A silk purse from a sow’s ear

In the last month or so, I’ve attended a couple of conferences. I was pleased, on both occasions, to deputise for other colleagues in MARC, and hope I didn't cause too much collateral damage, what with my reticence, cynicism, monkey boots and too many layers of clothing.

The conferences I attended:

• The Future of Student Recruitment, by the IDP Connect folk (the new name for the WhatUni and CUG), in the wonderful garden area at the Barbican
• UCAS’ Teachers and Advisors Fair, in the rather grand and gilded surroundings of The Principal Hotel in Manchester.

Go me, RIGHT?

Kingo in conference

Well sort of. Yes. And no. I was a shoe in for Marketing in the first instance and for Recruitment in the second. Both disciplines are, in honesty, beyond me. Yes, I’m one of the old hands in MAR, but I’d struggle to get sell a fully plumbed in water cooler in a desert. My expertise, such as it is, is in Market Research. Which despite and almost because of its bad press, requires scruples and a level- or at worst a pretence - of even-handedness.

I had to represent this. Our blurb for the UCAS conference. I mainly achieved it through staring into the middle distance.

The UCAS event had some interesting and (for me) relevant sessions. It was also really enlightening to hear about teachers and advisors’ perspectives. And guess what? They’re not happy about unconditional offers. Can’t blame them. If you aren’t ‘up on’ the thorny issue, where have you been? Here’s a Bob-piece on our response to the practice and how we’re dipping our toes in the filthy pond of despair.

The UCAS event was a two day affair. Sadly, our allowance for meals didn’t stretch to the £60 asking price for the UCAS dinner, so I slummed it for dinner round the student quarter around Oxford Road. Two conversations struck me. Nothing to do with HE, but the first (point 1 below) definitely from a party connected, presumably to either Manchester or Manchester Metropolitan University:

1.  A table of people were wondering what kind of monster would eat crumpets without butter or spread. Can see their point. They were referring to a mutual colleague who indulged in such fantastic behaviour. A monster. “Off his head half the time,” one of the group observed;
2. In a different establishment, in a room dedicated, rather perplexingly, to Jack Daniels, a group of three people discussed the likelihood of being sent to prison for a driving violation if the offender already has six points on their licence. Wasn’t a discussion I wanted to get into.

I’m going to try and bring some more meaningful feedback to the MAR team. Some of it will almost certainly appear in my intranet feedback page. Shout if you’re interested, in the meantime.

So anyway, I'm off to see The Sleaford Mods at the 100 Club in London this evening. I often post a clip of music at the music at the end of my pieces, but The Sleaford Mods are big on swearing, and not so big on tunes. Instead, here's a beautiful piece of British 60s jazz, by the Rendell Carr Quintet. Check out that Coltrane-esque soprano. These guys were on top of their game. I missed out on a recent repressing of their much sought for albums and feel sad about it. 

Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Exhibition

This week the University of Bedfordshire hosted the annual Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Exhibition. The event was held over two days at our Bedford campus and welcomed thousands of students on campus to find out more about the different options available to them in the future. 

It was a great two days. The sun was shining (ok that might be an understatement - it was very hot!) and there was a great atmosphere on campus. As well as representatives from over 150 higher education institutions, there were representatives from the Army, gap year organisations, and information on apprenticeships. 

I was helping out on the University of Bedfordshire stand, talking to students about what they want to do after college and giving them more information on the various courses we offer, the benefits of undertaking a year in industry, and how we can offer them more than a great degree. It was a non-stop couple of days but it was a great opportunity to speak to students, staff from local schools and colleges, and staff from other higher education institutions. 

The event also made the ITV news so if you weren't able to attend the event take a look at the news story here. I make a small cameo (ah!).

I'm also helping out at another UCAS exhibition tomorrow at the University of East London (UEL) where I'll have another opportunity to talk to students about the different opportunities available at the University of Bedfordshire! I'm hoping for an air conditioned room!

Thanks for reading!

