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.

We smashed it (clearing that is, not a pumpkin)

We’ve been recruiting students through clearing for many years, providing an essential service to students looking to be accepted on to an undergraduate course.  It’s an opportunity for students who are just considering university and haven't applied in main cycle, those who have not been accepted on to their chosen course and those wanting to change their decision.  But with the increasing marketisation of HE we have faced growing competition from other universities in clearing; some entering for the first time.  So this has caused us some nervousness in believing we could achieve our objectives.

However, we prepare well, draw on past performance to determine our objectives and targets and, given the changes in the external environment in which we operate, we give a significant focus to competitor response.  This year we deliberately set ourselves some challenging targets and went all out to achieve them.

Recently our bloggers have made comparisons with running and cycling challenges, so now it’s my turn and as I’m an obsessive dancer the comparison is ballroom!  

I recently attended the 64th International Ballroom Championships at the Royal Albert hall.  It's a fantastic spectacle but really hard for a spectator to judge the dancers as the pairs seem to be offering something very similar, in a confined space for a short time span (one tune) – but eventually they are knocked out and whittled down to the final six.  The dancers move around the ballroom with skill, speed and fluidity, but bump they do - politely apologise and dance on. 

Clearing feels like this - meticulously choreographed, staged, rehearsed and performed - highly competitive but in a sector that is respectful and for the most part plays within the rules, for a very finite period of time in a crowded market place. It's a performance where we are trying to outdo each other with our visual spectacle; we compete hard for the best space in front of the judges (students) and capture their attention.  

So what can I say - we definitely reached the final.  We know we smashed it (thanks Pete for this inspired phrase) in terms of the targets we set ourselves - web hits, phone calls, offers and accepts.  We know the campaign was successful because we have evidence of a strong positive correlation between campaign channels and web goals, phone calls and live chat.

But the best part of this achievement is that our success is infectious - it enthuses and inspires us to achieve more.  The language we are using is positive and uplifting ‘smashed it’ – it’s no wonder competitors go on to multiple success.  Roll on clearing 2017 – we’ll be ready for you. 

Hitting the ground running - Clearing, campaign and carbs!

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Take your marks. Get set...
Advertise!

Planning for, and implementing, the Clearing Campaign is like getting ready for a race (well, to us anyway). And it requires a certain amount of training and groundwork to see you through. See our handy guide to getting set, and getting through Clearing below...

Preparation
Clearing for many becomes a hot topic of conversation in the run up to A level results day. But for us in Marketing HQ, it's never far from our minds. Planning for the campaign starts almost straight after the previous Clearing Campaign has concluded - that's a whole year before results day! From evaluating performance, to working out ROI, and assessing which channels provided the greatest return. We've even been known to secure our top inventory before we break for Christmas. In to the New Year, and it's all about the creative - running photoshoots, filming videos, writing compelling copy and initial design work, as well as working with Andy, our Market Research Manager to crunch some data and provide us with valuable insight to develop our plan and strategy further.

Future-proofing and predicting
our campaign success

Set your goals
After all of the reports and analysis, and after all of the number crunching and data funnelling we're ready to set some targets. We closely monitor application numbers across the cycle, and how they funnel down to firm and insurance choices. It's then a case of looking at our overall recruitment targets, and digging out the evaluations to look at our cost per leads so we can see how heavy weight the campaign will need to be. Creating our dashboards, and getting on top of the figures and data is a crucial part of any campaign plan - it keeps us focused, and gives us clear direction as to what we're aiming to achieve - and provides real-time insight so we can continually adapt and change what we're doing to ensure that we remain on target once we've gone live.

Carb-load
We all know that before a race begins, it's important to have the correct fuel to boost performance. Over in the Atrium we are no stranger to a snack corner. This week to re-fuel for Clearing, we took a trip to Pizza Express with our fellow Digital and Press team members to get our carb fix.  All in the name of preparing for our big endurance event. Ok, so loading up on doughy treats wont help you through Clearing, but it's great to keep the morale going, and no-one likes to work on an empty stomach!

Racing ahead to secure the top
positions

Stepping up to the line
As part of the Clearing campaign, it's important that we're first past the post. It gets more and more competitive every year, and so all of the meticulous planning comes to the fore as we prepare to go live, and front load our campaign for maximum impact, As results day hits, it becomes a minute by minute and hour by hour observation to ensure that campaign activity is optimised, targeting refined, and budget flexed to make sure that we're leading the way and driving those all important phone calls - but the competition is never far behind and all too ready to crank up the budget to race for the top spot (of Google search that is).

One eye firmly on
the competition at
all times!

Eye up the competition
We continue to be amazed by just how fiercely competitive it's been this year. More and more universities are playing the long game, and are deploying some rather questionable tactics, but there's everything still to play for. Whilst it's been a manic few weeks, the buzz has certainly kept us all on our toes - scanning the environment, media monitoring, and generally keeping a firm eye on the competition to see what opportunities lie out there for some quick wins.

