Another week in the Marketing Department

I can't believe it's Friday already (not that I'm complaining of course!). With the bank holiday on Monday this week has flown by!

On Tuesday and Wednesday the University hosted the US festival - a dance festival involving several universities within the UK. The two day event featured workshops from various practitioners within the dance industry as well as performances from the university students involved. On Wednesday I got to visit our Bedford campus to film some of the workshops and performances. It was a great afternoon and I was lucky enough to sit in on some amazing performances. I'll be editing the content next week so look out for when it goes live on the more than a degree site.

Today I'm also going to visit the Art & Design graduate show, Frame. Frame is an exhibition showcasing some of the work by our final year students and I'm quite excited to see what they've produced! The show will be running in the Alexon building until the 15 June so, if you haven't already, why not check it out?

Over the last couple of weeks I've also spent some time focusing on our Postgraduate offering. At the end of this month, we'll be hosting a Postgraduate Open Day so I've been working on some information emails for our second and final year students to let them know about the event. I've also been working with our CRM team and the library team to get some digital signage put up on the plasma screens and LRC screens to further promote the event to our current students. 

And continuing with the PG theme, I've also been working on the PG prospectus for 2017. I've been liaising with various faculties and departments around the University to ensure that all of my sections are correct and up-to-date as well as proof reading copy and selecting images for the prospectus. I'm pretty sure I've said this before but it's coming along very nicely and I can't wait for you all to see it!

A love affair with Northampton is a journey into space? Really?

Back in the dark ages, Luton Borough Council and/or another well-meaning civic body (or bodies) ran something called Luton’s Looking Up. Lurid yellow t-shirts with a vaguely Breakfast TV, vaguely Acid
House logo were run off and worn by a few local lunatics and well-meaning friends of the town. That's what passed as social media in the late 1980s. As I recall - possibly incorrectly - no one knew what was going on and the campaign didn’t amount to much.

I’ve written before about Luton’s image problems, although it appears that at long last, there’s a real and serious set of exciting initiatives which will transform our loveable old environs into something which hopefully will still be loveable, but new and shiny too.

On our doorstep - proposed new ground for Luton Town FC

While work is nearing completion on our very own eight-storey ‘state of the art’ library, even more exciting, for many townsfolk, are the plans for Power Court, within a stone’s throw of our main town centre campus. Readers of this blog may recall my fondness for the mighty Luton Town, so it’s hard to put in words how exciting the prospect of the proposed stadium is. We will rise again - by beating Arsenal in the 1988 League Cup, we gave Gooners like Nick Hornby plenty to moan about long before their perennial navel gazing and dreary irritation about always finishing fourth set in under current manager Arnold Fenders.

Last known happy Arsenal fan

Enough about football. Again. The Power Court development also includes restaurants and commercial enterprises, but most significantly, an 1,800 capacity music venue. This, again, is ludicrously good news for a town which, in addition to our very own Student Union, has always been well served by small venues like The Edge, The Four Horseshoes, The George, The Castle, the Hat Factory or the jewel in crown on the town’s live music scene, The Bear Club. When it comes to national acts, Luton has, up until now, had to rely on nearby venues like the St Albans Arena or the Bedford Corn Exchange – a venue of the size proposed will hopefully attract some pretty significant touring acts. Not that either St Albans or Bedford are easily reached on Thameslink.

And that’s not all Luton town watchers – light rail to the airport, the busway, bridge installations, a new shop called Smiggle and new doughnut shops in The Mall….. there’s so much going on, it’s hard to keep up. Luckily, the excellent Luton Developments on both Facebook and Twitter deliver regular updates on what’s going on in the town, building-wise.

Looking back, the Luton’s Looking Up campaign didn’t do any harm. This may have been because it didn’t leave a legacy. Unlike Northampton, whose musical invocations of a new Eden in middle England only 60 miles by road or rail from London is not only huge fun, but also ridiculous; anyone who knows their local history knows that the Garden of Eden was in Bedford.

Enjoy the Northampton song? The A-side is even more bonkers…….

We're feeling simply the Beds. with another award accolade

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

After spending a week in sunny Las Vegas, USA, it's back to the not so sunny Luton, and a mountain of emails and campaign work to catch up on.