Sara

Marketing Assistant

If a picture tells a thousand words, what does a video do?

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

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.

A varied few weeks

Over the last week or so I’ve been away from my desk more than usual; helping with photoshoots and filming, and attending media presentations. The last few weeks and been super busy and really varied, from the more creative aspects (photoshoots) to the less creative (proofreading publications). But that’s what I enjoy about marketing, it can be so varied and it keeps you on your toes!

As Sara mentioned last week, we’ve had three days of photoshoots for our clearing and annual campaign. They were hectic but exciting, and we’ve just received the images from the photographer. We’ve been looking through all of the images and choosing the best ones to take forward for our campaign, taking into consideration the different platforms they will be used for. It’s now over to the photographer to work more of his magic and edit the selected pictures. We’re hoping to get these next week so our designers can start working on the visuals and we can start working on the microsite.  

I’ve also been filming student videos for a forthcoming e-zine edition – and as the weather has been so nice, I even took the opportunity to do the filming outside which was great! So I’ll be editing these over the coming weeks as a start to put my e-zines together.

There are also a few publications I’m currently working on:

1. The PG 2017 prospectus – this is at first proof stage, so I’ve been proofing my allocated sections; five sections down, one to go…  

2. The UCAS visitor guide – we’re hosting a UCAS Exhibition in June at our Bedford campus for the third year running and I’m working on the main guide. This is at final proof stage and I’m expecting to send it to print on Tuesday

3. Welcome 2017 guide – each year we produce a welcome guide that we send out to all of our applicants following results day. This gives an overview ahead of students starting with us – how to register as a Beds student online, social events taking place in the first week, finance, student support, campus maps and lots more! I briefed this in to the designer yesterday and first proofs are due wc 16 May

Our UCAS Exhibition guide

We’re also looking ahead to the 2017 cycle – I sent the first enquirer edition of our B4Beds e-zine last month, and we’ve got some email communications going out over the next month or so. This is the part of the year when it can often get confusing as we’re working on the 2016 cycle and the 2017 cycle at the same time. All in a day’s work! 

Speak soon,

K

A small but mighty team

I think this week’s post will be a quick one from me. You might think it’s the pressure getting to me this week, as we’ve just been nominated for an award for our blog in the UK Blog Awards 2016 (sorry for the not so subtle plug there). But in reality, it's maybe because things are ticking along - there's lot's going on as always; reports, plans, campaigns, conversion activity, meetings, print collateral, emails - OK I'll stop there! But there's not a lot of new things to report as quite often a lot of the work we do is ongoing. We're a small but mighty team!

So, what have I been up to since last time...

I’ve started to update our in-house style guide that I mentioned in my previous blog post. I’ve amended the format a little and added in some things that I think were missing from the previous version, using inconsistencies that I have come across when working on previous printed collateral. I’ll be sense checking it and then liaising with other teams in the department for their feedback – digital, comms, CRM, and the rest of the marketing team – anyone who writes or creates anything external facing for our audiences.

The UCAS convention season is fast approaching, so I’ve been liaising with the recruitment team to ensure we’re armed with collateral for all of the events that we attend around the UK, as well as planning the collateral we’ll need for the UCAS convention that we’re hosting at our Bedford campus on 20-22 June. This will be the third UCAS convention we’ve held on campus and each year the recruitment team are building on the success of the previous year’s event, with each year getting bigger and better. We welcome thousands of students and schools through our doors so it’s a key time for us!

I also helped out at yesterday’s open day – the first time I’ve been able to support the recruitment team during an event. I was working on the CATS registration desk at our Luton campus – scanning people in and giving them a rundown of the day’s events.

Some positive open day feedback

As well as the above, I've been working on different conversion activity – emails, print collateral and so on – this time of year is crucial for us, so we're working on pulling out all the stops. 

And finally, I’ve almost finished two more evaluation reports – the first time I’ve been a head on reports in a wee while.

