Advertising support

Starting an advertising campaign

If a department would like to create an advertising campaign, in the first instance get in touch with the relevant faculty marketing contact:

• Arts and Humanities: Natalie Ellis and Nicole Bissett
  • East 15 Acting School: Alex Dickens
  • Edge Hotel School: Fari Manangazira
• Science and Health: Simon Greenwood and Lucy Birchall
  • School of Health and Social Care: Joanna Atherton
• Social Sciences: Becky Beard and Violet Tam
  • Essex Business School: Karla Bird

They will then either arrange a meeting to discuss the ideas behind a campaign, and/or send you an advertising brief to fill out.

Departments will need to pay for an advertising campaign. Ideally, you also need to have a specific budget in mind, as the campaign plan will be built depending on the budget available.

Marketing work with an advertising agency, NetNatives, who devise media plans and create artwork. At the end of the campaign, Marketing will report on the overall success of the campaign, and provide further breakdown of statistics and insights. For example, how many people saw the advert, clicked on the advert and completed the desired conversion (e.g. made an application/downloaded a prospectus/booked onto an event).

Media channels that are frequently used are: Out of Home, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Print, Display and others. NetNatives use the brief to understand the objectives of the campaign, and from this build a suitable media plan which outlines the most effective strategy, timings, design, media channels and audience targeting.

Things to consider

• What is the objective of the campaign? Be SMART. 
• What is the strategic context for the campaign? E.g. applications are showing a downward trend, we have launched a new course. What have you tried already, what worked and what didn’t?
• Target audience - Be as precise as possible; age, geographic location, interests, motivators. All of these will help with targeting ads more effectively.
• Key messages - What do you want to audience to know? What is your key selling point?
• Call to action – What do you want the audience to do? Where will the click take them?
• Budget – As a guide, a basic campaign needs a minimum of £2,000 to run for a month.
• Timing – When do you want the campaign to run? Is the call to action time sensitive? Eg. if it’s for an event or there is an application deadline to meet.