What a nail biting few weeks. After months of hard work it was finally crunch time and I was promised the results of my PG Diploma in Digital Marketing with the IDM would be with me by Friday 5th September. Monday came and went. No email. Then Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday morning I was getting pretty edgy and so too were my course mates whom I kept in touch with via our LinkedIn group. Then (after much manual browser refreshing) the email finally appeared in my inbox!

I literally jumped for joy! To receive a credit was beyond my wildest dreams meaning I could add some more letters after my name (see my profile on this blog) and more importantly enjoy the champagne and takeaway pizza my wife had promised me if I passed!

I can honestly say that it was all worth the late nights and stress and now I can't wait until the graduation ceremony (my first in over ten years) on 7th November at the Royal Geographical Society in London. A massive thanks to everyone at the IDM for their help and support...

Our latest campaign visual
with a focus on our alumni

In other news we are finally winding down on our Clearing activity and are now about to go live on our Winter Campaign (tentatively entitled 'Discover') which is due to run until 15th January 2015. This means that we're due to spend the following week in a frenzy of digital activity: 

• Creating a campaign landing page
• Adding the images to the homepage
• Editing and animating a campaign video
• Setting up seven different PPC campaigns
• Designing and distributing a number of MPUs, Leaderboards and Skyscrapers
• Finalising a Social Media content strategy

It's going to be a busy one so we'll definitely need a constant supply of tea and coffee. We're at the stage now where we've been experimenting a bit with making our landing pages work better on mobile and the media split we're decided on is almost wholly dictated by lessons learned from our previous campaigns (Clearing has taught us A LOT!) We've shared out the responsibility for the above activity amongst the team and hope to have everything live by next Monday.

This isn't to say that we don't still like to try new things and as part of our promotions for our upcoming Postgraduate Open Day we've started trialling some LinkedIn advertising. I've personally heard mixed reports on its success rate so the only way to truly find out is to run some small advertising ourselves!

In other developments I've been tasked with creating a bespoke online  Funnelback search (similar to our course finder) for our documents. This is in conjunction with a project to standardise how we name and tag documents across the University so has also included the need to create a number of help sheets and tutorial videos for staff using our CMS. The finished result should be up and running soon and the idea is that it will fulfill both the needs of staff looking for documents on our intranet and our external auditors.

Finally, I attended a really positive meeting chaired by our Vice Chancellor last week where I had the chance to demo our website to him and go through some of the recent developments. We have a few small things to work on with our online messaging but overall he was extremely happy with how the project is being managed and the outcomes we're achieving. I made sure I passed this praise on to the team as sometimes it's useful to know that the person at the top is impressed with the job we're doing and provides that extra impetus to keep driving forward...

I suppose I should start this post by briefly mentioning the craze that has taken over the internet (and my Facebook newsfeed) in the last few weeks namely the 'ice bucket challenge'. On Thursday we were asked to film our Vice Chancellor performing it and there's absolutely no escaping from it with everyone having an opinion on the validity and ethics behind what has become an extremely popular campaign. Personally, I am yet to be nominated and whilst I feel giving to charity is something we should all do there's no excuse for pressuring people into it! This is because many people already give to charities which reflect their personal beliefs/trials without feeling the need to draw attention to it or 'nominate' others.


With a campaign like this that has caught on so vehemently there are clearly some key lessons for marketers:

• People like to show off (and demonstrate their popularity by nominating friends). Sadly, many of us have narcissistic qualities as the abundance of 'selfies' also proves. This campaign takes it up a notch and adds a competitive nature to the proceedings. The barriers to participate are pretty low (everyone has access to a bucket, water and some ice) and the video run-times are short (60secs max) meaning a low commitment to consume
• Everyone is now a content creator as it is now so easy to post video from a smartphone. This further proves that we online marketers need to put video at the very core of our digital strategies and find more creative ways to engage with consumers via the medium
• This plays of the current cult of celebrity culture meaning copycat ventures will struggle to transpose the same level of engagement and willingness to share content
• Where the campaign could be improved is added information to educate (i.e. many participants have a limited knowledge of the charity they are donating to). Further to this it does however prove that by incorporating good causes into the marketing mix people can be encouraged to engage with the brand

