Finally the day we've all been waiting for has finally arrived. A Level results are out, and Clearing has officially begun! Good luck to anyone and everyone that is getting their results today, our team are on hand and ready to answer any questions that you may have, and hopefully welcome you to the University of Bedfordshire this September!
Whenever I tell people I work at the University they always assume that I get a nice, relaxing break over the summer holidays - it's a common misconception as it's actually one of our busiest periods.
There's a lot of preparation that goes into Clearing, arranging the artwork that you've (hopefully) seen both online and out of home over the last couple of months. It's very exciting to see all of our work come together, and hear those phones ringing today. I was also very excited when I went to the cinema last week and saw our cinema advert!
Our 2018 Postgraduate Prospectus has also been printed this month, so be sure to pick one up at one of our reception desks. We work on the prospectus for several months, so it's always really exciting when we see the final product! But as we finish with one prospectus, we start with another! Can you believe we're already talking about our 2019 Undergraduate Prospectus? Next month I'll be compiling the list of courses, and starting to create a flat plan for the prospectus, as well as starting to write copy for the publication.
I'm also currently working on our Open Day plans. Now that I have taken up the role as Marketing Officer, I am responsible for ensuring the Open Day plans are implemented across all channels, which means liaising with various departments, and working with our external designers to produce our Open Day collateral.
I've also been working on various emails that will be sent to our enquirers over the next couple of months, and working with various departments within the University to find out what's been happening and what's in store! Told you I've been busy! Better get back to it!
I hope you all enjoyed the Easter break and ate far too much chocolate! I was resisting but my willpower failed me on Sunday night when a friend and I had a go at baking some Creme Egg brownies! (They were delicious even if I do say so myself!)
But now we're back in the office and raring to go! This morning I've been prepping some open day invite emails, in preparation for our Luton and Bedford, and Milton Keynes events. Attending an open day is a great way to get a feel for the campus you'll be studying at and gives you the opportunity to speak to both academic and support staff.
We've also been busy working on the PG prospectus for 2018. Draft copy has been sent to our design agency, and we're looking forward to seeing the first proof next week. The prospectuses are one of the bigger projects that I'm involved in, from assisting on photo-shoots, to writing copy and liaising with academics, to proof reading, so I enjoy seeing it all come together.
I've also been working on a report, pulling together stats from e-zines that both myself and Kylie have worked on over the last year, and analysing the results. It's great to see that most of our communications are performing above the sector average, and helps us to identify what content is the most relevant to our audiences.
I've also been filming around the campus lately, working on some videos showcasing the facilities available at Beds. It's been a great opportunity for me to nose around campus and see what our students are getting up to! Take a look at some of our sports facilities, and watch this space for more videos soon!
The University of Bedfordshire as a name covers the institutions two largest campuses, based in Bedford and Luton. Beyond Bedfordshire though, are two further campuses in neighbouring Bucks. Aylesbury, dedicated to nursing and Milton Keynes, currently known as University Campus Milton Keynes (UCMK), and this week the ‘new city’ celebrates its 50th birthday, I know what you are thinking, it’s some diva of a place with an inflated self sense of importance that has a birthday, right?
Through partnerships the University of Bedfordshire has had a presence in Milton Keynes (MK) since 2008, and in 2012 opened its very own campus. Although slightly modest in scale, the campus is pioneering higher education in the city where others have failed. Footnote – as a resident of MK I shall be as all Milton Keyners do, referring to the town as a city, despite it never being granted such status.
I quite enjoy my days working from the MK campus, not least because it is just a five minute drive from my house in the east of the city. Taking up residency there in 2008, it has become my home for nearly nine years, and like they say about marmite, I genuinely think you love it or hate it. I hated it. Back in 2008 moving from the hustle and bustle grit of the West Midlands, I came to MK thinking what the hell is there to do?
I had previously been living in Coventry, home of The Specials, its famous Cathedral and CCFC, MK had a football team they stole from Wimbledon and what else? Funny you ask, you did, I know you are wondering. Home of the code breakers at Bletchley Park, Red Bull Racing, PJ Harvey recorded her 2000 album Stories from the Sea in Linford Manor, Greg Rutherford is often in Nandos at the Hub, the likes of David Bowie, Queen and more recently Foo Fighters graced the stage at the National Bowl, the only place to produce WD40, we have the MK Dons, and the list goes on. So it didn’t take long for me to change that hate it, to love it.
