ACTIVE Supports Solent University

Geodemographic profiling

In response to a number of pressures in the higher education sector, universities are endeavouring to find more efficient ways of recruiting students while maintaining a differentiation from competitor organisations.

Southampton Solent University recognise that a successful market research programme lies at the heart of delivering against these objectives, and use ACTIVE's geo-demographic profiling tool, Total Solution Mapping™, to drive forward these activities.

The University recently published a white paper that recognises the advantages of using geo-demographic tools such as Total Solution Mapping. 'The Development and Embedding of a Market Research Data Cycle to assist in the development of more effective strategic planning to meet the needs of the global student marketplace' highlights a number of such uses as:

• Targeting the 'locationally disadvantaged'
• Locating districts with high levels of minority students
• Building up profiles based on standard deprivation measures
• Creation and visualisation of catchment areas that would be lost in tables and text,
• Profiling of areas to develop new courses (or business) that could appeal to this segment, this specifically related to niche courses,
• Targeting of areas located close to feeder colleges,
• Development of area specific plans for targeted marketing activities and through real-time analysis provide on-the-fly retargeting of recruitment
• Identifying, with precision, the geographical location of a specific audience to facilitate communication
• Identifying those groups most likely to become customers

To read the paper in full, please download the PDF.

From:
Trevor Thorne, Mark Dixon & Hanna O'Shea, Southampton Solent University.