In other news I have been spending a lot of time in our Google AdWords account and producing daily reports on our continued Clearing activity. The former is becoming increasingly complex as we refine and add more campaigns based on how the user is searching and which courses we are trying to push. I've definitely noticed a ramping up of this since last year and the online spend for some universities must nearly be nearing seven figures! As we near the stage of closure and a final campaign analysis it's clear we have learned a great deal for next year based on how potential students interact with our website and the tenacity of our competitors!

Winter is coming...!

The next step for us will be our forthcoming winter campaign (I'm budget planning as I type) and for that we have created a shift in the way we market from campaign to campaign. In the past ex-colleagues have thrown out everything that was previously done and gone back to the drawing board to create a completely new idea. I have never liked this approach as it is not one big brands take to completely re-invent their visuals and messaging three times a year.

Thankfully our new marketing team have seen the benefit of developing a natural evolution from one campaign to the next. This will allow us increased brand perception and less exhausting work to start from scratch each time! Watch this space...

As I pause for breath after a frantic week of Clearing activity it's time to play a bit of blog post catch up. It certainly has been a case of hitting the ground running and getting involved in every part of the campaign one way or another (not just the digital marketing mainstays of PPC and website analytics).

One big stand out event this week was Wednesday's campaign launch led by a forty person strong Flash Mob in the Luton Mall:



This proved a great success (particularly on Facebook) and the effort to organise it from our Marketing team cannot be underestimated! Personally, I'm a massive fan of any sort of activity that gives us the opportunity to differentiate and stand out from the crowd. I'm sure that we're not alone in that our senior management are reluctant and nervous to try new things like this that could potentially harm the brand or fail together. However, in my opinion a much more risky strategy is to not take any risks at all. This sort of thing motivates staff in the marketing team to really enjoy their jobs and not get stuck in the drudgery of repeating the same tasks year in year out. You only have to look at companies who were scared to move with the times to see what effect the former can have (Blockbuster video anyone...?)

Results day is is when most university
marketing departments come alive!

Another lesson we learnt from this is the importance of reacting quickly and riding on the wave of any current buzz. By getting the video uploaded pretty much immediately we were able to capitalise on the conversation that was already taking place and maximise the viewing potential - plus we're giving people the content that they want to see.

Our Market Research manager has a theory that Clearing is where universities really come alive and try their best to stand out from the crowd. I've definitely seen this with some innovative examples by our competitors to try all sorts of new and improved tactics such as personalisation (e-cards), student engagement (submit a selfie), informing and helping (infographics and animations), customer service (24 hour phone lines), distinctive positioning (TV/cinema advertising) and using current students as ambassadors.

However, there are also some examples of when this increase of activity can go horribly wrong if you don't have the resources to sustain it. Anyone who has been monitoring Clearing conversations this week would have seen two such examples of when social media campaigns can go wrong (mainly due to the use of automated Tweets). One such example is below:

This 'automatic' response set up for the Sheffield Hallam President SU became the most retweeted item on the first day of Clearing and was retweeted over 837 times with over 1,600,000 views. Personally, I have never been a fan of auto responses (despite some agencies recommending them to us) and the above is testament to why!

The fifth most retweeted item on results day (over 200 times, with half a million impressions) was also was picked up by mainstream media like the Huffington Post, pointing out both Sussex and UEA being caught out:

 

These funny but potentially damaging mishaps totally dominated the conversation on Twitter for day one of Clearing. Needless to say there will be a review of the social media policies/guidelines at these three universities!

The reason we were able to pick up on these immediately was due to our increasingly sophisticated media monitoring system which has been built for us by Statistics Into Decisions. This year we get live dashboards of which Tweets are picking up the most traction on a national scale for every UK HEI.

