early on Tuesday morning and arrived just in time for midday registration and opening plenary. The two and a half days that followed were full of inspiring case studies, funny speeches, informative presentations and motivational advice. A couple of ideas particularly inspired me:

• Digital content marketing
  A brilliant session with Oxford Brookes’ Tim Gibson and Richard Sills sparked lots of ideas about how best to use digital content to content to engage audiences. Interestingly, the University magazine, Observe, is ‘going digital;’ the print version of the annual magazine is now available as a digital page-turner, and Observe will soon be supported by an online, interactive, content-driven social space where students will easily be able to share and comment on content
• Connecting with people can make us relevant
  Jason Simon from University of California (UC) got me thinking about how I could be talking about the University of Bedfordshire in the marketing material I produce. UC ran a great campaign focussed on connecting themselves to peoples’ every day, local lives: ‘Whether you know it or not UC has probably played a part in your day/life.’ This opened up opportunities for them to draw in research (ie. our researcher has created a tool kit to help social workers help you), specific courses (ie. our nurses are helping the people of Luton in the L&D hospital right now) etc. Making the most of our good news by making them into stories that really connect with people.

There were a few fun evenings of entertainment involved too! It was great to attend the Welcome Reception at the National Museum of Scotland at the end of day one:

Great space for the @CASE_Europe Welcome Reception tonight. Day one is complete. GO TEAM #ceac14 #Edinburgh pic.twitter.com/4YwVC5MyH0
— Sam Sciberras (@SamSciberras7) August 26, 2014

Of course, taking three days out of the office has left me with a hefty to-do list this week, but it's well worth it; I've returned to my desk full of ideas that I hope to put into action over the coming weeks and months.

On the case

By Sarah Hampton - Marketing Manager

Arriving at the Case Conference

This week is my first week back in the office, and also my first official week as the new Marketing Manager, having been away at the Case Europe Annual Conference following on from the recent bank holiday. As my remit has now expanded to look after both Undergraduate and Postgraduate Marketing (In my former role as Marketing Officer my main domain was Postgraduate), I decided that I needed to refresh my knowledge, and what better way to reacquaint myself than by attending a three day conference dedicated to Higher Education!

Pen poised; fetching purple lanyard - that can only mean 1thing. I'm @mcr_central ready to begin the @caseconference @CASE_Europe #ceac2013
— Sarah Hampton (@Sarah_Hampton) August 27, 2013

Manchester Convention Centre

This years' Case Conference was held at the Manchester Convention Centre, and played host to more than 900 delegates from all areas of Marketing, Communications, Digital Marketing, Alumni Relations and Fundraising. It really provided a great networking opportunity, and in my usual sponge-like way, I was able to soak up lots of interesting information about what challenges other universities are facing, and how they are tackling them. It was also great to catch up with some companies that we've worked with closely over the last year including the Guardian, and Graduate Prospects.

Reputation, reputation, reputation!
One of the many sessions at Case.

The conference itself can be quite intensive, with back-to-back sessions lined up within each specialised area. For the duration of the three days I opted to follow the 'Marketing track' as closely as possible, attending sessions such as "We're all marketers now - engaging the organisation in the development of a marketing culture" and "Stand apart from the crowd - uncovering and proving your unique selling points" - both of which are quite topical and timely for us at Bedfordshire. I also attended a session run by the University of Reading, entitled "The 3 R's: Reputation, reputation, reputation" (see above image). Quite an insightful look into managing brands, and how not to - with a few humourous case studies thrown in there for good measure.

China Town, Manchester

To round up my experience in Manchester, I teamed up with our very own Alumni Relations Manager, Lucia Limb (who was also a delegate); and we did what any self respecting tourist would do: head on down to China town, and so that is exactly what we did! We were spoilt for choice as we took in the sights, sounds, and delicious smells; and promptly settled down for what was an incredible feast of food.

For some reading this blog, you'll be wondering why I'm not reporting back on the first evening in Manchester which was spent with my new found HE friends, well, in short it involved a fabulous rum bar, many cocktails, and a very slow start to the next day. But that's for another blog, another time. ;-)

Clearing the way

By Sarah Hampton - Marketing Manager

In my last post, back in July, I mentioned that we’d started off the preparation for our 2015 publications. Well, a lot has happened since then. The briefs have been written, the print specs have been set, and our tender has now officially gone out with the help of the University’s procurement team. It’s all very exciting. So, it’s over to the creative agencies now to impress us with their designs. Our creative pitches are due next month, and so we’ll be able to bring you more details on the tender then – so continue to watch this space as we keep you informed.

Tube car panels - London underground

We’re now well into this years’ clearing campaign, but then you already knew that didn’t you? Our campaign has been bigger and better than ever, and we’re getting a lot of fantastic, positive comments from staff and students alike, as they see their University’s presence out en masse in the community. Last week Michelle and I took a trip down to London to meet with CBS Outdoor, as they gave us a run through of all of our media platforms where we could see our campaign running live – it was also a great opportunity to see what all of our competitors are doing, and how we compare! As marketers, we’re always keen to be sussing out the competition and benchmarking the work that we do on our quest for perfection.

Your Guide to Starting
with us - 2013

Clearing has definitely been a big team effort. Rehanna has also been busy over the last few weeks with our publication that is sent to all new starters, entitled Your Guide to Starting with us. This publication was delivered to our Admissions team ready to send out with our student offer letters on results day. Since it was printed, we have had a lot of colleagues from the wider University getting in touch to tell us what they think (all very positive, of course!), and wanting to get more involved in this key publication, which is great for us! We’re always keen to involve others in our work. It's the first year that we have sent this to both Undergraduate and Postgraduate students, so we're very interested to see what our students think. Take a look at the online version of this guide.

Time to celebrate!

In other news, I'm very pleased to share with you that earlier today I was appointed to the permanent role of Marketing Manager for the University of Bedfordshire - yay me! I'm very excited to get my teeth into this new role and look forward to being able to inject my creativity into our upcoming plans and projects - so be sure to keep your eye on this blog as we share ideas and tackle next years' marketing challenges. For my first week as the new manager I'll be off to the Case Conference in Manchester to soak up lots of knowledge and network with other Marketers in the sector, so if you too will be at the Case Conference, don't be a stranger!