My first external conference as a representative of the University of Edinburgh and what a jam packed schedule full of brilliant speakers, networking and lots of ideas to take away (and I couldn’t not give a mention to the excellent catering!).  

The Higher Education Marketing Conference takes place yearly, in central London, and brings together over 250 Marcomms colleagues from Universities across the UK. The conference explores latest ideas in the sector, allows colleagues to share good practice, networking and innovations in delivering distinctive, high impact and engaging student recruitment marketing campaigns.  

We even had a guest speaker from the University in Heather MacBain, Head of Marketing, who spoke about the impact of the building a strong Marcomms community across the University.  

Looking back, this was in fact the first in person external conference I have attended since the pandemic, and what a great choice I made coming to this one. The event was well organised, had a great spread of colleagues from across the UK and there was a wide range of speakers, workshops and stalls for building business networks; certainly a conference I would recommend.  

A run down of some of the key elements and things I found interesting from the day included:  

Early morning data 

The day kicked off fairly early, with an 0830am session hosted by Havas people, who spoke about bringing value across the recruitment cycle. This session was based on research undertaken by Havas in 2023/24 with students across the UK to find out about their motivations for study and a potential changing landscape in Higher Education. This was an incredibly interesting session to help understand students and their motivations. Some key stats which I took particular interest in were that:  

• 68% of applicants to university programmes in the past 12 months have considered an alternative pathway rather than university; with student debt and gaining straight entry into employment being key drivers to potentially looking at other routes; 60% of those interviewed said that they considered apprenticeships as an alternative.  

• Further to this, there was a big focus on the research showing that students want a) a more personalised approach during the application process and b) want more support during key pinch points in the application journey (32% said they wanted more personalised open days). 

• There was also some unsurprising findings such as the top 3 reasons for students attending university being to prepare for career, to gain specific qualifications and expand knowledge. 

Social media influencers  

Although peer led content has been important in social media content for many years, social media influencers has never been something I have been involved with throughout my career… but certainly one I will be considering going forward. The insights, knowledge and results gained from some other universities utilising their students as influencers was quite incredible; the session included lots of practical guidance on how to work these relationships and for them to be mutually beneficial.  

Certainly some great ideas to discuss at our next Online Learning Marketing Team meeting…  

Learning from the experts  

There were 3 panel sessions throughout the day with experts (a range of Directors, Depute Directors, Heads of Marketing and external industry experts) who all provided sound guidance, knowledge and expertise to the room throughout the day. Some key elements which resonated with me included:  

• The need for authentic and trustworthy content; the move away from ‘hard selling’  

• The need for personalisation in content, events and all communications  

• The key to success is understanding your audience well; what makes them tick, when do they get confused in the application journey, what are their motivations? 

• Being true to who you are as a University and growing with your market  

• The importance of an excellent customer experience through a strong keep warm plan; attracting applicants is only a small part of the journey   

• The value in Tiktok and videos for students making a choice of where to study  

• Importance of varying your content to the region being advertised (whilst still having a strong brand centre piece)  

• The importance of working with academics and bringing them on the student recruitment and application process  

Some of the other sessions I attended, which were all excellent, included a session on international markets, delivering subject level MVP marketing plans, growing a global brand and how social media can support student recruitment conversion.  

I couldn’t finish this blog without the mention of networking; I always find that although the sessions were incredibly useful, I never underestimate the informal discussions, learnings and good practice I had with sector colleagues between sessions and at lunch. They helped me understand wider elements of the HE market across the UK, the things that we do well within our teams at the University of Edinburgh and areas we can continue to improve. I have certainly expanded my Linkedin network over the past week!  

A conference well worth the journey!  

 Scott Coutts 

Marketing and Communcations Manager – Online Learning

Higher Education Marketing Conference / Educational Design and Engagement by scoutts2 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0

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