09:00 – 09:30

Registrations and Refreshments

09:30 – 09:45

Welcome from CASE and the Conference Chairs
Malcolm Roberts, Head of Student Communications, University of Sheffield
Pim van Zanen, Director of Marketing and Communications, Radboud University
Seren Bradshaw, Educational Programmes Manager, CASE Europe

09:45 – 10:45

STRATEGY
Building a Strategy That Meets the Needs of Your Organisation and Your Students.
Strategic projects come about for very different reasons and appear in all shapes and sizes.  In this session we’ll explore two diverse projects run by two different institutions.  We'll look at the reasons for their development, their impact, and the lessons that were learned by Radboud and Sheffield University while running them.
Malcolm Roberts, Head of Student Communications, University of Sheffield
Pim van Zanen, Director of Marketing and Communications, Radboud University

10:45 – 11:15

Refreshment and networking break

11:15 – 12:15

Breakout session – please select one:

SEGMENTATION
1. Developing Student Persona(s) to Inform Student Comms Planning
Creating content and copy that really engages the student community is what all universities are searching for, but how do you create a student communications strategy that really resonates?

This session will examine the role of the persona in informing engaging content – looking at how you create them and what they can do for you.

Emma and Jo share their own experiences of persona development at the University of Warwick’s, and leave you with tips and tricks to develop personas at your own institutions.
Jo Clarkson, Research and Insight Manager, University of Warwick
Emma Mundy, Head of Marketing Services, University of Warwick

2. Working with Faculties
Why should we work with academics and staff based within faculties? Bonnie and David invite you to explore the benefits and common challenges faced when improving collaboration between central and faculty-based teams.  

This area of work is crucial if you hope to achieve a joined-up approach to student communications, but it’s often hard to know where to start. This session will cover how you can get the right people on board and right processes in place, no matter how your institution structures its student communications activity.

We’ll discuss some tangible examples of how working with faculties can return high impacts, with no extra budget… and you’ll leave with some plans in place for how you can break down the silos within your university.

Bonnie Amato Southcott, Faculty Student Experience Manager, King’s College London
David Gilani, Student Communications and Engagement Manager, Middlesex University

12:15 – 13:15

Lunch (roundtable discussion on audits)
Justina Gapper, Communications Adviser, Kingston University London

13:15 – 14:15

Breakout session – please select one:

BRAND
1. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work! How to Bring Your Brand to Life
Universities are always looking for new ways to attract, welcome and engage students, and creating a solid brand identity is the best way to ensure your institution stands out from the crowd.

In this session we’ll cover how we’ve branded the Glasgow student experience, showcasing two campaigns that have brought our ‘World Changing Glasgow’ and ‘World Changers Welcome’ brand propositions to life: ‘Team UofG’ and ‘Future World Changers’.

We’ll share insights into how we have collaborated with colleagues across our institution to ensure our brand is consistent throughout the student life cycle. Plus, we’ll discuss some of the problems we’ve faced along the way and the solutions we’ve implemented.

No matter the size of your team or the resources and budget you have available, you’ll come away with tips and takeaways, so we hope you’ll join us!
Alan Monteith, Senior Recruitment Marketing Officer, University of Glasgow
Gemma Gillespie, Senior Marketing Officer, University of Glasgow

CAMPAIGN
2. Developing and Delivering a Multi-channel Campaign to Support New Students 
We all know it’s important that our students start well. But how can they start well if we haven’t prepared them? This workshop will outline UWE Bristol’s new student ‘Start of the Year’ campaign, which runs across multiple print and digital channels. Alyssa will take you through the planning process, including stakeholder engagement and audience segmentation.  We’ll work through the ‘applicant to student to new starter journey’, identifying key touchpoints we have to engage with new students and the methods to do it well. You’ll take away valuable tips can be scaled so that any size team can deliver an engaging and supportive onboarding campaign.
Alyssa Willis, Student Communications Manager, University of the West of England

14:15 – 15:15

Breakout session – please select one:

DIGITAL
1. If We Can Do It, You Can Do It Too: how to Make Great Social Video on a Low Budget
Over the last few years, video has been an increasingly predominant content type on social media, but social media managers are often not trained videographers. Constantly hiring a film crew is expensive, and the end product doesn’t always perform well on social. So how do you satisfy the thirst for video and create good content on a low budget?

Bobby and Mhairi share their own experiences of picking up the camera and doing it themselves, as well their tips and tricks for making bespoke video content for each social platform.
Mhairi Gowans, Online Engagement Officer, LSE Advancement, London School of Economics and Political Science
Bobby Futter, Student Communications Coordinator, University of Sheffield

2. Using Voice and Chat Interfaces to Improve the Student Experience.
Lancaster University recently launched “L.U” a voice and chat interface available via mobile phone app and Amazon echo devices. L.U provides answers to a wide range of student questions, as well as linking to university services. 

Developed in just 120 days by a small team which included paid students the skill has shown the power that voice and cloud technologies have to form part of student engagement now and into the future.

Join us to learn how and why we built it, see it in action, and glimpse where we might go in the future.
Chris Dixon, Head of IT Partnering and Innovation, University of Lancaster

15:15 – 15:45

Refreshment and networking break

15:45 – 16:45

WHAT’S NEXT?
Future developments in the field of student communications.
Michael Lavery, CEO, Brand & Reputation and CASE Trustee
Justin Shaw, Chief Higher Education Consultant and Managing Director, Communications Management
Tara De Cozar, Head of Internal Communications, University of Nottingham 

16:45 – 17:00

Closing remarks