MTM Research Brochure 2016

Research Guide

The most intelligent and insightful advice

for independent schools

MTM is a full service market research company specialising in the

education sector.

Our unique blend of research and marketing capability enables us

to deliver advice and support that delivers much more than just

data. Our team has an in-depth knowledge of how schools work

and a track record of devising successful strategies for them. Our

work includes research to inform decision making and to advise on

the feasibility of school purchases, restructures and mergers. We

have also run successful marketing and communications

campaigns based on our research enabling schools across the UK

to recruit more pupils.

We are committed to helping your school grow and develop and

we understand how to deliver first-class education and how to run

schools as effective educational businesses. We have access to the

best intelligence about the education market, enabling us to

address issues that nobody else can. We publish leading edge

research and our Education Sector Reports are the acknowledged

reliable source of information about the sector.

01502 722787 [email protected] www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

What is it?

A unique catchment area analysis tool, designed to give a clear insight

into your school’s real potential market now and in the future. We own the

rights to the Experian data set, so that everything is at our finger tips – we

don’t use a bureau service.

We analyse your parents – where they live, their lifestyle, household

income and how far they travel to school. We profile them using Experian

Mosaic data.

We apply this understanding of your parents to our own data in order to

assess:

• Your pupils’ characteristics compared with nationwide, regional and

local family profiles

• The number of pupils available in your catchment in families that are

likely to consider independent education

• Population projections over the next 10 years

• The location and density of families you should recruit from

• Well penetrated areas and areas you should focus on

We also offer a range of bolt-ons to understand key aspects of your school.

These include detailed competitor, transport, alumni and bursary analyses.

Why do it?

• Scientifically understand the real potential for pupil recruitment

• Inform strategic decisions on your school’s development and growth

• Use your marketing budget more effectively to target the best areas

Related services

Understanding your market and often use our Market and Catchment

Intelligence to identify areas where there are large numbers of potential

pupils, but where you are not recruiting effectively. Door-to-door interviews

in this area can help to understand awareness and perceptions amongst

these parents.

Examples of use

A successful senior school was interested in opening its own prep school

nearby. We carried out market and catchment research research to look

at how many target children there were within a 30 minute drive of the

proposed site, and the provision offered by competitors. We also used the

research to assess areas in which to market the new school and how

population trends might affect the market size over the coming 5 and 10

years.

Price

A standard package starts at £3,995 ex VAT


MARKET AND CATCHMENT INTELLIGENCE

What are they?

Working closely with you, we prepare a fully tailored survey questionnaire –

we do not believe that one-size fits all. We provide template text for all

communication and manage the whole process for you. Our surveys are

an excellent way to explore a broad number of areas, including:

• Reasons parents chose your school

• How satisfied they are with your provision

• How parents heard about your school, and other schools considered

• Overall perceptions of your school and whether parents would

recommend it

We analyse and feedback our findings in a full presentation, benchmarked

against other schools. We can assess differences in feedback at various

ages, amongst boys and girls; and day / boarding pupils.

We can also undertake surveys of staff, pupils and alumni in your school.

Why do it?

• Understand how your parents really feel about your school, and how you

meet their expectations.

• Gain insight into your school’s unique strengths and areas you should

seek to improve.

• Inform your marketing and refine your message

• Be seen by your parents to be actively listening and responding to them.

• Establish a benchmark against which to monitor future progress.

Related services

Any identified areas of concern or confusion can be further explored in

focus groups with small groups of parents or targeted telephone follow-upsin order to fully understand the issues.

Examples of use

The head of a client school had heard that there was a degree of

dissatisfaction with bus routes and communication. We found that the vast

majority of parents were happy with existing bus routes, and those who

were not happy all lived in the same area, meaning the school could

easily add an additional route. We also found that parents wanted the

school to switch from letters sent home with children to weekly e-mails.

Price


Promoter Detractor

PARENT SURVEYS


What are they?

