My full-time role for the last 6 years has been the lead designer of marketing materials for St Helens Colleges main market and income source – the recruitment of 16-18 year olds. This has broadened my experience with an extensive input in the development of brands, materials and other creative outputs for the organisation.
The academic cycle for 16-18 recruitment starts with the design of a comprehensive prospectus – a document containing all the courses available to those at a school leaver age range. After consulting with printers and analysing previous documentations, as a team we developed the 2019 prospectus into a half Canadian print design and made a much lighter document mainly for logistical and practical reasons. The added half Canadian print design allowed for a neater looking document but still possessing all the advantages of a ring bound document as it is important to us that the spread can be laid flat on a surface allowing a more enjoyable user experience. There is also the added bonus of a bookmark, a great tool to enable students to keep the page marked after a discussion with and advisor and have our open event dates and contact details all to hand.
The styling for each academic year comes from a bespoke branding style guide that I have developed over time. This year is the second of a prospective 3 year cycle of this current style, heavily focused on bold typography, colour and strong photography. This plan allows for consistency and to create a recognised brand throughout the town and its catchment area as the college has previously struggled to maintain an identity.
Following prospectus design, the next phase is an Open Event campaign. This is to encourage students to visit the college numerous booklets, banners and outdoor advertising go into creating an integrated campaign.
Mini campaigns run throughout the year to keep the audience up to date with ongoing successes and experiences at the college before finally embarking on an enrolment campaign. The marketing channels utilised for this campaign is similar to that of the Open Event campaigns but featuring tailored messaging.
The brand that I have developed for 16-18 recruitment is centred around a sub campaign: Connecting Classroom to Career. This highlights student success with students selected to become brand ambassadors for the college and share advice and experiences based on their course.