From my journey across the eastside to Central MK where UCMK is situated, it isn’t hard not to fall in love with the place for its sheer landscape alone, MK is 40% green space by the way. Driving across the picturesque Willen Lakes, built to balance out excess water from the river Ouzel and prevent the city from flooding, and heading past the iconic Peace Pagoda, a symbol of the progressive 1960’s era the city was planned in. Then along a grid road, the H5 Portway to be precise, which gets me to my destination without too much of the standard city centre jams most commuters experience.
I don’t have to drive around the city though, on a lovely summers day a cycle along five of the 160 miles of redways will get me where I need to be, Santander bikes are also available to hire with MK being the only city outside of London to proactively encourage residents and visitors alike to commute in this way.
It isn’t just the surroundings as to why I love MK though. No it is the lively under current of culture, live music, festivals, arts and community at is happening everyday, and albeit you sometimes have to seek it out, I can assure you it is there for everyone to enjoy. It is also the economy that makes MK so desirable, one of the fastest growing in the UK and contributes more than nine billion a year to the British economy and the recreational activities, such as the SnoZone, where if you like me, can take out three defenseless amateur snowboarders, while pretending to be as useless as a celebrity on Channels 4’s The Jump.
50 years ago MK was a bit of a punt, it is unique with no town planned like it again, and for those who work, live and study here, it offers a way of life we can all take advantage of. So back to what you are thinking, yes, MK does deserve to have an inflated self sense of importance.
Happy birthday Milton Keynes, from all of us at the University of Bedfordshire, here is our gift to you.
Keeping on top of the latest information and content trends
My last blog post was focused on the importance of imagery in marketing work. This post follows a similar theme, but this time highlights the value of video content. With online communities on the rise, as well as a real appetite for quick information, marketers have to evolve their content strategies to make sure they are getting their messages out in the most effective way. Video content is fast becoming the future of content marketing. That is, if it already isn't an expectation of many students.
Here in the Marketing team, we've been working on producing a series of location videos to support our 2017 Conversion campaign which launches next week, following on from the January UCAS deadline. As part of our conversion strategy we send out a series of communications to applicants to help them make an informed choice. But this year, we wanted to build on our work further, by telling stories, and through adopting a 'show don't tell' approach to our communications.
On location in MK
Our work has culminated in the production of two new location videos - one for Milton Keynes, and one for Bedford, as well as some social media teaser edits. It's been a big team effort to bring these videos to fruition in quite a tight time frame. There may be more of a desire for video content, but it definitely requires a lot of planning to make sure the creative output is both of a good quality and most importantly, relevant to our audience: from appointing a video production company, setting the briefs, working with the local town Councils, agreeing the film schedules and timings, all the way through to accompanying the film crew on location, and working on the edits, there's a lot of elements to fit into our working day.
Happy Birthday Milton Keynes!
But why the tight time frame, you may say? Good question! And for that, there are two answers. Firstly, our conversion campaign kicks off from next week - it's a key time in the recruitment cycle to deliver key information to encourage applicants to pick up as one of their top two choices (firm or insurance). Secondly, in order to get the best engagement from our location videos, and specifically our Milton Keynes video, we wanted to release the video to coincide with #MK50 - Milton Keynes' 50th birthday anniversary which is taking place on 23 January. And so being able to seed out the content at the optimum time is almost as important as the content itself.
Multi-channel marketing - the recipe for success
A key part of producing any new content is considering how to get the content out and seen by the right people, and so a seeding strategy is needed. For anyone who is a regular reader of this blog, or indeed an avid social media user you couldn't help but notice our location campaign last year. It was a great success and even landed us in the top 100 University social media league table for the first time – securing a top 50 position. Social Media forms a key part of our seeding strategy, but in order to be successful, a multi-channel approach is needed. In order to realise the video's full potential and to maximise on engagements, we need to make it as easy as possible for our audience to find it and share it..
