Recognising excellent practice in Higher and Further Education marketing, the HEIST (Higher Education Information Services Trust) Awards named Bedfordshire as nominees in the Internal Communications, Strategic & Corporate Campaign and Undergraduate Prospectus categories.

Paul Fryer, Bedfordshire’s Digital Marketing Manager, and his brother David, Publications Officer in the University’s Learning Resources Centre (LRC), led their respective teams onto the shortlists of the Strategic & Corporate Campaign and Internal Communications categories.

Securing a string of national marketing awards over the past 12 months, including Best Website at the Prospects Postgraduate Awards in December 2013, Paul is hoping that run continues at the HEIST Awards in Manchester in July, with the 30-second cinema advert his team has produced.

“To win the Gold Award would be something special, as the HEIST Awards are without doubt the pinnacle for anyone working within marketing in Higher and Further Education,” said Paul, who was also triumphant at the inaugural UK Blog Awards in April, being named as organisational winner in the education category.

“To be successful in the Strategic & Corporate Campaign category, we wanted to enter a campaign that truly represents the University, including the diverse range of courses and the best possible student experience Bedfordshire has to offer.

“We believe the advert has delivered this, as prospective students can see our latest state-of-the-art facilities and some of the main reasons why our students enjoy studying at Bedfordshire.”

Forming David’s department’s entry into the Internal Communications category is their promotion of the ‘e-books on demand’ service, which provides 24/7 access for students to download titles in a .pdf format via their library catalogue account. Between January and April 2013, the University invested £150,000 into trialling the service.

“We uploaded 60,000 titles on a temporary basis, which were available for students to rent, with two or more rentals then triggering a purchase. After a highly successful three-month trial period, we have purchased more than 1,000 e-books permanently,” added David, who worked alongside Sioned Kowalczuk, Head of the LRC Marketing & Communications team, on the project.

“The instant nature of the service provides students with that extra little bit of help to enable them to meet their study deadlines and the University wants to do all it can to assist them.”

Aiming for a HEIST treble, Bedfordshire’s Marketing team has been nominated for the Undergraduate Prospectus category, thanks to their 2014 edition.

Photo: Paul (left) and David Fryer (right) at the 2013 HEIST Awards with their Best Website (silver) and Best Internal Communications (bronze) gongs.