Gearing up for Clearing

Clearing - it starts tomorrow (18^th August) though really it started much earlier for us, we’ve been campaigning since June and recruiting students through Clearing from 1^st July!

Now it feels a bit like a wedding or Christmas or getting our own exam results - it’s nerve wracking and exciting in the same measure.  It’s unlikely that I will sleep the night before and as we’ll be at work for 7am I may be testing the sleeping pods in our new library later in the day!

We launched this year’s campaign much earlier, 13^th June – to maximise opportunity with the BTEC market, key influencers and those using clearing as an initial entry point.  

Our advertising has clear aspirational hooks, features our own students engaged in practice and has full digital and social media integration.  Our microsite ensures that clearing enquirers have access to clear and concise information whilst ensuring we are able to effectively track traffic through our digital marketing. The site is fully mobile responsive as we know that over 80% of traffic will be through a mobile device. We’re receiving great coverage in the media for our helpful advice to students and featured graduates and we look forward to ITV Anglia covering our clearing operations tomorrow (18^th August).

It has now become a tradition that we launch Clearing each year with a PR stunt! Two years ago we had the flashmob in Luton Mall and last year projections across famous landmarks in London. This year to celebrate the launch of our fantastic new library we commissioned a piece of 3D street art for members of the community to engage with in the Luton Mall 17^th and 18^th August .

We’ve delivered visually impactful campaign with high visibility and I’m immensely proud of the work the marcomms team has produced.

We know that going to university changes people’s lives and we are incredibly excited about talking to students over the coming weeks, on the phone, via live chat or in person, about the life changing experience they can have at the University of Bedfordshire.

Another week closer to Clearing

With A-level results a week today it's been an interesting week in the office! Clearing is the no. one topic of conversation and everyone is prepping last minute bits and pieces to ensure everything is in place. I hope by now you've all seen some of our new artwork, either online or around campus. We're all really pleased with the finished result and hope you like it!

This week I had a tour of the new library and I must say it looks fantastic! It's a great space and it certainly helped to get my steps up for the day walking down the nine floors (yes I have a fitbit and yes I did take the lift up - I'm not that crazy!). I'm currently arranging some student videos for the PG e-zine, PG Life, so I'm going to see if I can film in the new library and show it off a bit - watch this space!

I've also been working on the more than a degree site and finding out about some more initiatives at the University including the psychology film club and various trips run by the Business School. It's great to still be finding out about various activities that our students can get involved in, and it just shows what a wide variety of co- and extra-curricular activities we have on offer. 

Over the next few days I'm also going to be working on our Postgraduate online profiles - making sure our profiles on external websites are as up-to-date as possible. It'll be great to be able to add the information about the new library to the various websites as well as the latest NSS results.

I'm also looking ahead to next month when the new set of freshers will start their university journey! I'm hoping to be able to do some photography and videography at some of the events which we will be able to use on social media and in our e-zines throughout the year. I love going out and meeting our students - it also helps me build a nice list of contacts to call upon when we're planning our marketing photo-shoots!

On your marks, set, go…

It’s seemed rather quiet around the office for the last two weeks, not on the work front, but in actual bodies around the office. I think everyone had the same idea – take holiday before the beast that is Clearing begins!

It’s been a little hectic for those of us who haven’t had any holiday (I’m not bitter, I promise. But if it wasn’t for a three week holiday in Australia in October, I may be – 11 weeks and counting!!)

Gearing up for Clearing like...

I often find that around Clearing the vibe in the office is a little different, not in a bad way, just different. As the Clearing start date approaches you can almost feel everyone gearing up like at the start line of a race; ‘brace yourself’, ‘stay focused’, ‘keep calm’, ‘you’ve planned and prepared well for this’…*BANG*…and we’re off…Taking calls, offering guidance and advice, checking off qualifications and making offers. And whilst our dedicated Admissions team and other trained volunteers are doing that, the marketing team are monitoring and amending campaign activity daily, to ensure we have the most impact. It’s a busy ole time!

