Glenalmond College

Glenalmond College is a boarding and day school educating children ages 12-18 in Perth, Scotland. Tessa Howard-Vyse, Director of Admissions at the school, wanted a better picture of the market in which they operated, by investigating the socio-economic demographics of the families that attend the school and those that live within a realistic catchment area.

The Project

MTM Consulting was commissioned to provide insight and analysis on this market. This would be used to determine marketing strategy and the messaging the school needs to use to best attract families most suited to a Glenalmond education.

We recommended a full catchment analysis in order to do the following:

• Understand the locations and travel times of current families.
• Understand the lifestyle of current families.
• Define realistic catchment areas.
• Detail the market size for target age children with the catchments in the relevant age groups.
• Estimate the market size of target children within each neighbourhood (c130 households) and postcode sector (c2000 households) within each market.
• Projecting the population change of each target market, within each catchment to 2031.
• Analysing the roll trends of competitors.
• Detailing educational and residential construction plans.
• Mapping current bus route provisions and suggesting amendments.

Results:

As a result of this analysis, we were able to demonstrate that Glenalmond College was recruiting well from immediate markets.  However the younger markets were set to see a decrease of up to 11.8% by 2029, with a smaller rise in the young adult market.

To counteract this market contraction, we identified a number of key markets which were available within their catchment area, that the school was missing out on, and from which further recruitment could be taken.

Narrowing this down to specific postcode sectors not only enabled us to identify three new bus routes to improve awareness and access in underpenetrated areas (as well as creating additional value for existing families), but also identified specific geographical areas for targeted marketing.

“It was incredibly useful to see, through MTM’s market analysis and insight, that we are facing a significant contraction in the market over the next 10 years in particular age ranges. To counteract this the team at MTM was able to direct us to specific underpenetrated areas where there is real potential for growth as well as the transport routes best able to help us access these areas.”

Tessa Howard-Vyse

If you would like to discuss how our catchment analysis services can benefit your school marketing, contact Daniel Cohen.