Comment by Joe Faulkner, Head of Marketing
Many new headteachers in schools throughout the country will, as I write, be mid-way through their first ‘proper’ week in situ, likely with an degree of raucousness emanating from the playground. This is a key time for new heads to establish their aims, plan their strategies, and make their mark. To inform this, school research is essential.
With the impact of recession and falling affordability causing some difficulties, a core issue for many independent schools is pupil recruitment. Any head taking up a new post in a school should seek to develop a clear and accurate understanding of the school’s positioning, market and parental satisfaction to inform strategies for maintaining pupil numbers. Here are our top 5 research tips for helping new heads to acheive this:
- Know your marketplace
In independent schools particularly, it is crucial that the head knows his or her school’s potential market and its capacity to continue to recruit pupils from this market. Our Mandarin catchment area research can tell you how many families in your area are able to afford the fees and have school age children, as well as where they live.
In addition, we can help you to understand how numbers of potential pupils in the area will change in the future, what areas you currently recruit well from, and how competitor schools might influence parental choice of school.
- Listen to your parents
Every new head needs a strong understanding of why parents chose their school for their child, what they expect from it, how they would describe it, whether they would recommend it and what the priorities for improvement are. mtm’s parental survey work can answer all these questions through a secure and efficient online questionnaire.
Parents like to be asked for their feedback, and from a new head it shows a responsive and open outlook, making parents and pupils feel valued. We also carry out focus groups for client schools to explore any key issues in more depth and allow parents to speak openly and candidly about their experiences and concerns.
- See what visitors see
Mystery shopping is a fantastic way to fully understand how your school appears to visiting parents, and the impressions that you are likely to make on them. mtm has many years experience carrying out mystery shopper exercises for schools and colleges.
In our mystery shops, we pose as an interested parent and assess every stage of your school’s communication with them, from how you respond to the intial phone call through to the visit and tour. We provide a full and honest report on our findings, with feedback and recommendations for you to improve the way you respond to visiting parents.
- Assess your school marketing
All schools need to understand whether their capacity, budget and strategy for attracting parents is appropriate: are you targeting the right areas? Are you spending too much? Are you aware of how many enquiries you generate for every parent that enrols? Every head should be able to answer these questions, and mtm allows schools to do this with our marketing audits.
Our audits take the form of a one- or two- day visit incorporating a tour of the school and meetings with the head and all staff responsible for marketing or admissions. We assess every aspect of your school’s marketing function, including communications with parents and tracking methods, and provide an in-depth assessment and recommendations for the future.
- See where you miss out
Of course, there will be no feedback more valuable than understanding the reasons that parents who visit your school do not go on to register and ultimate enrol. mtm can help with this too. Our ‘decliner’ (also called ‘non-buyer’ or ‘non-joiner’) interviews are carried out by our professional and in-house research team with such parents.
During these interviews, we speak to declining parents to understand which other schools they visited – and ultimately chose – and their experiences of visiting your school and ways in which these experiences could have been improved.
mtm has helped hundreds of schools to improve their positioning and enhance their school marketing and admissions. To speak to us about our work and how we might help your school please contact mtmconsulting.