We liaise with you to identify parents who have either requested

information or visited your school but have not gone on to enrol or who

have declined an offer. Our professional and discreet in-house research

team carries out telephone interviews with these families to assess their

perceptions of your school, experiences of their contact with you, the

reasons they did not enrol, and where they selected instead.

Prior to contacting parents we provide template text for your school to

send them, outlining the research and providing them with an opportunity

to opt-out of being contacted. Using a professional and experienced third-

party such as MTM encourages parents to be candid and open. We find

that parents are often receptive and appreciate the positive reasons for

this research.

Why do it?

• Understand the reasons parents do not enrol children at your school, and

what they think of you.

• Improve the quality of your tours, open days and follow up.

• Better understand your competitor schools and their activities.

• Increase pupil recruitment.

Related services

Decliner interviews are a great compliment to our other parental research

services: online surveys, future joiner interviews, and focus groups. A

combination of these activities will mean that you can fully understand

and compare perceptions of your school, its strengths and its weaknesses.

We can even access parents of the right demographic who did not

enquire at your school.

Examples of use

A large school was running lots of tours but struggled to maintain a good

number of registrations and enrolments, particularly amongst boarding

pupils. We carried out non-buyer interviews and found that parents

wanted to meet house-masters when considering boarding places, and

that often parents did not get an opportunity to see many pupils during

school tours. The school amended its tour structure and also introduced

follow-up calls with visitors to address any questions they had.

Price


“The school has a fantastic feel but we didn’t get to meet the headmaster there. We didn’t get a feel for the culture or ethos of the school. [Competitor] made the headmaster

and staff very available and this made a real difference.”

DECLINER / NON-JOINER SURVEYS


What is it?

We carry out in depth, open-forum focus groups with your key

stakeholders: parents, staff, pupils, alumni or even non-buyers. These focus

groups can be tailored to cover any areas and are an ideal means to

cover key aspects of your school in more depth than telephone or online

surveys allow. Focus groups tend to be informal and open discussions

following a defined structure and led in a ‘dual moderator’ format – with

two consultants present.

Why do it?

• Focus groups are an excellent means to really explore sentiment and

perceptions of your school with key groups.

• The informal and face-to-face nature of the groups means that

participants are likely to be open and honest, especially to a third party.

• Allows you to gain comprehensive feedback on aspects of your school.

• Focus groups show your parents that you are listening to their feedback

and acting on it.

Related services

Focus groups are a great means to follow up any areas of interest or

concern that are found in a parent, staff or pupil survey. We can use the

focus groups as an in-depth and qualitative method to explore the

quantitative findings of a survey.

Examples of use

In a parent survey, there was mixed feedback from parents relating to a

school’s compulsory Saturday morning attendance - views were

particularly polarised. We carried out several focus groups with a cross-

section of the school’s parents in order to better understand perceptions

and to identify several ways in which our client could amend its Saturday

school offering in order to better suit all of its parents’ needs.

Price


FOCUS GROUPS


What is it?

Schools often wonder how they are perceived within their local area by

parents that don’t enquire or visit and why they are not considered by this

group. We can answer this question through interviewing a targeted group

of families in households that meet key criteria, such as having incomes

above a certain threshold. The research is usually conducted through a

telephone interview followed up with an online questionnaire. We often

use our Market and Catchment Intelligence research to identify key areas.

Why do it?

• To understand your positioning amongst parents who have not shown an

interest in your school.

• Help you to use your marketing budget more effectively, ensuring the

messages are correct and targeted at the right groups,

• Identify the reasons that your school is not effectively penetrating key

areas, including any resistance to independent education.

• Find out why parents are choosing your competitors rather than you.

Related services

It is important to identify where the right types of parents who do not

consider your school live and therefore undertaking Market and

Catchment Intelligence research to identify key areas is very useful. Also,

this type of research is often combined with non-joiner research to find out

how schools are performing throughout the ‘sales pipeline’ to discover

why parents are not choosing to consider, visit or enrol.

