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.

Wrapping up for winter

It's a wrap

This time of year tends to be a time of reflection – we’re looking back, evaluating the cycle with the help of UCAS end of year data, which is due this week, and the National Clearing Survey (NCS), which has just been released. We’ve been listening to commentators and thinking about lessons learned.

The consensus is that the undergraduate market is changing and not just because of the increased competition amongst HEIs. Student behaviours are changing too.

Commentators tell us that 49% of our recruitment will be from direct applicants through Feb- Aug and that more students will enter through clearing in 2017-18 than ever before. The NCS tells us that 67% of clearing students hadn’t visited the HEI they chose before they went there, but that 77% had visited the website and, apparently, attendance at open days is falling across the sector.

What’s our lesson? That we can’t rely on past behaviours or be complacent about the recruitment cycle or confirmation and clearing?! This is evidenced in sector wide undergraduate applications for 2017 entry, which are currently 8.6% down and the likelihood that HEIs will experience the submission of 20% of applications just before the January 15th deadline.

It's a rap

We know that we’re operating in a shrinking market with fewer 16-18 year olds in the UK; a situation that is not predicted to improve until 2020. We also know that there are more alternatives to university on offer, such as apprenticeships. A buyers’ market clearly now exists for UG enabling the prospective student to wait until clearing before applying.

So how do we identify and engage our potential students? It’s challenging - we have to engage early, interact and make loyal, so that at the point of decision, the University of Bedfordshire is front of mind and a positive choice. Students need to have heard of us to consider us in clearing; the NCS states that 85% are aware of the institution they enrol at prior to results day.

Top motivations for students are still subject 1st, career 2nd and institution ranking 3rd, but students also want to see and experience student life. They want to know about the community that they could become part of, so the opportunities we have to engage with them have to create emotion and connection.

So in 2017 watch out for more storytelling from students, virtual open days, web chats with academics, web tools to ease decision making, interactive video to select the content that is relevant to the student (mature, international etc.), digital champions and social media across the University, user generated content, more use of alumni, social media engagement not broadcast, softer calls to action that lead and nurture relationships and communications that connect with segmented audiences; parents, mature students, teachers.

Oh to be like the film industry and have a party at the end of every project, but working in marketing we can never really say ‘It’s a wrap’ because relationships are on-going, they evolve, take new forms and provide us with new communication challenges.

It's a rapper

A picture is worth a thousand words

By Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Perfecting the pose - on our
quest for the perfect marketing
pictures

Unsurprisingly, there's quite an emphasis placed on imagery when it comes to Marketing. After all, the more visual, the more it can drive engagement, right? Marketing is all about communicating value to our 'customers', and so presenting good marketing photos, makes for good marketing; as it not only conveys quality but also supports us in showcasing our 'products' and in telling the story of our brand.

We're all now living in the age of visual culture, where the focus is firmly placed on the 'show rather than tell' mentality. Don't get me wrong, there's still very much a place for the written word. Heck, we'd be out of a job if it wasn't for information hungry students; but the need to convey stories and to showcase reality means that there is a real appetite for rich media and dynamic visual content.

Projecting the right kind of content is a hot topic. With the latest technologies and must-haves, there's more or less a camera in everyone's pocket, and so practically anyone and everyone becomes a content generator. However, whilst we can all patrol campus armed with the latest iphone filled with snazzy apps and filters to capture those moments as they happen, in order to have that 'zing' factor, we bring in the professionals...

Campaign photoshoots in action -
Roy Mehta Photography

Over the last week we've worked with two professional photographers on a rather jam-packed schedule to support our Marketing work and increase of bank of photography. Scene Photography supports with our campus based imagery and architectural shots, and Roy Mehta specialises in portrait photography and executes our case studies and corporate campaign visuals.

We've spent a lot of time working on our visual identity, and carving out our creative proposition and point of differentiation. All of this culminated in this year's Clearing campaign visuals. If you haven't seen it yet, where have you been? The latest round of campaign photography was focused on plugging the gaps and expanding the range of campaign images we offer - we've broadened out to capture Sports Therapy, Psychology and Accounting & Finance, on top of the many subjects already being represented.

