Marketing

Cookies – Did you know your school’s website has a sweet tooth?

Blog by Chris Smith, Head of Business Development

Continuing on the vein of my previous post on social media and web use in schools, this time around it’s cookies. Defined by Webster’s online dictionary as:

1   : a small flat or slightly raised cake

2   : a small file or part of a file stored on a World Wide Web user’s computer, created and subsequently read by a Web site server, and containing personal information (as a user identification code, customized preferences, or a record of pages visited)

Unfortunately for people like me who enjoy their cakes, this two article series is about the latter definition (wikipedia entry); what they are, and in the sequel article how you can utilise cookies in your e-marketing, as well as major legal changes which will require action from even the most basic of school websites.

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Should the fee paying independent sector worry about the ‘squeezed middle’ ?

Blog by Melanie Tucker, Principal and Head of Marketing Services

Last month the Daily Telegraph reported that that middle classes are turning back to the state sector. The interest is primarily fee driven but has been spurred by the opportunities for parents to establish their own school free schools and the transformation of comprehensives into academies. But is this an accurate assessment?

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Schools on the Internet – Opportunity or Threat?

Thursday 14th June, Cavalry & Guards Club, 127 Piccadilly, London W1

In this workshop, the mtm web+digital team will help you get to grips with how you can best use the internet for your school, and how to avoid the common pitfalls of the online world.  The morning will give you practical advice on getting the most from your website, an overview of safeguards, dos and don’ts, and give you the opportunity to ask questions to our experts.

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Tweeting 101: Practical Introduction to Social Networks

Tuesday 12th June, Cavalry & Guards Club, 127 Piccadilly, London W1

Following on from some of previous seminars, mtm web+digital present some vital workshops for your school. The aim of this workshop is to provide you with an introduction to social networks and which you may consider using, how to set them up, and creating social media action plans.  #tweeting101

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How does your new intake measure up?

Blog by James Leggett, Research Manager

When we undertake Mandarin studies as part of our school research and strategy packages, we often ask a school to send us the postcodes of their new starters, or pupils who are due to start at the school in the following September. This allows them to compare the lifestyles of new families against the current parent body, the distances new pupils are prepared to travel, and the towns and villages new starters live in.

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mtm’s March seminars: Let battle commence!

Blog by Nicky Adams – School Marketing Consultant

Under the watchful eye of an oil-painted Duke of Wellington, movers and shakers in independent schools met for two seminars hosted by mtmconsulting in the sumptuous Waterloo Room at London’s Cavalry and Guards Club in March. They talked tactics, of course, and armed themselves with some vital intelligence, ready to do battle in the most competitive independent schools sector in British history.

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Are schools and social media compatible?

Blog by Christopher Smith, Head of Business Development

Most schools are already somewhere along the social media continuum: between ignoring and prohibiting at one end, and embracing and enabling at the other.

There are of course arguments for both extremes. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and so forth) continues to be a divisive subject, and a few PR disasters in recent  times, namely cyber bullying on Facebook, the use of Twitter in the 2011 riots and most recently the rise of the ‘Troll’, have given the ‘anti’ campaign plenty of fuel.

However you look at social media, it is without a doubt an incredibly successful phenomenon, and has proved not just to be a fad. The fad is in the hype surrounding it.

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Opportunities to shape the future of independent education in East London

BALLYMORE SCHOOLS BROCHURE

Your opportunity to shape the future of independent education in London Docklands

mtmconsulting is managing the bidding for investment in two new schools in the heart of London Docklands – the deadline for submissions has now closed, but please contact us if you are interested.

Education investors are being offered a rare opportunity to invest in two brand new schools to be built by The Ballymore Group in creatively regenerated areas of London Docklands.

In this exciting, evolving urban environment, a new nursery and preparatory school is to be constructed on a bend in the River Thames opposite the O2 Arena at The Ballymore Group’s Leamouth Peninsula development in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. In nearby Newham, a school potentially catering for pupils aged four to 18 will be built close to the heart of The Ballymore Group’s new Minoco community, whose design will be faithful to the original Royal Docks neighbourhoods with a network of streets and squares and a mixture of residential and commercial property.

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The small things in life…

Blog by Jane Davies, Research Analyst

Parental satisfaction surveys are an excellent way of gauging how your school is perceived by your ‘customers’, revealing your strengths and also priorities for improvement. At mtmconsulting we have conducted such surveys in excess of 70 schools, and beyond the major provision issues (teaching quality, academic outcomes, pastoral care etc) we have discovered that it is often the small things which can make all the difference – and it may be that the things which really niggle parents are relatively easy to fix (and for zero cost!). When budgets are tighter than ever, it is essential to optimise your offering, especially as word of mouth recommendation is by far your best marketing tool; we have included some brief suggestions below to get you thinking about where you might be able to score a ‘quick win’.

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How effective is your school’s advertising?

Blog by James Leggett, Marketing Research Manager

Do you or your school advertise regularly in newspapers and magazines within your local areas? Do you keep a track of the effectiveness of each advertisements? At mtmconsulting, we regularly undertake online satisfaction surveys for schools, asking how parents found out about the school, with interesting results.

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