The University of Manchester is world renowned for its academic and research excellence. Its use of the Newsweaver multi-accounts platform has made its student recruitment and conversion communications more efficient and effective.

Challenge:

Jennifer Williams, Student Recruitment and Communications Manager at the University of Manchester, says the university had been sending out printed communications but wasn’t sure whether they were reaching their target audience.

The challenge for Newsweaver was to help the university grow accounts and publications internally and throughout the university’s schools. It also needed to manage the frequency of newsletters hitting the inboxes of those who held a place offer from the university as well as managing the strategic use of flyers by team members to initiate contact. Tracking opens and activity was also a priority.

Solution:

Once the decision was made to move to email, the department decided to migrate Manchester Advantage, a print publication that went to all university place offer holders, to email. This email newsletter works in tandem with each university school’s own publication. Jennifer says her team’s communications have been consolidated, which has reduced the number of emails sent. “It’s so much better now and has strengthened what we do – and provided ROI.”

Results:

“Using Newsweaver, our email newsletters and flyers have provided us with a depth and quality of data that is simply not possible in print. They have helped us to make our student recruitment and conversion communications much more efficient and much more effective,” says Jennifer.

Since launching the Manchester Advantage in email two years ago, Jennifer and her department have rolled out 16 accounts for the university’s schools and departments using the Newsweaver system, with a total of 20 newsletters and e-bulletins to date.

“The university has branding guidelines, but we have given schools the freedom to create the style they want to use. It’s been a lot easier and Newsweaver Support has been fantastic every step of the way.”

Jennifer’s department has set up a mailing frequency that matches the conversion communication cycle that runs from November to July. This alternates between the general university applicant newsletter and the offer holder’s school within the university.

Student recruitment also created a post-application flyer, which is used for important or time-sensitive communications between monthly mailings.

The university is also rolling out personalisation and segmentation of what it currently sends to offer holders.