What’s Caught Our Eye in University Marketing & Recruitment in 2021

It’s been quite the year with lockdowns, new variants, climate change summits and strikes, but there’s also been a lot of amazing creativity coming out of the higher education sector. We’ve pulled together some of our favourite initiatives from the year to help spread some joy and positive reflection before you all head off for the holidays.

You couldn’t move in October/November for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) and one university in particular saw the opportunity to align their course with the cause. The University of Leeds linked their targeted display campaign using the hashtag #COP26 to reach our FindAMasters audience interested in Environmental Sciences. This campaign performed well above average for our site and we’ve seen an increase of almost 37% in interest for Environmental Sciences courses at the University of Leeds in the last three months. It just goes to show the power of authentically aligning your brand with a timely cause.

Bonus: they were actually designed by our in-house team so shout out to Harry Jeffrey in Client Services!

With continued online learning and uncertainty about life after graduation, this year has been a particularly tough one for the wellbeing of postgraduate students. It’s a constant balancing act between academic schedules and personal life, leaving very little breathing room. This initiative from Dalhousie provides a fantastic resource for online coaching to help their grad students manage mental health in an easily-accessible way and shows that, as a university, they care about their students wellbeing and overall health.

Transitioning from undergraduate to postgraduate is something that is only really starting to be taken seriously and was one of the topics discussed in our December PG Marketing Conference webinar. What we liked about Manchester Metropolitan University’s campaign is the dedicated web hub with videos from postgraduate students who had also studied their undergrad at MMU. This is a simple and honest way of allowing current Masters students to serve as highly relatable ambassadors.

With the tightening up of Plan B restrictions in the UK and the return to a Red List, it’s getting expensive and more complicated to travel the world, just when we’re all hoping for an influx of international students for January starts. That’s why the University of Gloucestershire has announced that they’re offering their International Arrivals Package to financially support new international students starting in January. Whether a student is from a Red List country or just simply not the UK, the university has laid out how it can help with the financial costs of quarantine, PCR test and onward travel to Gloucestershire as well as self-isolation in their halls. What a great initiative to help towards the costs, which we know are big and numerous for both postgraduate and international students.

IOB, a recognised college of University College Dublin (UCD), stood out with their taster event earlier this year which offered prospective postgrads an opportunity to sample a typical lecture. With Zoom-fatigue setting in, it was a great way to showcase their programmes and provide an alternative to the usual virtual open day experience.

We see hundreds of postgraduate marketing campaigns and continually gather data on engagement with our own websites and emails. Contact your Account Manager or email [email protected] for advice and support with your campaigns and we'll be happy to help.

FindAUniversity take pride in being experts in postgraduate education. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for regular insight, comment and case studies.

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