Marketing, Media and Emerging Trends for 2015

By Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Being able to monitor trends is a key part to any marketers role, as this is fundamentally the best way in which we can stay ahead of the competition. Now that we're well and truly back into the swing of things after the xmas break, I thought I'd start off our blog this year with a series of tips on what to watch out for in 2015 from the Marketing department. So, this post is more of a focus on our own emerging trends for 2015 if you like: take a look...

Content is king

1). Content is king
Marketers are being called upon to place less of a focus on the hard marketing sell, and more emphasis on providing information and useful content to support potential students in their decision making. And whilst this is an emerging theme across the sector as a whole, we're already one step ahead as we continue to develop our content marketing strategies here in the Marketing department. For 2015, we're building on last year's introduction of a variety of new initiatives, which all focused on one thing: providing relevant and useful content which our customer really wants, so that they can better engage with, and buy in to, the Bedfordshire brand.

As we approach the Conversion stage to the recruitment cycle, we'll be implementing a number of key communications such as themed emails, the B4Beds Undergraduate e-zine, and our CRM personalised web portal, in order to share a wide variety of rich content with our applicants.

Peer-to-peer and user
generated content

2). Offering value through content marketing
Building on the above, as the demand for non-university generated content increases, we'll be shortly rolling out Student Bloggers for 2015. This year we have even expanded on the number of bloggers we have, to generate even more subject specific content which is written by our very own current students. We're really excited as we continue to build up the peer-to-peer content which focuses on real experiences of real Bedfordshire students.

This idea of offering value through our marketing, also translates over to our PG recruitment too. Last year saw the pilot of 'PG Tips' in our monthly, award-winning Postgraduate e-zine. These short videos act as a mini lecture series, and are loosely modeled on MOOCs (Massive open online courses ie free online classes) which some other universities have dabbled in, in order to reach and engage with an audience in a more meaningful way.

Moving towards mobile 

3). Welcome to the mobile age
Through our many post campaign evaluations and live campaign reporting, the one thing that was clear from 2014, was the major shift towards mobile usage from our prospective students. And that's why we've been working with the Digital Marketing team to produce and launch a brand new set of email templates for 2015. These new templates are all optimised for mobile use, making our marketing messages more easily readable across the vast array of media devises currently available. The new templates will be in use from 15 January onwards, so keep a look out for our new professional, and 'snazzy' looking templates, coming to an inbox near you!

Keeping one eye on the competition

4). It's all about who you know
Last, but certainly not least, we'll be continuing to work with our Media Planning and Buying Agency to meet different suppliers and HE advertisers so we are fully clued up and get the latest on the latest technologies and marketing products currently out there. We'll be hosting our very first set of meet the supplier days later this month, where the wider MARC department is able to meet the key players, movers and shakers in the HE advertising industry, and they share their insight on changing consumer behaviour, what works, and most importantly, what our competitors are up to!

Stay tuned throughout the year, as we keep you posted on the many initiatives that we'll be rolling out over the coming months. We'll be keeping you posted on what's worked particularly well, and what developments and insight there is from our university neighbours.

We’re on a roll

A sneak peek at the cover of the PG 2015 prospectus

Last time I blogged I mentioned that the UCMK prospectus had arrived hot off the press and onto the Marketing team’s desks. Well, the good news is, the PG prospectus is almost ready to go to print now too. We’re at the final stage of signing off the Epson proofs, and then it’s going to print next week, and will arrive in office mid-August. Another big project ticked off our to-do-lists. And I’ve got to admit, it’s a relief to have all that work complete. Pulling together such a big publication can be really hard work- it’s worth it when it comes to fruition though.

I also mentioned in my last blog that I was working on two new student guides; the college guide and the nursing guide. I’ve been a busy little bee over the last few weeks and these are also at the last proofing stage and will be ready early August.

My final publication task (for now) is auditing some of our subject guides, ready for September. As part of the auditing process I am looking at five of the guides, making updates and liaising with Heads of Departments to gather further updates. Once these are revised and amends are made, they will be uploaded online. Going forward we will be carrying out focus groups to look at how we can further improve these publications for the audience, and perhaps making some bigger changes for the 2015 subject guides.

What else I’ve been up to

I’ve been out of office quite a lot recently; over at our Bedford and Putteridge Bury campuses filming student graduations and helping to distribute Jubilee Scholarship fliers prior to ceremonies. Seeing graduations always takes me back to my graduation, it’s such a strange time; happy and proud to be finished, but sad to say goodbye to people you have known for three or more years. It’s great seeing all of the graduates and their families around campus looking so happy and proud! Keep an eye out for our graduation photos and videos on our Facebook and Twitter pages!

I’ve also been finishing the undergraduate open day evaluation report (PG one to start next week), putting a content schedule together for the marketing team for our PG Facebook and Twitter pages and working on the July edition of B4Beds; filming and editing videos.

My development

I have recently been looking into my development and have booked myself and my colleague, Clare, onto a print workshop in Northampton in September. A little way away yet, but I’m hoping having more of an understanding of print and paper, and how certain paper stock effects the final look of a printed product will help me going forward in making recommendations to future publications that will not only further enhance the look of our publications, but also be more cost effective to print. 

A new member of the team…

Welcome to Sophia

And finally, welcome to Sophia Meola, our Business student blogger who has recently joined the MARC team for a couple of months in the Marketing Administrator role. She graduated from Bedfordshire last week after studying Business Management (BIG congratulations!) and she has a keen interest in marketing. We’re all excited to have her on board!

Speak to you all soon

K

One down, one to go

Kylie Aldridge, Marketing Officer

So, I’m back from my holiday now and it was great!! I’m feeling refreshed and even have a wee tan, which is unusual for me. Before I went away I managed to get most of my big jobs wrapped up, which means  my first week back was more relaxed than expected (but by no means easy!) because as usual we have lots happening with in our small team.

Hot off the press!

It’s arrived…

My final job before going on holiday was to brief the final amends to the UCMK prospectus ready for print and with the help of my colleagues, Sarah and Clare, who picked up the final print sign off in my absence, the prospectus was sent off to print week commencing 2 June. It arrived on my desk last week, and it looks great- clean and professional, even if I do say so myself, and we've had some good feedback from the wider MARC team. So that was the highlight of my first week back. Just the postgraduate prospectus to finish now, which is still chugging along nicely…

As some leave us, more arrive

As the summer approaches and the University buildings slowly empty, our team still have lots of key focuses. One of which is our new students who will be starting with us in September. As part of the focus on our new students, Sarah is working on our new student guide and I am working on our college and nursing guides. These are important publications for new students and aim to provide valuable information on registration and orientation, next steps of student finance, our Students’ Union and lots more- a full guide to starting with us.

I am also working on evaluations from our recent open days, the June edition of our B4Beds e-zine and editing CRM videos.

UCAS convention at Bedford

As many of you will know, we held the Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes UCAS Convention at our Bedford campus on 23 and 24 June. And I am told from my colleagues around the office that this was a really good (and busy) event, and the sun was out which always helps, especially when you have live bands playing.

Speak to you all soon

K

Thought provoking forums

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?

Look forward to updating you all soon.

K