In and amongst the busyness of Clearing, we've remained relatively calm and self-assured; after all, we've got a great campaign in place, and our digital first strategy has really yielded some fantastic results. Each year, and from each and every campaign we're learning so much, and this year we have a solid action plan in place to keep the momentum going.

Add caption

Endurance
The most fundamental part to the Clearing campaign by any means, is endurance. A year in the making, it's all hands on deck to ensure the campaign delivers - and it's a great team effort.

Clearing provides many opportunities for many students. It's an opportunity to find a place if they didn't get the grades and were unsuccessful during main cycle. It's also for those students who did far better than they imagined, and presents a great opportunity to upgrade their choice. But most importantly, and interestingly, Clearing (over the last few years), has also become a first entry point for many when deciding if, and where, to go to University. Student's are taking their time, and are investigating their career avenues; resulting in a longer decision making period. And it is down to this reason, that the longevity of our campaign is so crucial. So whilst it may feel as though Clearing has been our hot topic for many months now, we've still got many more weeks to go before we conclude for the 2016 cycle - as we continue to promote the University, our core messaging, and present the many benefits not only of Bedfordshire, but of undertaking a degree qualification.

Looking ahead - for the
multi-tasking marketer

Whilst the campaign is in full flow, we can't help but think ahead to our next campaign. And for the Marketing team, we're already implementing our Annual Campaign - also affectionately referred to as the 'Winter' campaign - which focuses on the key form filling period for our 2017 enquirers. Keep a watch out for future blog posts, as we'll launch into our next race - which is more of a marathon; as we once again play the long game - and plan ahead for September 2017.

Welcome to the Marketing team...

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Welcome aboard!

A very big welcome to the Marketing team, and yes, I'm talking to you! Everyone is a marketeer, or a part-time one at the very least. Aside from the day job, if you give talks in schools or colleges, man a stand at a UCAS fair, meet and greet students at an open day, or speak in any way to our enquirers and applicants, you're part of the team!

Why do I say that? Well, not only have I been covering this topic in some depth in the latest round of my CIM Diploma studies, but it's actually very true. Each and every single one of us will engage and interact with a potential student at some point along the recruitment journey, and each and every single interaction counts and goes someway to making an impact on a student's decision as to whether to study at Bedfordshire. Therefore, whether we like it or not, we are all marketeers, selling the university experience; selling a brand. So, welcome aboard!

So, what have we all been up to recently I hear you ask. Our conversion activities are in full swing, as we approach the next set of UCAS deadlines, and our Open Day season has now come to a close, so it's number crunch time for the team as we plough through the reams of stats and data to evaluate our activity and determine just how successful and effective our work has been. We'll be sure to share some highlights with you once this important work is complete. And whilst our heads are still firmly placed in 2015 recruitment (with the infamous Clearing campaign already well underway), we've taken some exciting steps to strategically pull all of our 2016 enquirer activity forward by a whopping six months, so we can start the enquirer conversion process much earlier in the cycle. We're well on our way, and have already sent out a number of exciting communications; it's been really positive to see 2016 enquirers already taking the time to visit us on campus, as early as April.

Pit stop by the beach in
sunny Bournemouth

We've also been out en-masse, supporting the recruitment team during one of their busy periods, as we travel the country to attend a series of UCAS events. Kylie has recently attended the London and Leicester events, whilst I made my way back to my former university in Bournemouth to man the Dorset UCAS event (and managed to make a quick pit stop for fish and chips by the beach while I was there - yay!), and Krystle will soon he heading up north to Livepool for three days. So, it's a busy time for the team as we juggle two intakes of students, but it's definitely a great experience to get away from the desk for a while and to speak to real students about real queries they have about Higher Education. Not to mention it's very rewarding when they tell you how helpful you've been after regurgitating our best marketing USPs to provide excitement surrounding our courses.  It's always great to make the most of the UCAS events, and spy on competitors as well, as we pose as students (just about!) to observe their exhibition stands, and marketing materials that they're handing out. I think our stand and materials looked amazing, but then I may be slightly biased. ;-)

That's all from me this time. I'll share some more thoughts, insight, and learnings from my course in my next post, as I will have had plenty of time to digest all of the notes and slides by then I'm sure. Until then!

It's all in the Heist...

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

On the first day back after my week away in sunny Greece I came back to the most exciting news: The Marketing team have only gone and got themselves short-listed for a coveted Heist Award!