And by the time we’re done with Clearing, we’re all usually ready for another holiday…oh…Australia in October you say…

In other news, I think I’ve completed the quickest evaluation report ever (43 pages of lovely stats and useful insight), which is a personal achievement in itself. And I’ve made a good start on the Winter season (September-December) Open Day plans. I’m just finishing the budget allocation and then I will be looking at the Open Day collateral. We’re going to be working on bringing it together a little more, as we’ve added things into the plans over the last year or so, it’s meant that some of the collateral doesn’t quite flow, so I’m going to work on ensuring it has a more consistent and well thought-out approach as we approach the 2017 cycle; which let’s face it, is marketing 101!


All of the welcome packs that I was working on last time are now ready too, with the last of the deliveries coming in today. Another thing ticked off the list.Although I have just taken on some new jobs, so I best get off!
Speak soon,
K

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. If only.

Oh, if only. The University may appear quiet, but trust me, there’s plenty going on. All over the University, colleagues are mopping up from the last academic year and putting plans in place for the near, not so near and the extremely distant future. Academics research; Partnerships run all sorts of events and are setting up - err - partnerships, Facilities teams repair and Estates open new buildings. Thankfully, most people find time to take a deep breath here and there, although you grab it while you can - in reality, there really is no ‘off switch’.

In Marketing, as you may have gathered from previous posts, we’re ClearingClearingClearing, and looking at getting our 2018 prospectuses ready. That’s right, 2018 already.

You can't tell me nuffin' about nuffin'

Sometimes us hacks in Marketing, Admissions, Recruitment and Marketing (MARC) – for the benefit of any colleagues reading this, I’m referring to myself here – think we know it all. Some of us have been doing our jobs long enough to have earned accolades, awards and the occasional and occasionally begrudging respect of colleagues across the Uni. Which, funnily enough, makes it even more important (for me) to escape the head-down-full-on activity and re-engage with one of our most important audiences; our prospective students.

And so I took a high powered sound archive recording device and a load of prospectuses to our Summer Schools, in Luton and Bedford. Speaking to Year 12s was a pleasure but, more importantly from the Uni’s point of view, it was also extremely illuminating. It’s surprising how views develop and diverge between different groups of people as well as different individuals. A year can make a huge difference. The only downside for attendees was being stuck in a room at the end of a long day with a befuddled market researcher, but this pain was eased with a ‘thank you’ voucher. Besides, there is such a thing as ‘too much fun’ – and after a day of taster sessions (for example, in Psychology, Computing or Business), there were still the evening’s entertainments in our bang up-to-date accommodation.

I’ve also recently worked with Adam and Donald, two Year 10 students who came to us on work experience. We were delighted to have them; both bought a professionalism and set about their tasks enthusiastically. This was the first time I’ve looked  after work experience students. The process has been informative and rewarding, hopefully for all concerned, with Adam and Donald getting involved in the Summer School as well as helping in our prospectus work and mucking in with general tasks around the office.

And those Summer Schools? Keep up to date through our Partnership Team's Twitter feed or check and see what course you can start in SEPTEMBER.

Taking PRide in our achievements

Sarah De Guzman, Marketing Manager

Desk pride in the office today :-)

Writing award submissions takes a lot of time and commitment. From scouring our marketing reports to assess campaign performance, reviewing the market research results from our Market Research Manager, to number crunching to demonstrate a return on investment, each and every submission takes a significant investment of time and effort, alongside the day job. But here in Marketing HQ we do like to squeeze in time to do just this.

Of course it's fantastic if you secure the short-list, but it's also a great nod to the hard work carried out in the team, and provides a great opportunity to reflect on our successes which can often be overlooked in the day-to-day busyness of campaign planning and implementation. And not forgetting to mention the kudos in being able to benchmark ourselves against our industry peers.

And that's why we were absolutely overjoyed to see that we'd been short-listed for not one, but two CIPRide Awards this year! A fantastic testament to all of the hard work undertaken this year - especially since we're rather depleted in resource as of late, and have had to be more frugal than in previous years - making every penny count in our campaigns.

Hurrah! Amazing to see that we've been shortlisted twice @CIPR_Awards -Low Budget & Integrated Campaign #PRideAwards pic.twitter.com/PKBp0ayhTb

— Sarah De Guzman (@Sarah_Hampton) July 18, 2016

The short-list may be out, but it looks as though we have some stiff competition - having entered two of the most competitive categories for our region this year.

