Sarah Stone is Head of Recruitment Marketing, Communications & Marketing at Leeds Beckett University, where she leads strategic, integrated campaigns to attract and engage prospective students. She specialises in audience-focused marketing, digital content, and brand storytelling, with a strong track record of delivering impactful recruitment campaigns in higher education.

We spoke with Sarah on how Springpod's Subject Spotlights transformed Leeds Beckett's outreach to create a more engaging and accessible way of connecting with students.

Reaching more diverse audiences

According to Sarah, Leeds Beckett University had a clear goal in mind when searching for solutions to engaging with new audiences. Promoting their academic excellence was important, but they also wanted to increase awareness of key growth subject areas with a more diverse audience.

To achieve this goal, the university was keen on bringing their courses to life. They wanted to showcase how they teach, the topics students and explore and how these are connected to real-world experiences and career pathways.

They hoped to inspire a wider and harder-to-reach pool of prospective students by giving them an immersive experience into what studying with Leeds Beckett is really like.

What were the challenges?

Before Subject Spotlights, Leeds Beckett University had to rely heavily on organic and paid traffic. They depended heavily on users proactively visiting the university’s website or engaging with paid advertisements. With limited paid media activity, they weren’t able to reach as wide or as diverse a target audience.

Their existing content consisted of traditional “talking head” videos, each discussing a different course. They were informative, but didn’t fully capture the essence of the university’s programmes. 

"We needed a more engaging, accessible way to connect with students earlier in their decision-making journey.”

Subject Spotlights: Engaging with prospective students

Springpod’s Subject Spotlights are interactive, online tasters, designed to give students a real sense of what it’s like to study a subject at university. 

Instead of relying on static prospectus pages or generic videos, Subject Spotlights deliver immersive content that helps students picture themselves in the classroom, tackling real topics and engaging with the subject matter.

These Spotlights complemented Leeds Beckett University’s traditional marketing activity by offering something more interactive. Easy-to-use and intuitive, it offers an engaging way to help prospective students build confidence in their subject choices.

"What stood out immediately was how intuitive and student-focused the platform is.”

The student experience

Since launch, 77 applications to the university have been directly linked in engagement with their Subject Spotlights. Out of these 77 applications, 35 went on to become enrollments.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my subject spotlight experience. The information videos were interesting and informative. The mini tasks made for engaging learning. Would absolutely recommend!”

“Very insightful and helpful, definitely made me even more passionate about pursuing a biomed course.”

Leeds Beckett University were able to diversify their outreach, strengthen engagement with prospective students and showcase their courses in a more meaningful and accessible way. All of this led to a staggering 686% ROI.

“Springpod provides an easy-to-use, highly engaging platform that allows institutions to broaden their marketing reach and connect with audiences they may otherwise struggle to engage.”

Check out Leeds Beckett University’s Subject Spotlights here!