Examples of use

A newly appointed Marketing Director at a school that had recently

relocated to a larger site, suspected that there were low levels of

awareness of the school generally in the new local area. Some senior staff

believed that the school’s good reputation would proceed it but enquiry

numbers at the new site were low. Evidence was needed to inform the

school’s new marketing plan, and following research of non-enquirers in

the school’s new catchment, it became apparent that parents had simply

not heard of it. An intensive period of targeted local marketing led to

increased enquiry numbers.

Price



NON-ENQUIRERS RESEARCH

15

22

23

27

32

33

36

20

26

23

19

16

19

15

16

4

7

5

4

1

1

2

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

0

2

1

0

1

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

I am well informed about independent school options inmy local area

I am more likely to invest in private education atsecondary school level, as my children can progress from

local state schools

I would like my child to attend an independent primaryschool to help them gain a place at a top secondary school

Whether is a school is single-sex or co-educational is highlyimportant to me

There are clear differences between the independentschools in my local area

School location, and travel time, is central to my decisionon which school to pick

I am happy with the standard of education provided bystate schools in my area

No of respondents

Respondents' general perceptions of local education

Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Don't know

% Agree

What is it?

We objectively rate each element of your recruitment process, from the

first answer of the phone to the handshake at the end of the school tour.

We will also assess your prospectus and your website from the point of view

of a prospective parent. The objectivity stems from using a tried and tested

checklist. For example, on the tour we make an assessment of the guide’s

control of the interview and visit, friendliness, relationship building,

empathy, personalisation, answering of concerns, selling of the school’s

features, articulation of its benefits, enthusiasm and inspirational qualities.

Your school gets an overall score, but more importantly a detailed write-up

of both what happened and what could be done differently. We usually

also conduct similar evaluations of your competitors – both independent

and state.

Why do it?

• See your school as prospective parents see you.

• Provides an evaluation of what you do well and therefore what you

should avoid changing (and indeed build upon).

• Gives you insight into what you should improve in order to better appeal

to parents.

• Offer praise to staff who are doing a good job; feedback and training for

others when improvement is possible.

Related services

Mystery shopping works well with visitor interviews. You can understand the

extent to which our evaluation is shared by prospective parents, as well as

finding out about very local factors that our mystery shop would not

necessarily pick up on.

Examples of use

A prep school wanted to find out why it was losing prospective parents to

local rivals. The mystery shopping exercise provided insights into how it

handled its tours. It ascertained that the head of every competitor school

met parents, in contrast to its own policy. The school was also able to

emulate the best local practice and send a tailored follow-up letter within

24 hours of every visit.

Price



MYSTERY SHOPPING

What are they?

A series of qualitative telephone interviews with key feeder heads and

figures in and around your area who are likely to impact on parents’ and

pupils’ choice of school are carried out by our professional in-house

interviewers. Target groups for interviews include existing/prospective

feeder and nursery school heads, estate and relocation agents, and

leaders of parent, social and church groups, all of whom are likely to

understand and inform prospective parents on the schools such as yours.

We identify and contact opinion shapers and carry out interviews to

understand their awareness and perceptions of your school and your

competitors.

Why do it?

• Opinion shaper interviews allow you to understand the general

perception of your school in the local community.

• Allows you to refine your marketing messages to ensure they are

consistent and appropriate.

• Forms the basis of communications activities in your area with a view to

engaging and attracting larger numbers of parents through advocacy

and affiliates.

Related services

Opinion shaper interviews work very well carried out in conjunction with

other forms of telephone research such as non-buyer and future-joiner

interviews. This gives you an excellent understanding of perceptions of your

school amongst parents who have joined, parents who visited but did not

join, and the wider community.