Prospectus cover shoot - with
Chris from Scene

In addition to the campaign photography, we've also been running the 2018 prospectus photography at the same time, which is no mean feat. You may have seen us running around campus over the last few days, dipping into classes to capture the latest goings on. The most challenging aspect of this photography by far, is the prospectus cover. A lot of emphasis is placed on this one single image. It's the one image that most of our enquirers may see as their first introduction to the University. It's the window in to university experience, and needs to appeal to a wide range of people from a wide range of backgrounds world-wide. No pressure then. Overall the shoots went really well, and the students who took part were great and incredibly giving of their time. Stay tuned over the next few weeks, and we'll keep you posted on our new imagery as the prospectus cover starts to take shape, as we select that one single 'hero' shot that sells the University.

Visual content is critical to marketing
and story telling strategies - source: Blog Hub Spot

The power of the image is reinforced by LifeLearn who state that when people hear information, they are likely to remember approximately 10%. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later.

Good marketing photos which showcase our campuses, the latest facilities, and the student experience go a long way in engaging an audience as opposed to text alone. And I always find it fascinating that many companies, and indeed many universities, don't always invest in commissioning custom photography, and instead turn to stock. For us at Bedfordshire, that's not an option. We pride ourselves on showcasing the real student environment and working with real students across our prospectus and campaign photography to tell our story and to convey our brand narrative. We ensure that our visual identity is unique to us, and ultimately stands out in the mind's of our prospective students.

Top tips to get the most out of your visual content:

1. Mood board ideas - and build up a bank of images or ideas that inspire you; from poses to props, it's great to have visual inspiration to help shape your shoots
2. Consider the type of image you need - is it to showcase a course or event, or are you trying to present statistics in a visual way (ie through infographics which is fast becoming a powerhouse for any content strategy)
3. Use real students - as much as possible. What better advocates for a brand than to work with the people experiencing the University themselves
4. Refer to style guides - and brand guidelines as a helpful reference for an over-arching look and feel of the brand - whether it be for profiles and case studies, action shots to exterior architecture, that way the images work towards increasing a bank of good quality content that reinforces the brand and creative proposition
5. Be aware of your environment - from the people in the shots to cultural sensitivities. And also do a reckie around campus to scout out possible locations before the day - watching out for those pesky bins in the background!
6. Get creative - an don't be afraid to try shots and set ups that are slightly 'outside of the box' - there's only one way to see if it works - and that's to snap it!

Making your marketing strategy work in a Digital Marketing age

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

It's an exciting time to be a marketer. But equally, it's also a challenging one. Our customers' preferences are ever changing, and at a fast pace. And, with a digital first attitude our prospective students are 'always online' and are 'constantly connected', often will the expectation that we are too!

Modern day marketing -
always online.

Our potential students, or 'Millennials' as they are otherwise known, have grown up in an electronics-filled and increasingly online and socially-networked world. It's therefore become a pivotal moment in marketing, where the offline versus online debate falls to the way side, and the focus is firmly being placed on digital marketing just being the new norm for marketing, and our previously 'tech-savvy online users' are simply now just known as our potential customers. In other words, digital marketing is no longer an experimental innovation for us, it's a daily marketing necessity and a fundamental means through which to talk to, and reach, what we hope to be the newest crop of Bedfordshire students.

For us, failure to jump on the digital band wagon, would leave us out of touch with our millennial audience and lagging behind our neighbouring competitors. But simply placing ads isn't enough. The need to create communities, content (of the relevant sort) and rich media has never been greater.

With that said, we're going to be incredibly busy over the next few months as we start to implement the start of this year's Clearing campaign which will be predominately digitally led. Our photoshoots are about to take place in the coming weeks, where we'll be gathering a range of image-led and video content to support our digital drive over this important recruitment period.

Digital vs mobile first

Operationally, we've experienced a significant shift towards digital in recent years, which opens up a vast selection of tools and channels at our disposal. We're constantly seeing new digital platforms, websites and social media options springing up. Thankfully, we have a Media Planning and Buying agency to support us with that; helping us track down the latest innovations, trends and digital products so we can make sure we're promoting in the right spaces and are talking to the right people, whilst ensuring we're getting the best return (more on this in a future post). We're also working closely with our Digital Consultant on a regular basis who works alongside us to monitor the quality of our web traffic, and keeps an ever watchful eye on where online conversations are taking place so we can continuously refine our audience targeting and make sure our advert placements and content strategies are working hard and yielding the desired results.

