Out and about on campus

It's been a busy couple of weeks in the Marketing Department to say the least! I've been helping out on our Clearing and Winter campaign photo-shoots, which involves sourcing students to take part, meeting the students on the day, helping with the creative direction of the shoot and interviewing students about their UoB experience. We've got some really great shots, with students from various departments, and I'm excited to see the finished result of our Clearing campaign! A massive thanks to all of the students that took part in the campaign, and to all the staff that helped us source props, or recommended students to us.

I really enjoy getting out and about on the photo-shoots. I find it really interesting working with the photographers as they have such a different way of seeing things. I also really enjoy speaking to students and hearing their thoughts on UoB; it helps to see and understand things from another perspective which can never be a bad thing - especially for someone in Marketing!

On Friday the Marketing Team also got to spend the day over in the Bedford campus, meeting various media suppliers with our Media agency. This is the first time that I've been involved in a day like this since I started at UoB so it was a really great experience for me. Each supplier presented their media offerings to us and explained the different options available and how their offerings have evolved over the last year. For me, it was also a chance to put faces to names that I've been emailing the past year!

I've also been working on our PG campaign over the last few weeks. I've been sending emails to our current students about the benefits of progressing onto postgraduate study and recommending some courses that might appeal to them (and compliment their current studies). I'm also currently working on some materials for the Jubilee Scholarship, which offers UK/EU students the chance to study a Master's for free this September if they receive a first class Honours from us, so keep an eye out for these around the university!

On the subject of PG study, I also filmed Barbara Guinn from the Research Graduate School to find out more about the excellent support they offer students. Keep an eye out for the video on our YouTube channel, it'll be up by the end of the week!

In other news it's officially been over a year since I started at UoB! I can't quite believe how quickly the time has flown by but they do say time flies when you're having fun!

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

Post-Easter catch up

On my first day back after a relaxing Easter break, I attended some photography training, kindly organised by Heidi for the Comms team. During the course we went into a lot of depth about how to make the most of our cameras. The course leader reminded us on several occasions that humans are far more intelligent that cameras, but I’m not convinced I supported that theory for a lot of the day! 

The day was fairly confusing at times but I left feeling far more confident in my understanding of which setting to use when. I learned about how RAW files allow you to better edit a photograph and how to manually focus too. I suppose that time will tell as to whether it all sunk in but I’m hoping that with a bit of practice my photos will improve a lot.

Now the Easter break is over the marketing team is working really hard on the 2015 postgraduate prospectus, and the UCMK prospectus too. After lots of hard work by Sarah and Kylie on flatplans, we’re ready to bring these publications to life. Watch this space!  

I’ve been doing lots of work on promoting the postgraduate Jubilee Scholarship and spreading the Open Event coming up on 22 May. Other tasks have included sending out recommendation emails to all our third year students by department, to suggest PG courses that might suit them. As ever, I’ve been filming and editing lots of videos to brighten up our PG Life ezine.

word about the postgraduate

As you can probably tell, it’s very busy here but it’s really exciting to see more big projects get underway as we continue our efforts to show prospective students why Beds should be their first choice!

Clare