1. Research Guide
The most intelligent and insightful advice
for independent schools

2. MTM is a 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 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

3. 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
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
MARKET AND CATCHMENT INTELLIGENCE

4. 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-ups
in 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
A standard package starts at £2,495 ex VAT
Promoter Detractor
PARENT SURVEYS
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

5. 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
A standard package starts at £1,995 ex VAT
“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
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

6. 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
A standard package starts at £2,995 ex VAT
FOCUS GROUPS
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk

7. 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
A standard package starts at £4,995 ex VAT
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
NON-ENQUIRERS RESEARCH
% Agree

8. 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
A standard package starts at £1,495 ex VAT
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
MYSTERY SHOPPING

9. 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
A standard package starts at £3,495 ex VAT
“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”
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
FEEDER HEAD / OPINION-SHAPER INTERVIEWS

10. 01502 722767 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
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
A standard package starts at £1,995 ex VAT
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”

11. What is it?
A new product using 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.
Price
A standard package starts at £1,995 ex VAT per year
01502 722787 office@mtmconsulting.co.uk www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
REAL-TIME OPEN DAY / TOUR FEEDBACK
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.

12. MTM
A brand of Education Market Research Solutions Ltd
01502 722787
office@mtmconsulting.co.uk
www.mtmconsulting.co.uk
Education Market Research Solutions is registered in England
and Wales. Company number 9582236