We're up for Best Integrated Campaign - for the Clearing Campaign to support recruitment for 2015 entry, as well as Best Low Budget Campaign - for the performance of our September Open Day campaign, the latter award being Kylie's very first award submission - so a great result to secure the short-list first time round!

The Awards culminate in a 'do later in the year in Cambridge, so we'll keep you posted on how we do nearer the time. We've won Gold awards three year's in a row at CIPRide, so no pressure to keep the record going! But in the meantime, we're going to take a moment to relish in our achievements, before we get our heads crammed back into the beast that is Clearing to see if we will have another entry worthy of submission next year. Here's hoping!

A team that plays together stays together

Beverley Hoare, Deputy Director of MARC

In Marcoms we’re very noses to the grindstone and drop everything at a moment’s notice to respond to some urgent press query, an event that we hadn’t been notified about or an emergency update to the website kind of people!

So to get a date that everyone (almost) could attend and in the end to pull themselves away from work for an away day was no small achievement. But the team wanted it, asked for it and valued it. Why?

Celebrating our team
achievements

Superglue - it’s important for team bonding – because we learn more about each other: likes, dislikes, motivations, because we like spending time together and we get to have fun. It gives some light relief from the day to day, a bit of perspective on our challenges and an opportunity to recognise the teams and individual achievements. 

Lots of life happens in the course of an academic year, so we celebrate too – one baby due in October, one marriage, two engagements, two 30^th birthdays and a house move.  We’ve had several losses to the team (fortunately not through natural causes) and two new staff have joined the team, but both worked at Bedfordshire previously – they loved it so much they came back.

Who do we think we are – in a Myers Briggs type approach we completed an online test to assess our personality types.  You might imagine that all marketers are extroverts, but not so, we’re quite an introverted bunch, drawing on our own internal imaginations and creativity.  As a team we are very caring, supportive and sensitive types, so be gentle with your critique – though we’re not looking for glory we do appreciate a well-placed compliment J

The Press team dominated the quiz, 
showcasing an unusual specialism in
animal trivia! 

Quiz master Andy entertained us with obscure questions about how male goats get a mate and the colour of a hippos sweat when it gets stressed – google it.  I may not be able to remember the answers to the serious HE questions but weirdly these have stuck.

It’s wasn’t  all fun and games - we ran some serious activities too, honest – we did some looking back and looking forward, focused on our objectives and the new PDA programme and generated loads of ideas for the question ‘how can we improve our brand, reputation and recruitment through social media’.  If you have any burning desire to give us some ideas please do get in touch.

Almost on to 2017...

So the final Open Day for this cycle has now taken place (yesterday) so I’m looking forward to planning the 2017 cycle of Open Days. Although we’ve been communicating with our 2017 enquirers since April, the official 2017 cycle starts from September. So I’ll be looking to finish my spring season open day report over the coming weeks so I can reflect on the good and the bad from this year, and see how we can further progress the plans for the 2017 cycle of Open Days.

And of course, while that’s happening, we’ve just kicked off with Clearing, which is the final part of the 2016 cycle. So it’s definitely still full steam ahead as Clearing is a really important time for us as a University.

I’ve also recently picked up some new projects:

Last years Best of Beds leaflet

1. Updating our Complete University Guide profile – updating the text with new messages, sourcing new images and updating links
2. Updating our Beds of Beds leaflet – updating messages and graphics with more recent stats and figures about Bedfordshire
3. Updating our Guide to your offer brochure – working with the admissions team to look at what updates are needed for this year, so we can send this guide out with offer letters

So I’m currently looking at timelines, print quantities, updates to information and so on, so I can work up production schedules and get started on the above job.
So all in all, it’s planning and evaluating for me over the coming weeks.

It's good to re-group as a team and reflect
and plan ahead!

We’ve also got our team away day tomorrow – we’re spending some time at our Putteridge Bury campus to re-group, discuss this year’s successes and looking at the next year moving forward.

Speak soon,
K