Taking inspiration from Sean Bean
For many marketers original video content is starting to dominate their strategies, and it's really not difficult to see why. Videos have the potential to go viral, or if done well, can demonstrate their share-ability, meaning our potential students will spend longer viewing our content, visiting our website and interacting with our brand - all important aspects of building up brand advocacy. Keep your eyes posted on our social media channels: Twitter and Facebook over the coming week's to see our big reveal of video content and the first pieces of what we hope to develop into a longer video content strategy.
Last week I spent two days in Bedford with Spectrecomfilming a location video to showcase our Bedford campus and some of the highlights of the town. The weather tried to hold us back on Wednesday so we focused on indoor shots, capturing footage from one of our dance classes, a performing arts class, and our very own SU bar, before heading over to the Harpur Centre to get some shots of the shopping centre.
Luckily for us the rain stopped around lunch time so we ventured outside and got some shots of the market, Bedford Corn Exchange and St. Paul's Church. We were then off once again, first to Priory Park and then to the cinema (to film I promise!).
The sun was out on Thursday so the team got some lovely shots along the Embankment, and, quite surprisingly, I was only asked once what we were doing! We also captured shots of the train station, Silver Street, Bedford Park and Bedford International Athletics Stadium; so a jam-packed couple of days!
The team also spent two days at Milton Keynes (thanks again Jenny and Pete!) capturing footage for a MK location video. We're already excited to see how they're going to look and we can't wait to share both videos with you in a couple of months.
With the video shoots last week and the photography shoots the week before, it's been a busy couple of weeks in the Marketing Department! This week I'm back in the office and working on our 2018 undergraduate prospectus (yes, already!), our applicant newsletters and some open day emails.
I'm also trying to arrange to film some industry talks and master classes, and some student interviews so I'm sure you'll see me around campus sometime soon.
As promised in my last blog post, I have an update on my first PG forum- An Introduction to Postgraduate. This was an all-day session, attended by people from numerous universities, who are all new to the world of postgraduate. We covered a lot of topics throughout the day, from the landscape of postgraduate recruitment, challenges within the postgraduate market and quick wins in terms of growing our postgraduate offering and how we market this to potential students. We were given presentations, had discussions within the room, and carried out group activities and fed back to the room on our thoughts and ideas. There was a lot of information provided, and some thought provoking questions that came from this- I certainly felt I came away with things to think about. We even had a student panel come in and talk to us about their experiences of studying at PG level, from how they researched courses to important factors in making a decision on institutions. The student panel was a really valuable part of the day for everyone; after all, they are the people we want to appeal to and impress.
UCMK prospectus
After some late night proofreading, we are ready to make the final few amends to the 2015 UCMK prospectus and it’s looking really good! The team will be briefing the design agency later today, and once the final tweaks are sent back to us early next week, we will be sending the final version to print ready for the UCAS event at our Bedford campus on 23 and 24 June. I’m feeling a mixture of emotions- relief that we are almost finished (and on schedule), nervous as it is an important publication and I want it to be perfect for print, and excitement as it is my first publication for the University and I love seeing the final hard copy of something that has taken up so much of my time over the past few months- I’ve really enjoyed working it.
What else is happening…
The work on our PG prospectus in still on-going, we’ve had the second version back from the agency this week, it’s starting to come together. We have two undergraduate open days approaching on 7 June (Luton campus) and 14 June (Bedford campus) so I have devised a plan for these events and have been implementing these over the last two weeks. As mentioned earlier, we are hosting the Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Convention at our Bedford campus in June, so I have been producing some course specific items for our stands, which will be going to print next week. And finally, I have been working on the next edition of our monthly e-zine, B4Beds, which will be going out today. As part of this, I have been out videoing people from various departments, and compiling interesting content for our loyal subscribers.
Holiday
Lastly, I couldn’t end my blog without bragging that I am going on holiday on 3 June, a week in Egypt! I’ve not been abroad for 7 years, so I deserve it, right?
Well, they’re keeping me busy here, working on, among other things, forthcoming Open Days, UCMK and PG Life, our monthly newsletter for those interested in postgrad education.
I’ve even recorded and edited (with a lot of help from Lauren!) my first YouTube video – an interview about our PG tourism courses.
