Clearing – It’s About People, People

This is my third annual Clearing blog and whilst some things change, my first Four Simple Clearing Campaign Rules and last year’s Four (more) Clearing Campaign Rules still hold true.

What’s changed this year?

Well, those lovely people at UCAS did a good job of letting applicants know when UCAS Track would be available – 8am. Perfect, as recent years have seen call centres opening earlier and earlier. This gives us all a helpful, fixed and obvious starting line.

The BBC have focused on the rise in top grades at ‘A’ Level – a 0.1% increase on 2017 - so not quite as dramatic as the headline suggests – but the piece does include commentary on the impact the changes to A levels have had on mental health and wellbeing.

That’s a good starting point for a little bit of commentary on the trends I’ve been seeing over recent months and the reason I’ve moved away from (yet more) rules to observations on the things many universities seem to have missed in the stampede to ever more expensive advertising campaigns. 

Observation 1

Too many universities have completely missed “the people thing” and the need to really think about, understand and respond to potential students as individuals. At Loughborough, we do our best to focus on the changing wants and needs of our student body. It’s telling that our SU president Rahul Mathasing didn’t hesitate to share his experience of mental health with The Guardian. This is a growing and significant issue for universities and for their students.

Equally, universities need to think about how potential students are feeling right the way through the cycle – a massive AdWords campaign or expensive TV ad at the eleventh hour isn’t going to make anyone feel special. This tweet from one of our new students sums it up.

It’s also worth taking a moment to get past the media’s long time presentation of Clearing as a time of misery for students who “didn’t get the grades”. The reality is that increasing numbers of students go direct to Clearing and not through the main cycle. Many are also seeking to change their mind because of personal circumstances, a change of heart in relation to course or institution choice or because they are using an Adjustment route to switch to a different institution after they received better grades than expected. 

Observation 2

Landing pages, websites and search. Where is the people focus and ease of use? I’ve spent time this morning looking at Clearing websites across the sector – many have made me work incredibly hard to get to course listings, don’t have refreshed search, and worse still take me to old fashioned, cut-off text that looks like it was copied and pasted from a prospectus with the tariff tweaked slightly (if you’re lucky). Some had no tariffs listed at all, others made me click and click until RSI set in….

Potential students need the right information as quickly as possible. If you make it hard for them to find that from the word go, what message is that sending out about your institution? I’d also question spending huge amounts on above the line campaign collateral and neglecting the basics. Internally, we call it “lazy girl marketing” – much back-slapping around the creative, nobody spending any time on the crucial but slightly less sexy stuff that’s absolutely essential.

Observation 3

Increasingly competitive advertising. This is an interesting one. It’s no secret that HE marketing is now increasingly competitive, but I have seen some huge (and I mean huge) spend attached to campaigns, especially online and on television, that seem to be incredibly oddly targeted. Adverts on TV wedged between re-runs of Charmed and The Handmaiden’s Tale, AdWords piggybacking on rival universities search terms that seem to be wildly out (geographically, in terms of type of university, course offer and tariff) and some slightly cheesy imagery and gimmicks. I am not for one second saying that we don’t need to make people aware of the opportunities on offer but it is critical that any spend is directed with precision, accuracy and as much focus as possible. Clear calls to action and a double check of the website (or wherever you’re directing them) in terms of user experience wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

Our audiences are all about authenticity. Some of this stuff just isn’t authentic. Additionally, a very personal perspective, if I was a student today, I think I’d want my university to be spending money on me, my education, the facilities, opportunities and the support I needed to help me get where I want to be. I suspect it would be hard to find a student who passionately believes that more and more of their university’s money should be spent on glossy advertising. I could be wrong.

Observation 4

Joined up strategy. PR is, as CIPR President-Elect, something I am absolutely passionate about but it doesn’t seem to feature as prominently in many campaigns as I would have expected. Case studies, news angles, interesting human interest stories and expert commentary are just a few of the areas that need careful consideration and long-term planning as part of the mix. Good communications should be at the absolute heart of your campaign, not a lastminute bolt on or a totally missed opportunity. To see the true impact of a focus on people, take a quick look at what happened when our VC visited a local school to personally congratulate students coming to Loughborough. The story was covered by BBC East Midlands and local media and by the team here for our own channels.

My point last year about getting colleagues from across teams around the table for early planning is as pertinent as ever. If you don’t do that, you’ll miss angles, dilute the impact of what you are doing, and waste money.

Universities are genuinely life-changing places. Each has its own distinct personality, strengths, and opportunities. Let’s celebrate that and refuse to be drawn into one size fits all corporate campaigns.