Reflecting on the past and looking to the future

Next month I will be celebrating my third anniversary of working within the Marketing department at the University of Bedfordshire. Although at times it doesn’t feel like I’ve been here that long, upon reflection it’s been a busy three years! In that time there’s been a desk move, a few changes to the team, and a change in my job title, and that’s just me getting started! I’ve also worked on five prospectuses, written countless e-zines, and interviewed several of our students and staff for video content and case studies. The team have also won various awards from Heist and CIPR (shameless plug - sorry!).

Whenever people ask me what I love about my job I always answer with the diversity of the role. The great thing about working in a Marketing role is that no two days are ever the same – some days I’m writing copy for our marketing materials, other days I’m briefing our designers on our artwork. You may also find me roaming around campus taking photos and video footage, or even helping the Recruitment team at our Open Days and other recruitment events. There are of course tasks that are more regular, such as promoting our Open Days, or writing content for our monthly e-zines, but other tasks, such as organising photo-shoots, or having the opportunity to sit on tender briefings may only take place once a year. 

The other great thing about my role is that, due to the nature of the marketing industry and the higher education sector, my role is ever changing. Because of this I’m always learning , whether this be through

attending higher education forums, or through in-house training. When I started this role I had limited experience with Photoshop, and though I’m far from an expert, I’ve developed my knowledge throughout my time here. Over the next few months I will be furthering my knowledge of the Adobe package by learning how to properly use InDesign, which will help me when I’m creating various promotional materials within my role. I’m excited to develop my skills in this area and will hopefully be able to share some of my work with you soon!

Sara

There's always more than one reason to celebrate

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Trying to wrap everything up
is no small task!

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

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

Take a look at our big brand 'Hero' content

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

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

10 year work anniversary

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

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

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

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

— Heist Awards (@heistawards) July 13, 2017

Celebrating our big win on stage

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

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

We made the nom's list - woo!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Really guys - check the folder!

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

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

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…

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

By Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

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

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

Who needs sleep when you
can write awards!

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

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

Before you start

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

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

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

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

Getting started

Be individual - sometimes small
or niche can win big

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

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

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

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

Failing to plan, is planning to fail

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

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

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

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

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

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