As someone with a background in B2B marketing and sales it’s great to be talking to a different public in the form of potential, current and former University of Bedfordshire students. Whilst the audience is different the principles of communicating useful information to make informed purchase decisions are the same.
Or so I thought … until… the traditional view of Marketing was called into question in a very entertaining way at a Knowledge Network event that Sarah, Rehanna and I went to at Putteridge Bury.
Business guru Grant Leboff, of Sticky Marketing fame, started off telling us about the ‘pike syndrome’ (go on - look it up on YouTube!) and used this analogy to educate us in the 3 (new) rules of marketing in the wake of the communications revolution and how we are all hyperconnected these days. (Except those of us who don’t have a smartphone yet but apparently I’m in a very small minority!!)
In a nutshell (because he talked for well over an hour, punctuated with examples ranging from the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign to Tesco weekly money-off vouchers and how Ford gave away Fiesta cars to prominent social media barons):
Rule 1. Marketing is no longer a means to an end-it’s an end in itself-no-one has a USP any more so Marketing must give value to the customer
Rule 2. Marketing is no longer about products and services but about people, with information disseminated through virtual conversations ie ‘online word of mouth’ such as Likes on Facebook or recommendations on shopping sites like Amazon
Rule 3. Marketing is no longer about getting customers (at least not directly) but about building communities and engaging with your public at different levels.
Perhaps I’ve added a bit of value with this blog post-especially to any marketers out there- by spreading the word about this ‘Marketing revolution’.
What do you think about how we communicate with you –can we give you ‘added value’?
In fact, is anyone out there reading this?!!
Actually that makes me reflect on that old philosophical chestnut –if a tree falls in a forest but nobody hears it did it actually make a sound? If I write something online, but no-one reads it, did it exist or has it disappeared in the ether?
Whoa!!... this is getting way too serious-I should be blogging about the latest piece of vintage jewellery I bought off eBay to add to my stunning collection-or whether to up the weights I’ll press in the gym tonight. Or whether my beloved St Helens will get through to the Super League Grand Final…now, in view of this season’s poor form (they're playing like that pike), that would take some new rules!
Firstly, a huge congratulations to Sarah Hampton for her
promotion to Marketing Manager! Truly well deserved and she is going to do a
superb job I’m sure.If you can’t tell
already it’s all happening in our team.
If
you haven't noticed us about with our Clearing advertising and
appearances at various locations in Luton and Bedford, a summer holiday is not an excuse! It's pretty hard not to see us, and we have a number of events coming up.
Wednesday
11 September 10.30am-3pm we have our first Open Event during the week
for anyone interested in 2014 entry. It will be at both our Luton and
Bedford campuses so a huge department effort is being made. If you or
you know anyone who may be interested come along.
On Wednesday 18 September from 1-7.30pm the public will be
able to drop-in to our new campus UCMK! With brand new facilities and academics
there to talk to, it will be the perfect opportunity to find out what it would
be like to study with us. There are full-time and part-time courses available,
so if you are interested why not come see us. It’s a good excuse to have a
snoop around too. For more information, visit www.ucmk.ac.uk.
At
the moment you can tell it's rather manic, working on current campaigns
and the beginning of our Part-time and Winter Campaign also. Now we are
out and about we won't be going anywhere, so watch this space to see
what's coming next. Obviously after a non-stop few weeks we deserve to
let our hair down, so a group of us gorgeous ladies will be going out
tonight. It could get a little messy but it's much needed indeed.
Although summer is at an end why should the fun stop right? Have a great relaxed or lively weekend!
This Blog is written by the central Marketing team at the University of Bedfordshire. We hope to share some of our achievements and exciting projects that we've been working on in our busy world of publications, photoshoots, and campaign planning, with some good old creativity thrown in there for good measure. We also hope to give you a taster into what we get up to in and around the University.
Our 2018 Postgraduate Prospectus has also been printed this month, so be sure to pick one up at one of our reception desks. We work on the prospectus for several months, so it's always really exciting when we see the final product! But as we finish with one prospectus, we start with another! Can you believe we're already talking about our 2019 Undergraduate Prospectus? Next month I'll be compiling the list of courses, and starting to create a flat plan for the prospectus, as well as starting to write copy for the publication.
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