Day in the life of … Marketing

Posting by Bev Bishop, Marketing Co-ordinator at The Sixth Form College, Solihull

I was forced to give some serious thought to my role as Marketing Co-ordinator at the College today, when I had to give a presentation to some of our students about my role.

I was talking to a group of 10 students who are on the College’s Career Academy, giving what is apparently known as a “guru lecture”. I’m fairly certain no one has ever called me or considered me a “guru” before (or will do again!). However, as these students are all on the BTEC Business course, I can see how Marketing might be an important thing for them to learn about and I was happy to share my experiences.

Armed with a trusty powerpoint presentation and a few examples of my work, I gave the students an overview of what I actually do here at the College. I explained the work we do with promotional materials, online promotion and the events we organise. I explained how the College has created and developed a brand and corporate identity. I also tried, as far as possible, to demonstrate why Marketing is important, something they can hopefully apply to a range of different organisations, not just this College.

The students were a great audience – polite and attentive – and they had some good questions for me at the end. We talked about the pitfalls of Marketing, including dealing with bad news stories in the media. We talked about budget management and getting value for money. We also spent some time discussing social networking.

The College’s presence in this area is via Facebook, and while some College’s also have Twitter pages, we do not. I asked the students if they use Twitter and not one of them said they did, which although not necessarily representative, is a good indication that it does not represent our target market. Facebook, however, is widely used and the students thought it was great that part of my job is to go on Facebook!

Actually, Facebook is potentially a big job. I read everything that goes on the College Facebook page and if questions are asked I answer them. I explained to the students how this page is merely an extension of the College community and thus we expect the same level of behaviour on the College Facebook page as we do in lessons.

As an aside, I will be attending a workshop on social networking, provided by Eversheds tomorrow, where lots of educational establishments will meet to discuss the benefits and pitfalls of websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Anyway, back to the presentation, I also spoke to the students about Open events at the College. Indeed, this is the main project I am working on at the moment. We have an Open Morning taking place on Saturday 5 February and it is my responsibility to prepare for this event. This means promoting the event in newspapers, schools, libraries and Connexions offices, preparing materials for the event (subject leaflets and carrier bags of promotional materials) and organising the services and some of the staffing (especially student guides) for the day.

Well back to the grindstone now! Open Morning will not organise itself!