Another accolade to add to
the marketing shelf

Whilst ploughing through the hundreds of emails (yes really, and I was only gone for a week!) I happened to stumble across one particular email which caught my attention - from UKBA - the UK Blog Awards.

A while back, Andy our Market Research Manager and I decided on a bit of a whim to enter this here blog for an award, to see how we fared amongst the sector and our fellow marketing peers and HE professionals. I was pretty happy to see that whilst we didn't secure the big win, we did receive a 'Highly Commended' recognition from the judges.

It was great to see that we'd made the short-list in the first place as it was very competitive. There were 2,000 entries submitted for the award, and 79,000 public votes were cast resulting in our Marketing Blog beating off stiff competition to make it into the top ten short list. So we're very pleased with the result and to make it that far, considering our humble blogging beginnings.

UKBA sent us an email notifying us of the big result:

"Congratulations on being awarded highly commended at the UK Blog Awards. The judges assessed your Blog against a rigorous criteria of: Design, Style, Content, Marketing, and Usability which was then assessed against five sub-criteria’s. Some of our judges have said that the criteria is the most intense that they have critiqued against. Therefore, you should be super proud of your highly commended blog achievement!" - And indeed we are!

So, a big thank you to everyone who voted to help us secure the short-list, and we'll be sure to continue to share our marketing updates and insight and to build on the good work here, ready for UKBA 2017, next year!

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

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!

Printed hands and salad days

A few weeks ago, I raided the University archives and sneered at the design of prospectuses from our former institutions from the 1940s through until the 1980s. Before handing these back, I decided, once again, to discard the hep, groovy ‘now’ and look back to that even tattier time before space travel and bagged salad.

These days, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects are back in vogue, as befitting the world's preoccupation with bytes, bits and a grim determination to find ever more inventive and/or effective ways of wiping ourselves out. Epidemics, medical cures, performance enhancers, global warming, jet packs, superheroes, self driving cars and the internet don’t invent themselves.

Universities are an essential component of this global technological push. At Bedfordshire, our recent contributions have been impressive, with undergraduate courses in Computing, Biological Science and Health and Social Sciences among those underpinning our world-leading research was is helping to change lives. This week, for example, we've been bowled over with the inspriational work carried out by our Computing department in building a hand for 8 year old William Joyner.

But back to the salad. In the 1940s, bagging the stuff was a distant dream, although food technology was eagerly pursued. Luton Technical College's offer was dominated with Chemistry, Commercial and Engineering courses, though there was a two year City and Guilds in Breadmaking and Flour Confectionery on a Wednesday or “Domestic Science and Women’s Classes", including Cookery, Dressmaking and Make-do & Mend. 1945's course offer looks as tired as the country must have been coming out of war, though the £3 fees don’t look too onerous for Bedfordshire residents (hilariously, this increases to £5 for Hertfordshire residents; £6 for those from elsewhere). 

Crazy, crazy Mrs Sew-and-Sew

In 1952, students were treated to the excellent news that the canteen served dinner between 12.50 and 1.30pm and that the College now held classes in Art and Building. Women’s courses still included Cooking and Dressmaking, although Make-do and Mend had been replaced by Millinery, Needlecraft and Tailoring.

In the 1960s, the wise decision was taken to instruct pupils not to carry bottles of ink around the campus unless they (the bottles) were transported in polythene bags. Women’s courses seemed to have disappeared, what with liberation and all, although the College's Department for Food and Clothing had courses for Brides, Hostesses and Housewives. Heston's food scientists may have sniffed at the cookery courses, but reipes included ”Rice, Risottos-Pilaffs Pasta Dishes’, ”Sauces in High-Class Cookery” and “The Use of Herbs”. Far out, man.

Two decades on, Luton’s College of Higher Education was moving forward apace. Prospective students in 1979 were promised a 36 user Computer Centre using Basic Plus, Def Leppard, Fortran, Cobol, Terry Jacks and Macro11. Business and Management courses had crept in, mainly because, by that time, the art of cookery had largely been replaced by PotNoodles; the manufacture of which needed a steadying management hand and some smart marketing rather than nutrionists.


Notes
Principles from Make-do & Mend are still applied in University Professional Services departments.
Bagged salad first appeared on UK supermarket shelves in 1986. 
Def Leppard was and might still be a band, not a computer language. Terry Jacks isn't a computer language either.

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.