Examples of use

A girls’ day school found that it was getting fewer referrals from feeder schools than it had done in the past. MTM contacted a combination of

heads from feeder schools as well as heads of schools that should have

fed into our client but did not. We found that many feeder school heads

had misconceptions about our client school and had not received

adequate communication. As a result we advised the school to

commence a series of networking events with feeder school heads and

other opinion shapers in order to enhance their profile.

Price


“The more your people can get out and about to prep schools, the bigger

the impact on recruitment there would be– the personal touch is what our

parents are looking for”


FEEDER HEAD / OPINION-SHAPER INTERVIEWS


What are they?

Interviews carried out by our expert research team with parents at both

ends of their relationship with your school – those who have enrolled and

accepted places at your school for their child but have not yet arrived

and those whose children have left (both at natural transition points and

unexpectedly). Parents are offered a chance to opt-out of being

contacted and then structured telephone interviews are carried out. These

allow us to research how parents found out about your school, their

experiences of visiting the school, their expectations and hopes, and the

areas that they consider to be most important as well as a reflection on

their child’s time at your school. We can also use future-joiner interviews to

ask parents for feedback on other schools that they visited and their views

of your school’s strengths and selling points.

Why do it?

• Allows you to understand how parents see your school before they have

arrived and to enhance your offering and communications in order to

closely meet parents’ expectations.

• Gain valuable insight into parents true experiences of your school after

they have left, at a time when they can be most honest.

• Shows parents that you are attentive to their needs, promoting positive

word-of-mouth recommendation. Gain testimonials.

• Allows you to better understand your schools’ selling points and areas

that can be improved.

Related services

Future joiner interviews should be coupled with leaver interviews in order to

build a clear picture of the different views between those coming into your

school and those leaving your school. This will help you to understand how

closely you have met parents’ expectations.

Examples of use

A parent survey revealed some parents rated value for money below our

benchmarked average, whilst others felt that they were not fully satisfied

with some aspects of provision. By conducting future-joiner interviews we

were able to understand why parents had chosen the school, what their

expectations were, and how they wanted the school to communicate

with them. By acting on this and ensuring it met these needs, the school

performed considerably better in a follow up survey two years later.

Price


FUTURE-JOINER / EXIT INTERVIEWS

“Our son’s time at X School has been amazing. We’re so grateful to have the

opportunity to let you know”

What is it?MTM‘s new annual survey package enabling you to use the latest mobile

and tablet technology to gain instant feedback from your visitors.

Why do it?

• Allows your visitors the opportunity to comment on what they have seen

on the day – your school’s responsiveness will make you stand out from the

competition.

• Gives visitors the opportunity to request further details or a call back in a

way that is most convenient for them

• Will enable you to optimise your presentation to visitors over time.

Please see our website for further details.


ANNUAL OPEN DAY / TOUR SURVEY PACKAGE

COMPLIMENTARY SERVICES

Feasibility studies

Let us do the groundwork for you, whether it’s opening a new, streamlined

school or department, extending the school’s age range or market,

establishing new services, creating or acquiring satellite businesses or using

your school’s site to generate additional income.

Restructuring and mergers MTM has particular experience in the planning and management of

school acquisitions, mergers and closures, including the identification of

potential partners for mergers and joint operations as well as the sensitive

areas of communications and the media.

Marketing audits and strategy

Marketing should be a part of any school’s long-term planning and we

can help you to prepare and develop a solid marketing plan.

Positioning, branding and advertising

We can review your brand identity and construct new or revised strategies

including design.

Sector specific research and publications

We are the market leader in this area, including MTM’s biannual ‘Sector

Report’, the authoritative independent commentary on the charitable, for

profit and state-funded independent education markets.

MTM

A brand of Education Market Research Solutions Ltd

01502 722787

[email protected] www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

Education Market Research Solutions is registered in England and Wales. Company number 9582236

MTM Research Brochure 2016

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Transcript of MTM Research Brochure 2016