Terminal 4's Digital Marketing trophy?

By doing this we learn vital lessons for our next campaign and also can stop any negative conversations picking up traction. We also use it to optimise our website based on browsing behaviour and track phone calls next to location to marry up any potential leads.

It looks like we're in it for the long haul but at least we got some great external recognition for the team's hard work over at the Terminal Four HE blog. I wonder if that's a real trophy in the picture...?

So for the first time in two years I missed a scheduled Monday morning blog post! Could this mean I'm losing interest? Of course not! A week's holiday got in the way but now normal service resumes.

"On your marks, get set..."

From the look of my diary that week away is going to prove essential as the first week of UCAS Clearing awaits. Whilst some teams produce the majority of their work in the lead up to Clearing our Admissions team and us are poised on the starting line like Formula 1 drivers. Let the annual Social Media onslaught and PPC bidding battle commence!

In the lead up to this I've also been completing all five of my staff reviews. Personally I feel that this is one of the most important parts of the job as without the properly trained and motivated staff the company is going to suffer. They're also vital for formally recording all the great achievements of the team and also for requesting any external staff development - after all, if you're not continuing to learn at work then you risk not reaching your full career potential.

An important aspect of a good appraisal is that nothing discussed by the manager should be a surprise to the employee. If you surprise a staff member during an appraisal meeting, you have not communicated well in the weeks or months leading up to the meeting.

However, a bad appraisal system can have the opposite effect. I was once part of a company where the staff reviews were geared solely towards the teaching staff and required three 'observations'. The issue here was that not only did it make support staff (professional services) feel they were second best but that it was unrepresentative of how everybody worked. I distinctly remember spending 30mins watching someone use a photocopier so we could add a tick next to it on their form!

When appraisals go bad!

I also agree that the most effective and credible feedback an employee can get is from the work itself. If the manager is not respected, it is usually dismissed as inaccurate. The odds of negative feedback improving performance are much lower than the odds of it disengaging the employee. I myself know from experience that the most satisfaction I can get from work is seeing an idea that I developed flourish and really excite the office about the prospect of it being part of the campaign (and then succeeding!)

For us, working in Digital Marketing makes target setting relatively easy as it can be locked down to actual quantifiable data (e.g. increasing website conversions). These targets should also be put into context as employees need to know how their day-to-day work contributes to the organisation's success. That's why it's important to cascade down the company's vision.

Managers should also praise and reward good performance as it happens, and deal with problems as they arise. If they do this, performance appraisals will be a simple, straightforward task that serve to recap what they and their employees discuss regularly. One thing I'm planning on doing better this year is now following up these reviews, and following employees' development throughout the year.

Another way of monitoring success is of course my old favourite - external awards! One way of sweetening the pill of being back to work at our busiest time was the news that we were again shortlisted for the Anglia, Thames and Chiltern region Pride Awards 2014. This is again for last year's cinema advert in the category of 'Best Integrated Campaign'.

The real challenge here will be deciding whether or not to attend the ceremony on 7th November in Cambridge or my potential IDM graduation on the same day in London! Maybe I could making a flying visit to both!?

As the hot weather continues my USB desk fan has been working overtime. Obviously this is only partly due to the weather as the team have all been working at a furious rate for the last few weeks. This is due to us endeavouring to get our Clearing webpages up even earlier than before.

Part of our online campaign. Follow
the hashtag to see all the goings on

It seems that in this world of every organisation pushing the other to deliver more the goalposts have been moved, and where everyone used to get their Clearing micro-sites up just before results day it's now a full six weeks earlier!

Based on our findings from last year we noticed some key trends on the type of visitors we were getting. Firstly, the majority of them were coming through our paid search channels further proving what a vital part of our online strategy this is. Secondly, the usual push for brand messages were pretty superfluous as people were just interested in which courses we still had places on. This meant that our online techniques were to be much more simple this year with courses (our products) pushed to the very fore.

