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Marketing
planning guidelines
Working through
these kinds of questions can help you work out a timetable and most appropriate
marketing channels for your project and budget. The bullet points below
are just examples to help you see the sorts of answers you might come
up with. You should answer these questions before you decide on what type
of marketing is best – the answers to these questions can help you
work out what is most appropriate. There are a lot of channels you can
use without a large advertising budget.
New advertising guide kit launched
This set of advertising templates has been designed to help you create bespoke advertisements, whilst representing the university consistently and professionally, across a range of media.
The kit includes colour and black and white advertising templates for magazines and newspapers, and also posters and flyers which may be printed up to A3 in size using the University of Brighton reprographics print services. You can also request a version of your flyer as a PDF so that it can be emailed.
What
is the objective?
- X full-time
students to new course
- Y visitors to our conference/event
Who are our audience(s)?
- People wanting to do a 1st degree
- People wanting to retrain
- Broad professional development – eg MBA
- Specific professional development – eg MSc Cardiology
- Senior managers / practitioners
- Academics (conference)
- Industry
- People interested in the subject – arts, dance etc
What characteristics define our target audiences?
- 18 year olds just taken A or AS levels
- Older people who have worked for a number of years
- People wanting to do a degree for career reasons
- People wanting to do a short course for fun
Where are our audiences
- Brighton and Hove
- South East England
- UK
- Europe – EU – specific countries
- International
- Some or all of the above
NB: Getting
an audience profile – what kind of people have we attracted/recruited
in the past - to this or a similar course or event is important.
Where
are they likely to get information about this subject?
- The web
- Google, specialist directories and web sites, university websites
- Handbooks
and print directories
- Professional
journals and publications
- From careers
advisors and teachers or other ‘influencers’ – eg
HR managers
What
are our key messages/unique features? What do our audience think/know
about us?
- Only course
/ event of its kind in the UK / South East?
- Accredited
course?
- Flexible
mode of delivery
- Evidence
from current students of how valuable/good the course has been for them?
How
can people contact us to book / to find out more?
- Telephone
number (always covered during office hours), answerphone outside office
hours
- Web
- Email
- Freepost
When
do we want a response by?
- X weeks
/ months before the event or start of course
NB Decision
making process for courses and events takes weeks/months rather than days.
How
long in advance should I plan?
- Try and
give yourself at least a month to draft and print literature and ads,
more if you are producing anything more than short promotional information
- Specialist
magazines often have long lead times for ads and editorial – months
rather than days/weeks
- Try and
repeat advertising, this makes more impact than a single insertion.
Our advertising agency can advise.
Different
ways of marketing
Everyone
is a potential target
- when receiving
phone calls or email about unrelated enquiries tell them about the latest
course and/or promote your website
- ask them
if they would like to receive information about courses and take their
details
- whenever
sending mailers to your databse contacts always give an option to be
removed from the mailing list
Review
the information you already have
- lists
of people who have attended previous courses
- enquirers’
list/database
- other
school contacts
- unify
list - all on the same database
- databases
need regular updates
- use any
opportunity to update details
- what type
of information do you hold on them? Do you know whether they’re
more suited to part-time CPD rather than more traditional courses
- send regular
updates about what is new in your school
Conferences
and events
- cross
marketing opportunity
- need a
suite of marketing materials
- promote
your website or specific courses on flyers rather than give out expensive
course brochures
- modify
your conference banner to suit that particular audience
- have a
response form - write down names, address and email to follow up (ask
for permission)
- opportunity
to promote next event
- analyse
feedback and at the next event tell people about the changes you’ve
made/thank them for their comments
Alumni
- strong
marketing opportunity
- promote
relevant courses to graduates from your school
The web
www.brighton.ac.uk
- some statistics for March 2003
- 113,000
requests for ‘courses’
- 45,000
requests for ‘news’
- 5,600
requests for ‘gallery and events’
- courses
database updated throughout the year
- each press
release added to news database
www.brighton.ac.uk/yourschool
- some statistics for March 2003
- 65,000
requests for Faculty of Education and Sport home page
- 12,800
requests for Pharmacy home page
- 13,000
requests for Environment home page
- NB How
often does your school or department home page change?
Other
resources within the university
- Marketing
and Communications – web, publications, marketing, advertising,
PR, alumni, Channel – 2,500 issues published for each edition
to reach university staff
- Registry
– courses database; schools liaison – talk direct to schools
and teachers, HE Fairs, have access to schools/advisers mailing list
- International
Relations Office– students, schools and colleges and fairs outside
the EU
- Business
Services – can assist with professional and CPD courses, events,
conferences and products of a business /professional nature
- For award
bearing courses:
- Prospectuses: 105,000 undergrad prospectuses ; 45,000 postgrad prospectuses
printed annually. Deadlines for insertion: Undergrad - September preceding
academic year; postgrad: July preceding academic year.
- www.ucas.com - UCAS
web site and handbook
More
traditional (and expensive!) marketing options
- Advertising:
in press, radio, posters, TV (very expensive!)
- Paid for
distributions: through buying direct mail lists, or distributing to
venues
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