Postgraduate Forum: June

Postgraduate Taught Courses in a falling market

Yesterday I was in London for the latest PG Forum, 'UK PGT in a falling market - how to reverse the trend'. The event saw delegates from over 25 universities across the country gather to discuss the downward trend in PGT applications and the ways in which we, as marketers and recruiters, might be able to change things.

It was a very interesting day of discussion, and the willingness of delegates to share experiences and ideas was really heartening. Though I'm not sure we got anywhere near figuring out how to reverse the downward trend in PGT applications, some really great ideas were discussed.

Useful considerations to come from the day:
1. Widening Participation
This was a big topic of conversation throughout the day; lots of Universities, like us, seemed to be doing fairly well at converting their undergraduates into postgraduates but the general consensus was that this won't be enough in the future. There was lots of discussions about the accessibility of PG and how we can encourage applications from students based on experience rather than a UG qualification, in order to attract those who might not consider themselves capable of PG study.
2. 'The Postgraduate cliff '
This phrase rather ominously came up on multiple occasions throughout the day. Almost everyone in attendance is worried about what happens when the first £9,000 fees UG cohort reaches their final year; how will they react to PG, and will their already substantial debt put them off? If it does, how do we react?
3. University Systems vs. The Student Experience
During a fascinating student panel, we heard that one current PG student dismissed lots of possible universities based on not being able to pay fees in installments and also the request for her UG transcript before she had received it from her current university. Although it was widely accepted that university processes are in place for good reason, it was interesting that students are dismissing universities because their processes make it too difficult to apply.
   
Other updates

• While we're nearing the print phase of the UCMK 2015 prospectus, the proofing of the PG 2015 is still in full swing. Everything seems to be on track and we're seeing lots of progress being made with each set of proofs that comes in. 
• We're working hard on promoting the upcoming June undergraduate open days, and numbers are growing steadily. 
• You might have noticed the new, large Postgraduate Information Point stand that is now in Park
  Square campus. We hope you'll agree it's looking really good, and we'll be making sure the screen is live and the stand fully stocked by the time our undergraduates are back on campus after summer. 
• I've been spending lots of time filming staff and students, creating content in the form of one minute long mini-lectures ('PGTips'), continuing to film Q&A interviews, and videoing our very own Recruitment Team for the newly launched CRM system, Belong at Beds. 

As ever there's loads of smaller jobs going on alongside those big ones so we're all being kept on our toes.

I'm sure we'll catch up soon!

Clare

In the middle of the action

By Michelle Ramsumair, Marketing Administrator

In Marketing it's always a learning curve, whether you are learning new skills or discovering what you enjoy doing. I am definitely learning that I enjoy being away from the desk, interacting with people, rather than on a PC. Nothing wrong with desk work, but it's just not me.

Last week I joined Paul Fryer and Sarah Hampton at the Inside Government 'The Future of HE Marketing" Conference 2014 in London. I enjoyed being able to give some support and be a friendly face in a sea of the unfamiliar. There were many people scribbling away and nodding throughout which is always a good sign your audience are engaged, and shows how insightful their presentation was.

Straight after, there was no time to break but I was onward bound to Newcastle to join Josie from Student
Recruitment. Always wanted to go there so volunteered to assist at the UCAS convention at the Newcastle Metro Radio Arena. En-route I had Disney's Frozen to keep me company (highly recommended by the way).

The event took place the next day, and once we finally found the entrance, set up our stand and doors opened, it was game on to speak to as many potential students as possible, providing them with the information they wanted about the course, application process and how they can find out more. It's like a one stop shop where potential students can visit stands from universities from across the country to collect information to help them start thinking about where to study. I love to talk so perfect opportunity and as a graduate of the University of Bedfordshire, I have a lot to promote! Usually it's a great excuse for students to pick up as many freebies. Then they soon realise that they've only reached halfway round the stands and already have a pile of prospectuses which they can barely balance.

One day was down another to go, but we had to travel to Middlesborough ready to do the same the next day. Didn't get a chance to see the Angel of the North unfortunately, but determined to one day!

Thankfully then came the bank holiday weekend. Sleep and catching up on TV shows were on my agenda, and the only things on there. I booked a second holiday to Israel for later this year. This then looked rather small compared to my mum and sister's impulse holiday purchase to Dubai and Thailand in two weeks time. At least I still have something to look forward to!

Hot off the press

Very excitingly, a box full of 2015 undergraduate prospectuses arrived in the office yesterday morning. We’re really pleased with the outcome of weeks and weeks of hard work; the die-cut cover has worked well, and the whole thing looks really fresh and colourful.

In other news this week...

I spent a day in London where I attended the CIM Principles of Great Copywriting course.

It was a pretty intensive day of training, but it was full of interesting discussion and creative ideas about how to keep copy accessible while making it fresh and exciting to read.

The course leader told us that if we want to write engaging copy, we must allow ourselves the space to be creative. Something that resonated with all the delegates was Disney’s model for coming up with ideas:

Three people walk into a room. Person one is the dreamer. The dreamer writes down all their thoughts without censoring of filtering them in any way. Person two is the realist; they enter the room and works through all the dreamer’s thoughts, trying to make sense of them and give them some logic, shaping them into a useable idea. Person three is the critic. The critic takes the ideas presented to them and brings up reasonable objections.