Speak soon,

K

Happy New Year from the Marketing Team

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a great break - I realised yesterday that I didn't have a single mince pie this year (well last year) so my year has started full of regrets!

We've been back at work three days now and in that time we've received the second proof of our 2017 Undergraduate Prospectus. It's looking really good and I'm excited for you all to see it. The last couple of days I've been proof reading my sections and contacting various departments across the university to finalise a few things. The first proof of the Mini Undergraduate Prospectus is also due next week. This is my first time working on the UG prospectus so I'm enjoying seeing everything come together.

Just before the Christmas break I was working on the Welcome Guide for our February and March starters. This was completed on my first day back and can now be found online.

This year I'm going to be working on a project called "More than a degree". I'm going to be gathering content for the website about extra curricular activities at the university such as RadioLab, Get Into Sport, industry talks, PAL and much more. I'm really excited to get started on this so keep an eye out for some exciting new content coming your way soon!

Kylie has been busy preparing the UG and PG open day plans so I will be supporting her in implementing these. For me this usually means sending out some emails to our enquirers, and creating the open day notices that you may have seen around the university on the digital screens.

I'm also working on a few small projects including creating some ads for the upcoming UCAS events and updating some of our online profiles.

No rest for the wicked

Some of you would think that now most of the students have finished for the summer our work might start to wind down...well let me assure you, you are very, very wrong! We seem to have entered a very busy (but very exciting) time in the Marketing Department!

This week I've been out of the office for a couple of days helping with the photo shoot for our annual campaign. It's something that I'd never done previously so it was great to meet the photographers, get an idea of how it all works and, most importantly, meet some of the students and graduates that were taking part in the campaign. As cliche as it may sound it was a really great experience for me to meet our students, past and current, and hear their thoughts and find out about some of the amazing things they've been getting up too! I also managed to get a sneak peek at some of the shots we'd taken and they looked great (even if I do say so myself!) so make sure you keep an eye out for them later on in the year!

Graduations have been taking place this week so there's been a lot of smartly dressed students and their families around campus the last few days! On Friday I'll be filming one of the graduations at St. Mary's so I'll have another chance to talk to some of our students and find out about their plans now they've graduated.

We're also sending the final proof of our PG prospectus to the designers this week. I couldn't tell you how many times I've read it but it's really great to see it all come together! I can't believe it's nearly over but there's already talk of the UG 2017 prospectus so I'm sure that'll keep me going!

You may have seen that our Clearing campaign has already started (if you haven't check out our micro-site) so I've been working on a few bits here and there to help Krystle. It's been really good for me as I'm getting to see all the different sections of the annual cycle!

I also helped out with the UCAS convention (I can't believe that was a whole month ago!) at the Bedford campus. This was a really fun day for me as I got to go over to Bedford and see the new Gateway building and speak to members of staff that I wouldn't normally come into contact with regularly. There was a really great atmosphere at the convention and it was nice to meet some potential students. It did however bring back a few memories of when I attended a UCAS convention which made me feel quite old!

I've also been keeping busy outside of work too (I told you there was no rest for the wicked), and a couple of weeks ago I took park in the 10k Race for Life in Stevenage. I only walked it but, as I'm not the fittest of people, it was a big achievement for me! I love doing the Race for Life as there's always a fantastic atmosphere in the air! One of the local radio stations was there to support the event and after crossing the finishing line we asked if they could play Taylor's shake it off so we could celebrate in style (no pun intended...it really did just happen)!

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!

Bye bye sunshine, hello real world!

Dressed up in the Cuban sunshine!

I’m fresh back from Cuba and back into the swing of things after a few days back at the office. The holiday was great- I attended a lovely family wedding and met lots of people from around the world; Scotland, Prague, Canada. It really was a fab holiday! Here’s a little picture taken just before the wedding...

As I’ve not been here since my last blog post, this one is going to be pretty short.

