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

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

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

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

Clearing the way forward: 2014 and beyond

Sarah Hampton, Marketing Manager

Getting Creative: On set with one of our
current students, Joseph, who came
via Clearing

For many, the months of June and July signify the end of term. Students are winding down after sitting their final exams and submitting their final assessments, and all of a sudden the campus seems to feel like a bit of a ghost town, as everyone starts to kick back, relax, and enjoy their summer break - but not the Marketing team! For us, the summer months are some of our most busiest and important, as we gear up for the Clearing Campaign, which is without question, our biggest burst of activity throughout the academic year. But Clearing doesn't just start on 14 August when the A level results come out. For us at least, Clearing involves months of preparation, as we plan and book in a host of activity, and devise a creative concept which we know will deliver results.

So in the last few weeks, we've been working with our agency Z3 Design, to come up with a number of concepts for this years big campaign. We're really pleased with the one we've chosen, as we feel that it really pushes the brand to an exciting new level, and is a bit more commercial in its approach meaning it will definitely not fall into the 'safe' box, and will most definitely turn heads in a rather crowded market place. We ran two days of photo shoots last week, which were crammed packed full of weird and wonderful shot lists with our current students. It's taken a while to get the creative to where we wanted it to be, but we're happy that it's direct and functional enough to drive enquiries, and quirky enough to show personality and differentiation, so we're really excited to share the visuals with the wider University over the coming weeks - keep a look out in future posts, for a first look of this years visuals.

We're live: our CRM system
is up and running

Although our activity is firmly rooted in Clearing - for 2014 entry, we're already beginning work to communicate with our 2015 enquirers by inviting them to Open Days and sharing relevant content via our CRM system: Belong at Beds. But what many don't know is that we're already thinking ahead to 2016. We've been meeting with agencies over the last few weeks to discuss our plans and publication timelines as we slowly approach the tender stage for our 2016 activity. It takes up a lot of time meeting so many different companies, but is nonetheless important; it gives us a chance to find out more about the agency, their resourcing and project management capabilities, to ensure that they don't just offer creativity and innovation but have the processes in place to deliver on the development of the work, which is no easy task. By widening the pool of companies we may work with we're able to bring fresh and exiting ideas to the table.

New campus: our UCMK
prospectus cover

Aside from this, we've also been busy progressing the Postgraduate 2015 Prospectus, as we approach second proof stage, and have been supporting the recruitment team with a high volume of jobs for both the June set of Enquirer Open Days, and the upcoming UCAS convention which is taking place on 23 and 24 June. We'd had a large numbers of requests to produce leaflets and other marketing communications to ensure that each department and faculty has a variety of collateral available on the day to promote their courses effectively to potential students, and provide them with a snap shot of the courses and successes within their subjects. We've also got the UCMK prospectus off to print (see cover right), and this 40 page publication will be printed and delivered just in time for the event, so we're pleased to be able to use this great platform, to promote our new campus location.

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