Diapositiva 1

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Market Research for Universities
Andrea Costa, Market Research and
Development Università Bocconi 2008 EUPRIO
Conference, Stavanger
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Outline

• Market research for universities. Why?
• Target groups methodologies
• Research areas
• Employment careers
• Buying process
• Customer satisfaction
• Brand image
• Communication advertising
• An innovative project
• What next?

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1. Market Research for Universities. Why?

• Especially in certain countries, universities are
  still far from a market-oriented approach. The
  very term marketing was frowned upon until
  recently.

In many cases, universities do what they think
the public wants, or even what they think the
public should want.
That is not wrong in itself, but nonetheless it
dodges the question about what does the public
actually want.
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1. Market Research for Universities. Why?

• This lack of market-oriented mentality is often
  reflected in the two reasons most commonly cited
  when proposals are turned down

• We don't have enough money (but this is, if
  anything, a reason for better knowing where to
  invest what little there is)?

• We already know everything we need (no
  comment)?

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1. Market Research for Universities. Why?

• Market research is about knowing what your market
  is like.
• It calls for a reversal of perspective not so
  much the world seen from the university, but the
  university seen from the outside world.

But what does market mean for a university?
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2. Some Examples of Questions (and Respondents)
Undergraduate
Prospective Students (and their families)?
Graduate
Further Education
Employers
Domestic
International

• Why should they choose my university?
• How shall I communicate to them?
• What do they know about my university?
• What do they think about my university?
• What do they want from my university?

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2. Methodologies

• Methodologies are, admittedly, a boring subject.
  There can be more than one way to achieve your
  objective, so the real question is actually What
  Do I Want To Know?, and let the research company
  advise you on the methodologies.
• Broadly speaking, a qualitative approach is best
  when you know very little, and a quantitative one
  works when you want to keep track of something.
  But complex subjects will probably require a mix
  of the two.

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3. Research Areas(i) Employment Careers

• This area is probably the most obvious
  application of market research to universities
  universities want to know (indeed sometimes they
  are required to) where do their graduates work,
  how much do they earn, what positions they are
  offered and so on.

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3. Research Areas(i) Employment Careers

• But this is just the beginning. Graduates are a
  real minefield of information. They can provide
  valuable insight on a number of topics
• Did you feel better prepared than recent
  graduates from other universities?
• Did you experience any unexpected difficulty in
  the first months/years?
• How do you judge the abilities and competences
  that you have acquired at university in relation
  to your current job?
• How do you judge the quality of your
  universitys Careers Service?

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3. Research Areas(ii) Buying Process

• Buying Process is a term borrowed from consumer
  research. A company selling branded goods may
  want to know why and how their products are
  chosen, a university should know the same about
  its prospective students.

This is trickier than it seems.
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3. Research Areas(ii) Buying Process

• We can surely ask our current students about why
  they chose our university.

But this would tell us nothing about why were we
not chosen by so many others.
And dont forget that the answer is probably
different between Bachelor and Master courses.
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3. Research Areas(ii) Buying Process

• The buying process is a very complex issue. A
  good knowledge of how it works is an essential
  tool for university communication.

• How long does it take?
• What are its stages?
• When is the final decision taken?
• Which information channels are considered, and
  which ones are decisive?
• What degree programmes are most appealing, and
  why?
• Is there any difference between brighter students
  and average ones, or from different family
  backgrounds?

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3. Research Areas(iii) Customer Satisfaction

• Our customers are (primarily) our students. We
  need to know if they are happy with their choice.
  As was the case with graduate employment, there
  may be regulations to comply with, but even then
  it is advisable to go further than what is
  strictly required.

The fact is that the degree of satisfaction is
what the students will show when they talk with
their friends and families. And word-of-mouth is
one of the strongest drivers in the choice of a
university.
In other words, it is another communication issue.
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3. Research Areas(iii) Customer Satisfaction

• When universities want to measure their students
  satisfaction, they usually check each individual
  item of student life
• Courses
• Teachers
• Services
• Facilities

This is correct, but if we stop at that we only
look at the hard part. There is a soft part
too, which we cant afford to ignore.
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3. Research Areas(iii) Customer Satisfaction

• This soft part is what makes your university
  unique
• Competitiveness among students
• Evaluation methods
• Stressful deadlines
• Bureaucracy
• Organization

Remember that there can be too much of a good
thing, meaning that something positive can
become negative beyond a certain limit. Are you
close to that limit?
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3. Research Areas(iv) Brand Image

• A universitys name is, for all intents and
  purposes, a brand. And very often a powerful one
  too. One of the features of a strong brand is
  that it works as a guarantee when information is
  incomplete or difficult to understand.

• Universities seldom consciously decide their
  brands positioning, but this has two unintended
  consequences
• That the public may judge using what elements
  they have.
• That most universities are indistinguishable.

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3. Research Areas(iv) Brand Image

• Source CRA-Nielsen 2001

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3. Research Areas(v) Communication
Advertising

• This is a more tactical area of research, aiming
  at checking whether university communication
  (including but not limited to advertising) is
  coherent and consistent with the brands
  positioning.

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3. Research Areas(v) Communication
Advertising
A possible project might be testing this ad on a
small number of people belonging to the target
audience. Is it clear enough? Does it say what
we want it to say?
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4. An Innovative Project

• In 2006, Bocconi decided to gather systematic
  information about the buying process in other
  European countries. This was a consequence of the
  strong push for internationalization contained in
  the universitys new strategic plan.
• We wanted to know the decision processes of
  European students wishing to continue their
  studies outside their own countries.

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4. An Innovative Project

• For a number of reasons, particularly the fact
  that it was a completely new area, a qualitative
  approach was selected.
• A limited number of students in 8 European
  countries, who had already decided to go abroad
  for their Masters programmes, were asked to take
  part in a week-long forum on the Internet, and
  some of them in a 2-hour chat.

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4. An Innovative Project

• In other words, not only the subject of the
  survey was novel, but the methodology too. As
  well as allowing all the possibility of in-depth
  analysis of qualitative research, an
  Internet-based work has at least two substantial
  advantages
• It is very cost-effective
• Its data can be processed much better

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5. What Next?

• It is quite possible that European universities
  will do more market research in the coming years,
  as the need for more sophisticated information
  increases together with a push for a more
  market-oriented strategy.

I will propose two ideas, one about what to do
and the other about how to do it.
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5. What Next?

• Clusters
• The first idea is to define clusters of people
  (e.g. among successful students) that share
  certain characteristics, so that it may become
  possible to devise a more targeted communication
  strategy.
• That is, we can use our existing data about
  graduates to trace what elements some of them
  have in common, and use the outcome to predict
  what is likely to happen.

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5. What Next?

• We may find that a disproportionately high number
  of graduates who have reached a good position
  within 5 years of graduating had a similar
  academic history, came from certain schools and
  were particularly good at certain subjects.
• In this case we may target a specific
  communication to such schools/groups, attracting
  more promising students who might choose another
  university instead.

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5. What Next?

• Pooled research
• The second idea is that by pooling a number of
  universities together, the cost of obtaining
  information is effectively cut.
• The underlying principle is that information is a
  commodity, and that the real competitive edge
  comes from using it better than others.
• Do you have any idea?
• Would you want to take part?

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Thank You

• Any questions?
• andrea.costa_at_unibocconi.it