My priorities for the next couple of weeks are implementing the remainder of the activities from the UG February open day plan, including creating and sending emails, posting on social media, working with the CRM team on conversion and reminder communications and finishing open day brochure inserts for the students who come along to see us on the day.

I‘m also working hard on my backlog of open day evaluation reports; looking at activity performance to ensure we are putting together well thought out plans which provide good ROI. This will then feed in to my next open day campaign plans for future events. We love a good evaluation report here!

A newbie on my list is working with the recruitment team on new marketing collateral for forthcoming HE and UCAS fairs. I’m going to be creating a large banner for the team to use when they are travelling around the country talking to our prospective students. I’m also working on a UCAS convention brochure for the summer.

A sneak peek at our prospectus cover

And, while I’ve been away Sarah has been busy signing off the undergraduate 2016 prospectus; so all that’s left to do is sign off the book proof when we receive it from the printers at the end of the week. The undergraduate 2016 mini guide is also signed off- Sarah has been a busy bee- nothing new there!

So, I should really finish with a big ‘thank you’ to Sarah for picking up some of my work while I was away!!

Speak soon,

K

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.

Spreading festive cheer; Xmas parties and planning

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

We've got our list, we're checking it twice, and we're going to find out who's.... leaving on time to make the Staff Christmas party next week.

Full speed ahead as
the Jan UCAS deadline
approaches

For many offices and departments, as the festive season approaches it's a time to start winding down; a real chance to kick back, relax and enjoy the masses of mince pies and festive cheer as the holiday season approaches. But that's not quite the case for the Marketing team over in the Atrium, as December is often one of our busiest months, second only to August when it's Clearing. It's a real crunch time as we make the most of the last few weeks available to communicate with our enquirers and promote the many benefits of joining the University of Bedfordshire before the UCAS deadline in January. So, whilst term may have officially ended and the cold winter weather sets in, things are truly heating up over in Marketing HQ as we go full speed ahead to action our core enquirer activity.

Today is the day of our open evening! There is still time to book: http://t.co/yXOmx1LvST pic.twitter.com/UbeWXTxF5M
— uniofbeds (@uniofbeds) December 10, 2014

The last week has seen the Marketing and Digital Marketing teams working hard to promote a festive open evening. This event wasn't originally planned into the recruitment schedule, but was a quick response to some unforeseen events taking place in the town which resulted in our November event having to be postponed at the last minute. Not to be deterred, the team set out to rework all of the campaign visuals, and devise new marketing plans to push out the new event details, with the help of our CRM team as they communicated the new event details out and encouraged sign ups. The event was a real success overall, and we're pleased that we were able to successfully retain some of the enquirers who had originally signed up to attend the event in November.

New 'Apply Now' artwork

All change, all change!
Now that all open days are officially over for the year, it's time for a quick change of all the campaign artwork again, as we move from plugging our on campus visits, to driving applications directly to UCAS for 2015 entry. We're also busily working away on our conversion newsletters, 13 applicant newsletters to be precise. These are the very first communications that our applicants will receive from us, and so we're aiming to get them off to print just before Christmas, so they're ready to be mailed out almost as soon as we get back.

For those who know me well, you'll know I love a good report and a bit of Marketing data. And so in the last few weeks we've been exploring how we can better track the impact of our work. After a number of meetings and after bouncing a few emails back and forth between the marketing and digital teams, we've finally got a new tracking url system agreed and in place, thanks to Paul in the digital team. It's much easier to recall and recognise than the previous tracking we used, and should provide us with much more insight into engagement with our materials. So watch out for this url popping up in the new year across our marketing materials.

Although it's an incredibly busy time, we always somehow manage to find some time to have some fun along the way. And what better way to get into the festive spirit than by donning our best festive favourites for Christmas Jumper Day.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree (left to right):
Krystle, Clare, Sarah, Beverley and Kylie.

As the year comes to a close, we wish you a very Merry Christmas from everyone here within the Marketing team. Stayed tuned to read more about our key initiatives in the new year.

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!