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

More speed, less haste!

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Plate spinning - a busy time for
the HE Marketer

Well where did that week just go? It's been an incredibly busy week over here at Marketing HQ.

Not only have we been busying ourselves with the post 15 January communications to our applicants, but we've been implementing our open day campaign; readying ourselves for open day season which kicks off next week for both UG and PG, and helping the recruitment team with marketing collateral to support their events and upcoming UCAS fairs, which seem to be briefed in en masse at the moment.

One man band - the multi-
tasking Marketers

But the biggy for this week, most definitely has to be the fact that we're in the final stages of both our main UG 2016 prospectus, and the mini guide. 'So what?' I hear you say. All in a days work you may think. Well, that may be the case if I wasn't trying to do all of the above, and then some, by myself, on top of my day job. As mentioned in previous posts, our Marketing Assistant Clare left just before Christmas to embark on an adventure as she travels along the west coast of America. And Kylie, our Marketing Officer, is also away at the moment, holidaying in the tropical destination of Cuba, which means that we're a little depleted at the moment and for a few more weeks still to come. It certainly makes the days go by very quickly considering the volume of work I've been ploughing through lately, and a big nod has to go to Krystle who has been great in holding down all of the campaigns which we're running at the moment.

New recruits joining the team
shortly

In between all of the madness and mayhem, we've been able to get our new Marketing Assistant vacancy advertised (hurrah!), and so we'll keep you posted on how the interviews go towards the end of February, and we should hopefully be welcoming a new member to the team very shortly. I've also taken part in a number of interesting discussions, as the Marketing team is set to expand once more - we're also currently advertising for two Faculty Marketing Assistants who will hopefully be joining us within a matter of weeks. I couldn't be happier. These new roles will present a much needed resource and link to the Faculties, and will really cement our focus on collaborative working across the organisation. I'm particularly excited, as the two new post holders will be heavily focused on content generation - and so if you've been reading this blog recently, you'll see that one of my main priorities and favourite buzz words at the moment is content marketing, and it will be great for us to further enhance the work of the team by demonstrating value through producing and sharing engaging and dynamic content. So I can't wait for all of these exciting team developments to start taking shape.

It's all new

Hi all. I’m Kylie - another marketing ‘newbie’ having recently joined the University of Bedfordshire as Marketing Officer. As well as being new to the MARC department here and the University itself, I am also new to Luton and the South East in general.

I’m originally from the North East but have been living in the South East (Suffolk) for 19 months and very recently moved to Hertfordshire when I took up my position at the University. So, I've had lots of new things to get used to; new people, new surroundings and new ways of working.

My first three weeks...
I've been working in the MARC department for almost three weeks now, so I'm just starting to find my feet following lots of meetings and reading up on strategies and marketing plans- all really useful stuff! I've really enjoyed my three weeks here- I had a lovely introduction to the marketing team and related departments as well as a yummy welcome lunch on my first day (any excuse to eat pizza). The team are great and I’m really looking forward to working with them as I get stuck in to the workload.

As I approach my fourth week there is a lot going on with work starting on the UCMK prospectus (my first big project as part of the team) as well as open days, campaigns and the new CRM system launching. Lots to keep me busy! 

I’m also slowly working my way around the different campuses- I had my official University induction at Putteridge Bury on Tuesday (what an impressive building!) and I’m visiting our UCMK campus on Monday with my colleague Michelle, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the newest addition to UoB has to offer!

Look forward to updating you all again soon! K

All Change on the Marketing Front

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Interviewing for our
Marketing Officer

Last week saw many changes to the staffing in the central Marketing team. Firstly, I chaired an interview panel, alongside Paul Fryer (Digital Marketing Manager), and David Fryer (Web and Publications Officer in our LRC) on our quest to recruit a new Marketing Officer. It was a great day where we met a lot of promising candidates, each with a lot to offer. Michelle, our Marketing Administrator, provided a vital role on the day in doing the meet and greets, and getting each applicant to sit through a number of practical tests before each interview. The only thing to go wrong was on my part, whereby I actually forgot to allocate some time for us to have a lunch break - oops! Luckily, we managed to squeeze in sometime for a quick sandwich. Note to self for next time: actually provide a lunch break, or else I won't have a happy panel ;-). Towards the end of last week we came to a decision, and now look forward to our new Marketing Officer, Kylie Aldridge, joining us at the beginning of March.

Goodbye and good luck to
Rehanna (centre)

Secondly, Rehanna Khan, our Marketing Assistant left us for new adventures as a Marketing Officer at the University of Northampton. Rehanna had been part of the central marketing team for almost five years, and during this time had helped contribute towards our Undergraduate marketing and recruitment initiatives. The team gave her a send off in true Bedfordshire style, as we took her out for a leaving lunch to none other than Marketing favourite, Pizza Express, where we surprised her with banners, balloons, and many friends from her time at Bedfordshire.

In other news, applications for our Campaign Officer position close today, and so I'm gearing up for another week or short-listing, devising practical tests, preparing interview questions, and working up an interview schedule that actually includes time for a sandwich or two, if my panel are lucky! There are lots of changes within the team at the moment, but we look forward to welcoming each of our new starters, and shaping the next generation of university marketers.