We, as writers, should be all three: we should start off by writing down a high volume of our most creative ideas. We probably won’t use them all, but might find one or two ideas that stand out and that we can work on and polish. Writers will always need to think about the practicalities of what they are writing and be ready to accept constructive criticism in order to create the strongest possible end product. 

The course couldn’t have been better timed, just before we start work on the 2015 postgraduate prospectus. Hopefully all the new ideas from training will inspire me to write some great copy.

Happy Friday!

Clare

It's a game of Guess Who

By Michelle Ramsumair, Marketing Administrator

It's nice to see what is going on at the campus, but being located off campus we don't get to. So opportunities where we can take a quick wonder round to feel part of the buzz, we head for a meeting there. It amazes me how much we can interact with people but if we were to see them in the street we wouldn't have a clue. I always try to put a face to a voice or name so met with a couple contacts I have been working with when I book directly for media activity for campaigns. That's always a good way to build the relationship, negotiate deals and get to meet new people.

We've never worked with a media agency before so we were not too sure what to expect when we went to London to meet the team. However, they were reassuring and we soon realised just how much they can do. Also, we finally have budget approval for the Pre-Clearing campaign! I just need to rework it to fit and then it's go go GO! It's always a massive team effort to execute these plans successfully and promptly. We do tend to work on the edge here, but will be much better once the Campaigns Officer starts. Next month we have a few new faces to welcome which will be exciting.We're a very welcoming bunch and thanks to Sarah's induction schedule they will feel like part of the team in no time.

I do enjoy sitting at the Marketing team's pod as I got to see the little victory dance my colleague did when she finally signed off the UG 2015 prospectus (no video footage available unfortunately). We work super hard so a celebratory outing is definitely in order. However, hot desking waiting for my PC I now occupy two desks and somehow with the same amount of paperwork on both. I must say for an Administrator I am rather messy.

I have my next CIM exam next week so have been studying for what feels like forever. I know it will all pay off  in the end so just got to keep pushing through. During the stressful times it's always worth having things to look forward to though like one of my closest friend's weddings in Easter and I booked my flight to Israel for the summer. I'm so excited!

Work hard and...work harder

By Michelle Ramsumair

Recently I attended the CIM Writing an integrated marketing communications plan training day in Euston, London. The title is pretty self explanatory and it’s something we should all be doing in some way but we don't always take the time to step back from the daily grind to really consider exactly why we are doing what we are doing. It was reassuring so see we are on the right track but learnt a lot from the workshop leader and hearing feedback from other organisations in different industries.

We are currently looking to work with a media agency to assist with the logistics of the campaigns. We have never done this before but with the number of campaigns we roll out now it has become more apparent this is needed. The challenge will be making sure everything from the bookings to the artwork is as transparent and integrated as possible. However, here we do enjoy a challenge and for me it’s a new project to sink my teeth into.

We had our first Applicant Open Day this Saturday gone at our Bedford campus which was very successful. I always enjoy working these and helping nervous applicants and parents as much as possible. Everyone enjoyed the day and improvements for this type of event definitely paid off. Our next one is at our Luton campus this Saturday 08 February where more registrants are expected. I think flat shoes are in order again! For further information about our open days feel free to visit www.beds.ac.uk and click '2014 Applicant Open Days' for more details. 

I am currently working on a campaign for Aylesbury to promote the March intake for Adult Nursing. As we haven’t done much promoting for this in the past, it is very interesting to work on as we will be able to better measure and review throughout as it is very specific. If you know anyone who maybe interested why not recommend they come along to our healthcare open day on Saturday 15 February at our Aylesbury campus.

With all the above going on it's important to just break away, maybe to some scenic views and fresh air. I was either rather brave or silly but I decided to take a trip to The Downs on what was possibly the windiest day of the week. Enjoy the view!

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! 

There's no stopping us now

By Michelle Ramsumair - Marketing Administrator

Here's my proof!

I have come back to the buzzing office after a couple days off. One of these days included climbing through the trees, pushing your body to the limit and playing Tarzan. Let me put it this way, Go Ape is amazing and highly recommended, but then I soon realised, coming back to work, that Clearing is very much the same as it's just as crazy! As I don’t have any photos, certain colleagues such as Lauren doubt my adventurous side.

Clearing campaign 2013 (bus rear)

August has finally arrived and ongoing preparations for this busy month and Clearing continue. No matter how prepared we are, it will only get busier, but our teams are ready to hit the ground running come 15 August, so bring it on! If you haven’t seen already or read the previous post, our Clearing campaign has started early this year.

We have a lot going on from buses and billboards which are already up, to...well...you will just have to wait and see. Other universities have begun early this year too, so as well as our own promoting we are keeping an eye out to see who is doing what. It’s rather interesting and nothing wrong with some healthy competition. I managed to catch a glimpse of our advert on some buses locally and in London.

Maurice the Marketing Penguin

Lauren’s last week with us has arrived sadly. However, she is just moving to the Digital Marketing team which is a stone throw away on the next pod. So we will just have to shout a little louder to speak to her really. We are all very happy for her moving upwards and it’s nice to know we will still be supporting one another.