Who knew I could juggle?!

It’s been quite a while since I blogged! As the team is expanding, we are sharing the blogging, so I don’t get to bore you quite so much! Hurray! The team have all been really busy over the last couple of weeks, this is our busiest time of the year as we gear up for Clearing, start to evaluate the academic cycle and start to look ahead to next year’s cycle too. We're juggling a lot of work between such a small team, but we always manage to do what we gotta do!

How I think I look juggling all of
my work

Next stop…my desk!

Well, I’ve been out and about a lot since I last blogged. I’ve been assisting the Recruitment team with UCAS events. I attended one day of the event in London last month and I also attended one day at the Leicester event last week. It’s really nice going out and talking to prospective students and not only showcasing what Bedfordshire has to offer but also offering advice and guidance to people who have some big decisions to make about their future and careers. I’m not sure I would want to go back to that age! We had a lot of people come over for a chat, and got some really nice comments that we had provided them with some useful information, which is lovely.

I also attended a CASE conference in London on Tuesday. For those not familiar with CASE, they offer support to people working in the Education sector through the likes of forums and conferences, where people who work in Education can network and share best practice. This particular event looked at student communication. There were a couple of really interesting presentations on the use of social media, and using students in communication, through blogs (which we already do might I add).  It was great to see how other institutions run similar activities, but managed in a completing different way. Food for thought!

Take a look at our blogger page here.

Open days

Not again, I hear you cry! I feel like I always mention open days in every blog, so I won’t bore you too much with the details, but we had our latest (and last) undergraduate open day on 25 April for this academic cycle. And we’re currently working on our last PG open day campaign for this cycle on 21 May. So lots of emails, media, and social media activity taking place.

Reports

Which leads me nicely on to another thing I always mention…REPORTS and EVALUATIONS! I’m still working on my annual evaluation reports for our UG and PG open day campaigns, which are progressing slowly but surely. We’re at the end of this year’s open day cycle now, so I can now get on with analysing the full cycle of open day campaigns. They’re providing some good insight and showing some great successes in terms of the activity we have put together which is really nice to see. I look forward to sharing them with the wider MARC team.

Conversion communications

We’ve also now started sending two monthly e-zines to undergraduates, so I’ve been out filming videos and creating some new content for these. They went out yesterday, so it’s now on to this month’s editions - we’re in May! Woah! But fear not, I have my content planned for each edition up until the end of August, so all is under control.

Publications

Work is well underway on our 2016 UCMK prospectus now; we’re due to get the second proof from the designer on Tuesday and it’s looking nice. The PG prospectus is moving a little more slowly, but we’re starting to get there, so in the next few weeks we’ll be fully consumed by all things PG! I'm also working on the new student guide for this September. There’s lots of work going on behind the scenes around our ‘Welcome’ for new students, so I can slowly start to work on this publication and feed in new information once decisions are finalised. Working to a tight deadline of 6 weeks! Crikey!

You guessed it- how I look right now
in reality

I’ve also been working on some adhoc bits such as a flyer for our UCMK campus and a pull up banner for an event that’s being held in the Computing department next month. Oh, and a fair few meetings.

Hmm, I think that’s enough for now. Roll on the bank holiday...I’m going to Newmarket races so let’s hope the sun comes back out.
   

Speak soon,

K

If only I had Carol Vorderman’s maths skills

My head hurts...

You guessed it from the title; I’m still working on my backlog of open day evaluations. I’m over half way through the full enquirers open day report, which covers the June, October, November and December open days. If only I was born with the maths skills of Carol Vorderman, my head would probably be hurting less. We get some great insight from the evaluations though, so it’s of course worth it to enable us move our plans forward and improve with every open day campaign.

What’s scary is that we’re smack bang in the middle of our second round of open days; February, March and April. So whilst evaluating previous open day campaigns, I’m implementing others.

The start of our February open day

The UG February open day was successful with 327 students on campus at Luton and 133 at Bedford. And when you include the parents and friends who accompany the students, that’s a whole lotta people on campus!

I’m in to the second week of the March open day plans now; Google and digital media activity is up and running, emails and postcards are being worked on and social media posts up.
The numbers for the March open day are looking healthy too!

I’m also planning for the May postgraduate open day, with some initial activity taking place ahead of the campaign starting and research and brainstorming of some new initiatives and actions which will hopefully increase the success of our campaign once it’s up and running.

So besides open day activity, I'm forward planning the editorial lists for our advice communications and monthly e-zines to applicants so we can start to plan in videos and content we may need to source before each edition.

And lastly I’m gearing up to start work on the next round of publications; the UCAS convention brochure and other collateral that we feel we may need, the 2016 UCMK prospectus, the 2016 PG prospectus, and the new student guide for September 2015, which will all be starting imminently.

Hopefully next time I blog I’ve got another two evaluations complete (it good to set targets!)

Speak soon,

K

Starting to wind down for Christmas (I think!)

So, as you can imagine, this week is mostly getting things finished ahead of the Christmas break.

The UG16 prospectus is now at first proof stage, we've had the first draft of the artwork and we’re feeding back to the designers this week. It’s looking really great- really clean and professional with a clear progression from last year. I’m getting excited seeing it all come together, as I've worked on this from the initial design stage.

The February start new student guide is almost signed off now, ready to go out in the New Year. I’m just waiting on some final tweaks and this will be good to go by the end of the week.

Artwork for our PG Open Events
in February

We've also started to implement the PG Open Day plans for February 2015. Google activity and the website homepage banner will be up and running this week, most agencies have been briefed ready for the activity that is imminent after the Christmas break, and I’ll be pushing the event via social media this week, to drum up some awareness and interest before the holidays.

Clare, don’t leave us!

As Clare mentioned in her previous blog, she leaves us on Christmas eve to go travelling in the New Year. We’re not jealous at all! She will be a big miss within the team, but we all wish her the best of luck! We’re all meeting up after work on Thursday to wish her a final farewell.

Merry Christmas!

Festivities

So, over to Christmas! We’ve got two Christmas lunches in the calendar this week; one today and one on Wednesday. We’ve then got a University wide staff party on Friday afternoon.And as Friday is my last day in office before Christmas, it’s a nice way to start my holidays early! I’ll be travelling up to Sunderland straight after to spend Christmas up North. I’ve got my woollies packed and I’m super excited! The best thing about Christmas is spending time with friends and family. Or is it all the yummy food?! Hmmm….

Speak in the New Year,

K

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