Making good data decisions:
Analyse to optimise 

Ultimately, the one thing that we can not forget is that data is king. The amount of data which we can collate, monitor and observe on a daily basis provides a wealth of insight into our markets (existing or new) potential customers, and campaign performance as we track their journey. As Kylie mentioned in the previous blog post, the analytics we work with can tell us a lot about our customers, and how our promotions have performed, so we can make regular adjustments to ensure we're getting the desired results, whilst constantly learning, and adapting to ensure we're keeping ahead of the curve and are providing relevant information to inform decision making.

The ability to track all of our digital output provides valuable insight which informs our future working. We're looking forward to getting some dashboards set up ahead of our next campaign, enabling us to see in real-time how our work is performing and how we can optimise further.

An understanding of data, and the need to formulate digital and social content plans is key as part of our ongoing strategy. And, with an ever increasing competitive market place, and with more Russell Groups competing in Clearing each year, it's becoming crowded with more online marketing noise than ever before, and so the need for us to hold our own, digitally, becomes paramount.

Keep an eye on this blog for more updates on the Clearing campaign, coming soon. Interested to see what other universities are doing? Then why not take a look at Market Research Manager, Andy's Clearing blog to keep on top of the latest competitor innovations and observations.

Content is king

This week I've had the opportunity to attend the Postgraduate Marketing Forum in Manchester. It was my first time attending one of these forums and, as I've heard lots of good things about them, I was very excited. The theme of the day was content and tracking - as even the name caused debate I knew that I was in for an interesting day!

Content comes in all shapes and sizes, to your traditional printed collateral to a social media post - content can be anything that we produce. But what about things that we're not responsible for - a tweet or blog post by someone outside of the university? Well, it's still about us, it could affect the decision of a potential student - and therefore it still counts as content - just content that's a little bit harder to control!

One of the guest speakers was from a copy writing agency and he presented us with this picture, a scene from the movie The Incredibles. He suggested that many universities often describe their facilities and their key features in the same way, raising the issue that if everyone is saying the same thing in the same way, is anyone really standing out?

It's an interesting challenge that the higher education sector is faced with - students tend to want to know about the same things: location, facilities, accommodation, teaching, research, careers etc. - so it's understandable that universities are talking about similar things. And it's not just as easy as just finding something that's different - it has to fit the context - it has to be right for that particular situation, for that particular audience. 

It was an interesting concept, one of many throughout the day, and I've certainly come away with many thoughts and ideas to explore. 

Hello from the new FMA!

My name is Ingrida, although most people call me Inga. I am one of the two new Faculty Marketing Assistants that Sarah mentioned in her blog post in February. I have worked for the university before, but last year I left my job to go traveling. It’s my fourth week on the job and I cannot complain about the lack of activities here!

I look after the faculties of the Business School, and Health and Social Sciences. My work closely relates to the Digital and the Press teams within MARC department, and of course the majority of activities within the faculties.

For example, at the moment I am working on the new issue of BedsBiz, the Business School’s quarterly magazine showcasing student, alumni and staff stories, achievements, and collaboration with businesses and the community. Whenever I visit the Business School, I always find out something new that is happening or about to happen! In April-May we will have the Digital Marketing Manager of Bugatti evaluating student suggestions on the brief provided by the company earlier this year, and a visit from the remarkable Colonel Emmanuel Kotia.  

Health and Social sciences also have a lot going on. We have been allocated 20 more spaces for our Nursing degree at our Aylesbury campus for a May start (accepting applications now). We have hosted the annual Sports Therapy Conference in Luton where apart from learning and networking opportunities students could present their dissertation posters showcasing their projects: I went along to capture some of that on video.

I have been updating faculty and course pages with additional information, having meetings with staff about publications, interviewing students about their experience, getting trained to work with different software, and drinking lots of coffee!

I will be delighted to share more of faculty developments and more of what I do in the next post.

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.