In an increasingly regulated digital landscape, where meaningful engagement must balance with strict data compliance, the University of Salford sought to reconnect with its alumni using a highly personalised, multi-channel campaign designed to update data preferences and strengthen long-term relationships.
“The University of Salford is committed to being compliant with specific privacy and communication regulations and, as a result, we were working towards a new way of communicating with our alumni network.
“We wanted to execute a multi-channel creative campaign that would inform our alumni of this change and give them plenty of opportunities to opt-in or out.
“The elements of this campaign needed to be compelling and had to cut through an abundance of digital noise which was heightened during the pandemic. We already had ideas on the theme and messaging – focussing on nostalgia and that we would ‘always be there’ for our alumni, no matter how long ago they graduated.
“We had worked with the AlphaGraphics team before on other alumni engagement campaigns – so it was a no-brainer to approach them to help us with this one. The fact that AG could help us with all elements of the campaign – from data management, design, digital marketing, content, print and more was a huge bonus.
“The team helped bring our ideas and themes for this campaign to life and took on board our feedback. We have successfully engaged our alumni and refined our database so we can send better, meaningful and compliant communications.
“We would recommend AlphaGraphics to help other educational institutions with similar campaigns and look forward to working with them on future projects.”
The University of Salford’s alumni team wanted to conduct a campaign that would respond to the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
PECR is an evolving set of regulations that sits alongside the Data Protection Act and UK GDPR. It highlighted that the university’s alumni team needed consent from its students before communicating marketing messages to them. Prior to this, the team operated under the policy of assumed consent, as alumni have a pre-existing relationship with the university.
The team therefore needed to execute an effective multi-channel campaign that would communicate these changes and give its alumni plenty of chances to update their preferences and to opt-in to receiving marketing communications. These communications are important for the team and Salford’s alumni as they include information about volunteering opportunities, fundraising, alumni support and postgraduate course information.
Salford’s alumni team partnered with AlphaGraphics to deliver a multi-channel data cleanse and management campaign using personalised emails, click-through landing pages, social media targeting and direct mail. The project took a multi-touchpoint approach, ensuring alumni were given multiple opportunities to opt in or out and update their marketing preferences throughout the journey.
To begin, we worked with the university to segment the data into three graduation groups to enable more targeted content and design: 1949–1989, 1990–2017, and 2018–present. This informed the creative direction of the campaign, which was built around a ‘For Then, For Now’ theme—leveraging positive nostalgia while reinforcing the university’s ongoing connection with its alumni, regardless of graduation year.
We developed personalised landing pages to capture and update alumni data, using merge fields from the university database to pre-populate forms and reduce friction, improving conversion rates. Any updates were automatically reflected in the central database, including opt-outs, ensuring accurate and compliant data management.
A three-stage email campaign was created for each segment, with tailored content and imagery reflecting the different eras of alumni experience. Each email included a personalised URL directing recipients to their pre-populated landing page, with messaging designed to build urgency and encourage final opt-ins.
Alongside this, social media campaigns on Facebook and Twitter used matched audience targeting to reach alumni directly. Ads mirrored the email creative and directed users to dedicated landing pages, with converted users excluded in real time to maintain efficiency and relevance.
To extend reach further, a direct mail campaign reinforced the digital activity using a nostalgic, visually engaging leaflet that combined historical and modern university imagery. Each piece included three response options: a QR code linking to a personalised landing page, a unique access key for online opt-in, and a traditional Freepost reply form to ensure accessibility across all audiences.
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