2023 Wrapped: Reflecting on Another Year at FindAUniversity
It’s been an eventful year at FindAUniversity! We delivered our a full schedule of in-person events, released some exciting products and updates for our clients, and came together for our company-wide annual trip and away day.
We’ve put together a quick highlight reel of everything we got up to at FindAUniversity this year.
January: FAU takes Scotland
We kicked off the year with 3-day company trip to Edinburgh, complete with karaoke, pizza, and an expedition to the top of Arthur’s Seat (for those who could summon the energy!). Great way to kick start 2023 and get the gang together!
February / March: Winter events
It was a busy couple of months for our Events Team, with a packed schedule of physical and virtual fairs throughout February and March. We welcomed students to in-person events in Birmingham, Liverpool and London, attracting a total of 1,174 attendees across the three locations, plus another 2,490 to our virtual study fairs
April: A fresh lick of paint
They say spring is the season of new beginnings – so what better time to overhaul our long-beloved FAU brand? With the help of design agency Pavement, we created a new, simplified, cohesive brand for use across our flagship websites and social media. Our Director of Marketing, Sarah Linington, explained the rationale behind the rebrand and what it means going forward over on our blog.
May: Postgraduate Marketing Conference
May saw the return of our Marketing Conference to the North.. Postgraduate marketing professionals from universities across the UK joined us at Sheffield Town Hall, where sector-leading experts presented insights on everything from revolutionising the traditional prospectus to harnessing the power of TikTok.
June: FAU Day
Our annual company-wide FAU Day took place in mid-June, bringing together all our teams for thought-provoking talks and idea-generation workshops, followed by an afternoon of pizza, drinks and a fierce knock-out competition to win an extra week’s holiday (antics included sock-swapping, Pictionary, and a nail-biting strawberry-lace-eating race).
We also held our annual Pledge Raffle, which raised over £1,000 for our two chosen charities, Sheffield Mind and Flourish. Pledges ranged from a batch of freshly baked vegan doughnuts to a beginner’s miniature painting class!
August / September: Postgrad Awards & London Marketing Conference
In August, we were hard at work judging the many fantastic entries to our 2023 Postgrad Awards, and announced our winners in September. The winner of our commercial category was Imperial College London’s Your Community, Your Imperial campaign, a widening participation initiative dedicated to fostering Black inclusivity at the university. We were also excited to invite two of the people behind the campaign to speak at our November webinar.
We also hosted our second Marketing Conference of the year in London, featuring a programme of talks in the morning followed by a series of breakout sessions in the afternoon to get creative juices flowing!
October / November: Autumn events
October hit and it was time to get back on the road again for our autumn events programme. We kicked off with a PhD LIVE study fair in Sheffield, before heading to London for Postgrad LIVE later in the month. In November, we took our Russell Group Road Show to Newcastle, Leeds, Nottingham, Birmingham and Exeter, providing students with the opportunity to meet all of the UK’s top research universities under one roof. In total, we welcomed almost 1,800 attendees across our autumn student events!
December: Tis the season
As December gets underway, we’re gearing up for the Christmas party, which will feature a scavenger hunt, ice-breaking bingo activity and festive food galore. Alongside the merriment we have our eyes squarely fixed on 2024 and are getting excited about the plans we’re putting in place to make it our best year yet!
We’re also supporting The Children’s Hospital Chairty by sponsoring a snowflake for 2023, as part of a Christmas initiative raise money for Sheffield Children’s Hospital.
Before we say the final cheers, here are a few of the projects our teams have been busy getting off the ground in 2023 for our students and clients:
- Our signups project on FindAMasters and FindAPhD added improved features to personal accounts for students, and boosted users on both sites.
- We rolled out enhanced institution profiles for our customers, introducing new features including unlimited open day promotion and an FAQ section.
- Our paid social product is now available, offering campaigns managed start-to-finish by our Adverts Operation Team. You can read more about our onsite advertising or speak to your account manager about our new paid social product!
Whatever your plans for the festive season, we hope you have a fantastic Christmas and new year, and we’re excited to help you smash your postgraduate recruitment targets in 2024!
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