One thing I've been wanting to tackle for a while is how our website works on mobile devices. Whilst the homepage did resize little things needed looking at (e.g. our banners would not show on smartphone screens). Therefore, we have implemented phase one of our homepage redesign project and have made it more responsive than it was previously. Just take a look at our homepage and resize your browser to see how nicely it now adjusts itself!

 This was also a chance to showcase our new integrated campaign. I'm particularly happy that the visuals we've come up with compliment the ones in print and that the students featured have follow on videos filmed by the team. I also like that the visuals are quite kinetic and have lent themselves to some nice little intoductory animations:



We still have a fair way to go with this campaign and are currently in the process of designing leaderboards, skyscrapers and MPUs to be featured on a number of third party sites.We also have

In other news the last few weeks has given me the opportunity to get out of the office on a few occasions. Firstly, on a manager's away day and secondly to the Heist Awards 2014 in Manchester. The latter was a good experience and we managed to make the most of the trip by meeting our new media buying agency at the same time.

My hotel room. All that was missing
was a chandelier

It was then off to the Palace hotel to check into our rooms. I definitely did the best out of this with a three-storey room complete with beams and an emperor size bed. Obviously, I was above showing photos of this to my colleagues at every opportunity and gloating about the tea and coffee making facilities...

Despite being nominated in three categories we came away empty handed on this occasion. We had a great time though and the carnival theme of the night definitely meant it didn't drag! There's always next year and the fact that this was the biggest Heist Awards yet (with more entries than ever before) did make us feel a bit better on the train ride home from Manchester the following morning.

I also slept so soundly in my fancy hotel room (have I mentioned that already?!) that I'm now fully energised to hit Clearing at full throttle. I'll definitely need the energy if last year is anything to go by!

Following on from my last post, on keeping my video editing skills up to date, below is a little video I've just finished which we hope to launch alongside our new Clearing campaign. This one is particularly personal to me as it features the voice talents of two of my children!



This genesis of this was that I wanted to create a video which gives some useful information about Clearing, whilst at the same time being entertaining and not a big sales pitch. It would have minimal branding and operate outside of our big campaign (which is now in the final stages of being built). We noticed a number of universities doing this last year (with mixed results) so set about planning what our take on it would be.

As someone who primarily uses social media for work (i.e. my Twitter account) I've decided not to post pictures of my children on public websites. This is mainly to save their blushes when they're older and to not keep a public record of their antics for all to see. With the exception of a locked down Instagram account (which my parents LOVE) the internet is a 'Fryer children free zone'.

A still from the Haribo Starmix
boardroom advert

Therefore, early in the planning stages I was a bit reluctant to volunteer their services but felt that by using them we could definitely exploit the 'cute' factor! There's also been a big trend in Marketing to do this recently with both Thomson and Haribo being great examples. With this in mind, the team sat down to write a script and draft some storyboards. We ran this past our Admissions team for accuracy and then began a few animation tests.

After lots of experimenting we stumbled upon Powtoon which is a great little tool for creating basic animations for presentations. I then set to work on recording the voiceover (which was surprisingly stress free with some great ad-libbing which I left in the final video) and finding a soundtrack. The end result turned out to be a bit 'Charlie and Lola' but everyone I've showed it to so far has finished watching it with a massive grin on their face. Watch this space to see how it does once we launch the seeding strategy on 18th July.

No artistic licence taken here!

The whole process was a great team exercise and further illustrates my arguement for keeping as much creative activity in house as possible instead of using agencies (something of which there is a lot of in HE). Don't get me wrong, it's definitely true that if you think you can do everything then clearly you can actually do very little. All the best designers realise that they need to continue increasing their knowledge if they're to stay ahead of the game. This is especially true in digital marketing as there are daily changes/updates and new ways to get your content seen across the internet. I'm not completely against outsourcing (we do this for our website development work, campaign analysis and cinema advert production) but it does mean you're then at the mercy of whichever agency you choose - so choose wisely!