#heist2014 nominations released. See the full list. http://t.co/QEjCNqRSnx #goodluck #lovehe @havaspeople
— Heist Awards (@heistawards) May 12, 2014

The who's who of Marketing:
The Annual Heist Awards 

I must admit it was a rather last minute entry, and so a big thanks go to Andy Kingston our Market Research Manager, and Michelle Ramsumair our Marketing Administrator for helping me put the entry together in record timing. Usually it would take approximately one month to have an entry worthy of entering, and that's only if your stats stack up! For this particular deadline, we had the almost impossible task of putting together an entry in less than a week. So, to say that we were excited at the news was a complete and utter understatement. For us, and for many other Marketing professionals, the Heist awards is our version of the Oscars - the pinnacle of a HE Marketers career, and benchmark of best practice amongst the sector. A little over the top you may think, but to even make it to the short-list is an achievement in itself, so we're going to enjoy every moment in the run up to the big awards dinner. It may even warrant a new dress for the occasion :-)

Pretty pleased to hear that the @uniofbeds Marketing Team has been short-listed for Best UG Prospectus at this years' @heistawards #Excited
— Sarah Hampton (@Sarah_Hampton) May 12, 2014

Our short-listed entry for:
Best Undergraduate Prospectus

Up until this point I've only ever written award submissions for our Postgraduate work, and so this is the first (and hopefully not the last!) piece of Undergraduate work to be short-listed since I've been in the post of Marketing Manager. I was joking with other colleagues in the department to say that I find quite a lot of my time is spent compiling and writing awards these days as opposed to getting on with our actual Marketing work, but laughs aside, we are always looking to benchmark our work against industry and demonstrate best practice, as not only is it a great pat on the back, but helps raise the profile of our work, and always helps our cause when liaising with academics and the wider university in being able to prove that we really do know what we're talking about! We're up for the title of Best Undergraduate Prospectus (for our 2014 publication), against 12 other universities, including the likes of Manchester Metropolitan, Edge Hill, Loughborough and the University of Leicester. You can read the full list here.

On my travels to the
University of Birmingham

In other news, I took a trip over to the University of Birmingham last week to attend the '2015 Postgraduate Market Changes Conference', run in conjunction with FindAMasters, Heera and UKCGE. I must admit I didn't have high expectations at first, purely based on previous one day training sessions I've attended over the last few months, but as soon as the sessions started I was very impressed with the quality of the sessions and speakers, and how willing people were to share their PG initiatives. I was frantically scribbling throughout the whole day and came back feeling very inspired.

Feeling like a student after
spending a day in the
Learning Centre

Sessions which stood out to me in particular included the talk from Future Index on 'Making Postgraduate Education Marketing Brilliant' - which focused on current and future trends, and some exemplary case studies of Universities not just in the UK, who have some interesting initiatives set up for PG Marketing. The networking sessions with other Universities were great also. I was able to pick the brain of a key competitor, unknown to them, which proved very insightful. I'm hoping to find a quiet hour or two this week to revisit my notes, and to see whether I can progress a few ideas in time to make it into our 2015 Postgraduate Annual Plan.

Stay tuned and I'll keep you informed once I've organised my thoughts.

Hello

By Krystle Hall, Campaign Officer

I am Krystle the new Campaign Officer at the University of Bedfordshire.  Trinidadian born and Wirralian raised I find myself living in Hertfordshire, which I have found to be a quaint and friendly part of the world.  I join you from a London based advertising agency where I project managed a portfolio of accounts.    

   

I have been at the University of Bedfordshire for almost 2 weeks now.  I received a very warm welcome on my first day with a tasty Thai lunch at Nakorn where I enjoyed a green Thai curry punctuated with good conversation.  I have since had the pleasure of meeting everyone in the MARC department and was given the opportunity to sit down with a number of colleagues to pick their vast brains during my initial induction.  I feel like I have learnt an awful lot already and look forward to expanding my knowledge further.  I have also had a chance to tour the labyrinth campus which I hope will become familiar to me in time. 

Last week I found myself on the set of our new cinema advert, shot “on location” in the Student Village.  The director stalked the scene, technicians honed set and lighting whilst the cameraman found that perfect shot. I even got to feature as a passing student in one scene, the most challenging part of which was resisting the plate of Haribo sweets that had been placed in front of me.  Look out for my acting debut where you may get to see the side of my head in a couple of frames.  It was a lot of fun seeing the Digital Team hard at work; their ideas being brought to life.

It has been all GO already! 

Walking, new face, ‘hello!’ handshake; meeting, listening, reciting, note take; talking, phone rings, ‘hello!’ pondering; what’s this? Where’s that?  Who’s this? Why do that? What’s his name? That’s that; print out, copy, ‘hello!’ typo; staff card, door card, parking card; line chart, pie chart, bar chart; note pad,  ipad, gel pen, empty pen, read, tap, type, write, click, send.

I am now getting my first taste of planning, working on our Clearing Campaign.  I will keep you posted as the campaign develops.

Type to you soon,

Krystle

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!