Marketing approaches for learning development engagement: the importance of promotion to enhance students' learning

Key to engaging students with learning development (LD) is helping them to understand who we are and what we do, an issue that the profession continues to contend with (Stapleford, 2019; Mossman, 2023; White and Webster, 2023). Although there is existing research on marketing academic and public libraries (Dowd, Evangeliste and Silberman, 2010; Potter, 2012; Rowley, 2013; Kendrick, 2021), there is limited research on the marketing practices of LD services within universities and their institutional context, with no known studies focusing on the techniques that learning developers implement to promote their service to students and academic staff. The importance of establishing an identity was explored in this paper, discussing the development of an LD marketing plan which included strategies for promoting the department. This plan used key marketing practices and current research (Potter, 2012; Kendrick, 2021) to establish the department’s ‘brand’, facilitating an identity which ensured clear, effective communication of its service. This paper also demonstrated the importance of effective marketing and communication with students by exploring the promotion of an interdisciplinary dissertation event. This implemented timely and targeted marketing strategies to promote engagement and service awareness. The event hosted 264 participants with attendance from disciplines across all faculties, demonstrating the importance of considered promotional activity to encourage accessibility and inclusion. Participants heard about the ongoing marketing plan work and strategy developments employed by the LD team to actively engage with students across the University of Surrey, as well as having the opportunity to share their own successful promotional practices.