How can market research help your institution?
Examples of how market research can assist education institutions’ decision-making:
- Perceptions of price and value study. dh insight can help in setting your pricing policy so that your university optimises its student intake in terms of quality, quantity, socio-economic spread and income. We target your potential students and test competitive options that concentrate on the final fee, rather than the assumed one. dh insight focuses on value-based pricing.
- Brand positioning review. Universities will increasingly see their competitor sets change in correlation to fee-setting, resulting in a need to determine areas for attention in marketing. Who are your true competitors, and what are their value propositions?
- External stakeholder perceptions. In-depth qualitative interviews with external stakeholders such as business contacts, graduate recruiters, the media and alumni help you to understand what the gaps are between the internal and external perceptions of your institution, and how to address them.
- Barriers to HE. Focus groups with students from different cultural and social backgrounds help you to understand what the key barriers are to applying to HE and what services your institution needs to provide for your freshers.
- Portfolio reviews. With the increasing need for course justification, and the likelihood of amalgamation in certain areas, a portfolio review would assist with planning.
- Services review. An increase in fees will certainly highlight any service quality issues in universities. dh insight can help you determine what is important, what is being adequately provided, and what gap needs to be bridged.
- International student campaign. Workshops with current international undergraduates or postgraduates will help you test the appeal of potential marketing campaigns with different cultures.
- Acceptor/decliner interviews. Surveys and/or in-depth telephone interviews with acceptors and decliners will help you identify how you could improve conversion rates amongst applicants.
- Website review. Paired interactive ‘surfing’ sessions with potential undergraduates will enable you to re-design your website to make it more intuitive and appropriate to the needs of applicants.