Powtoon contains some great character art

By upskilling and creating stuff internally there's a much greater sense of ownership and it means any amends needed are not a long and costly process. There's also the ability to act fast and get hold of the information you need immediately to prove how a campaign is performing. Surely no-one is closer to the brand and the end user as you so consult them every step of the way to test what sort of content engages them best.

By insourcing like this it shows an investment in the team, which will often build morale, increase retention, and create a great environment for innovation. By creating and nurturing thinkers and doers you can save money, increase efficiency and make your marketing organisation shine. Time will tell as we go live with all of our work for Clearing later this month but one of the important factors is that we feel good about what we're delivering. By deciding to be bold and try something new you can stand out from the crowd and be innovators and not followers.

I know I still have a long way to go and may not ever truly get to where I'd like to be. Hence Jack's last line in the above video - "Are we there yet!?"

The sight that befell me for three days
last week

It feels good to be back in the land of the living after a series of exams for my Diploma. I must say that it wasn't as bad as I feared and 3 x 3 hours actually went by very quickly. My hand didn't fall off and I now need to ensure I retain all of the knowledge in my head until after I know I've passed in early September.

One of my favourite(!) questions was on the current value of creativity in Digital Marketing and if the need for data has meant this in no longer so relevant. The argument (as far as I can remember!) which I put forward is that it's as important as ever in a world where so many brands are screaming for your attention, whilst the viewing public are multi-screening and increasingly expecting more targeted and integrated campaigns.

This got me thinking about the value of what we do at the University and the main reason I enjoy working there is the ability to try new things with little red tape. It also got me thinking as to who are the 'doers' and how we shouldn't rely on agencies alone to come up with our creative ideas. After all, we're closer to our brand than anyone and if we all just become a load of managers kicking our agencies there will be little continuity in message and a potentially unfulfilled workforce.

Mashable offers great industry insight

This is why I'm a firm believer in having design and creative skills in house. It's sometimes hard to keep up with the latest tools/tends (my technique is following certain people on Twitter and reading a number of industry blogs - Mashable and E-Consultancy are among the best) but before you know it you'll be out of touch and unable to use the latest version of Photoshop.

Personally I never want this to happen to me (at least until I retire!) I enjoy keeping up with the latest trends in Digital Marketing (and I'm glad I have after looking at my exam questions!) I also believe that as a middle manager I should be able to practically achieve everything which I ask from my team. That way, I understand how much time a task takes and we can all work collaboratively if required.

Photoshop has come a long way
since I first started using Version
3 back in 1999.

As you move up the corporate ladder it's undoubtedly true that your time gets absorbed by meetings and strategy documents but it's important to make time to actually be creative too. After all, that's the fun stuff! It'll be a dark day if I ever get to the stage where I don't have Adobe Creative Suite on my Mac! It also means that if a member of my staff is absent I can competently finish off one of their jobs. There are too many examples of people who are reliant on agencies for the smallest amend to an InDesign file or who doesn't understand how their staff members produce the work they do. It must be pretty stressful knowing that the team may miss a deadline just because someone is on holiday/ill!

To this end the team sat down and devised something for me to work on alongside the usual yearly Clearing campaign which is a bit different. It could fail but that doesn't matter as we'll enjoy doing it alongside all of the usual activity. We've also ensured that this piece will be helpful to students in Clearing instead of the usual hard sell and that it hopefully strikes an emotional chord with the audience (given the people involved it will with me!) so watch this space...

I also recently picked up a yearly job which comes our way to produce a highlights video. This is used internally for our Student Experience Awards and Graduations. Whilst it can be a chore collating all of the footage it's also really enjoyable to cut something together using a commercial music track (we have a site licence) which celebrates our achievements. I've embedded it below and hopefully it shows that I'm not a has-been yet!