Kalix’s team of market research experts worked closely with the Exeter team to identify specific goals, objectives and strategies for each key internal and external audience. Kalix organized this market research study into five phases:

• Discovery and project kickoff
• Qualitative investigation of target audiences and influencers
• Quantitative investigation of the target audiences
• Segmentation analysis of target audiences
• Conclusions, recommendations and next steps

Exeter was a collaborative partner throughout the 10-month study, from project design and questionnaire development to the final progress reports and study conclusions.

Kalix’s experience in comprehensive market research particularly was evident in the qualitative and quantitative aspects of the study. The firm conducted a “deep-dive” investigation into Exeter’s brand perception among internal and external constituencies to uncover issues. By validating these statistically, Kalix was able to gather a more complete picture of how the brand, decision-making characteristics and price positioning are perceived by Exeter’s audiences (students, families and alumni) and key influencers. In addition, we also explored the reactions from the different audiences to several alternative tuition strategies.

Qualitative investigations included telephone interviews and in-person interviews among many different audiences. The quantitative investigation took our outcomes from the qualitative phase and brought it to a large national sampling of prospective families establishing a national baseline for future studies. As part of this phase, Kalix used internet surveys to explore each of the key high school decision-making factors – reputation/brand, tuition, financial aid and school program – as they related to Exeter.