Question QUESTION: Hi Kevin,
My background is in Visual Communication and I am working as a Visual Art Coordinator in a Fine Art and Design College in the Emirates (Dubai). For the past two years I was creating catalogs and posters for the college but now the dean wants me to be in charge of studying our target audience (potential students and their parents) to develop a whole strategic plan to know how to market the College ..
I have no idea what to do and how to start! he mentioned surveys and finding the right venues to hit .. He wants a developed proposal on what are the best ways and means to market this place and why? and when should we start..
I have never done this before.. but I do want to learn and read about it.. to be able to meet his expectation.
can you help me please?
ANSWER: Sarah-
This is very straightforward market research. The starting place is deciding who is your target market - age, geography, other qualifications.
Next is the decision as to method - how to best contact those targets so that they can be interviewed. I'm not familiar with what data collection options you have in the Emirates - telephone surveys, online surveys, mail surveys?
Selection of method will determine some other steps. For example, here in US if I'm doing a telephone survey, I will buy telephone number lists from companies who supply them.
I'll stop there, and let you ask any questions prompted by the above.
By the way, my daughter attends Art Center College of Design here in Pasadena, California - photography.
Best -
Kevin
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thank you for replying ..
our target are students and their parents who graduates from High school .. the thing is most of the schools here don't have art or design as a subject in the curriculum.. I can make a survey and ask the ministry of education to spread it around5 to 6 schools ..BUT !! how would I collect data from that ?? there is no one to do info extraction here .. unless I do it my self .. is that the best way? telephone calling is not familiar in the Emirates, in fact it could be considered a crime to buy peoples phone numbers to call them without permission .. plus, I could never now if I am taking to a high school student or even to his/her parent ..
Answer Sarah-
If distributing questionnaires to 5 or 6 high schools is the only option, that is better than no surveys at all! There is what we call self-selection bias (hard to know why some completed the survey and some did not), but that can't be avoided.
In the most extreme case, you could send the completed questionnaires out of the Emirates to a consultant for tabulation of the responses. If this is the direction you were to take, you should be sure to let this person make sure the questionnaire is set up in a way they can use before it is distributed.
One final thought - there are market research companies, I believe, in the Emirates that could be of help, if only to refer you elsewhere. One is Nielsen:
International subsidiary
Al Reem Plz., Flat 303-307, Fl. 3, Al-Buhaira Corniche, Nat. Bank of Abu, Dhabi Bldg., Sharjah, , United Arab Emirates
(971)65174333, (971)65728155 fax, http://www.acnielsen.com/ae
Primary SIC: Comm Econ Sociological Educ Research, Primary NAICS: Marketing Research and Public Opinion Polling
Description: Services: Provider of market research, information and analysis.
