1. Know Your Niches
Student Segmentation
Jo Stanton, Research Officer

2. Agenda Quick intros Segmentation
your experiences of segmentation models
Success in the Student Market 2014 Segmentation
the research
how we created our segments
introducing the segments
Discussion
the segments within your institution
Final thoughts & questions
Speech Bubble designed by factor[e] design initiative from the Noun Project

3. Introductions Jo Stanton: Research Officer – Commercial Intelligence
Market research to support NUS internally
Occasional projects that also help to inform students’ unions…
Started at NUS in January 2014
First major project – Success in the Student Market
I’m Jo and I am a Research Officer at NUS. In particular I work on market research projects that help to inform the organisation internally.
Occasionally however I do work on projects which serve a joint purpose to inform NUS and students’ unions.
Indeed when I started at NUS back in January of this year one of the first major projects I worked on was Success in the Student Market which serves to inform both NUS and students’ unions…more of that in a minute…
Over to you, if each of you could just introduce yourself, your role and how you use research at your students’ union

4. There are lots of ways to segment populations…
Discussion
There are lots of ways to
segment populations…
What segments do you know of
or use?
What are your experiences of
segmentation?
Has it been useful?
So to kick us off I wanted to have a bit of a discussion to find out what segmentation models, if any, you may have heard of or even use? And to find out about your experiences of segmentation.
(either in pairs / groups if appropriate or if not enough just as a whole group)
(If not mentioned)
Have any of you heard / read about the Success in the Student Market segmentation? That’s what I’m now going to take you through…

5. Success in the Student Market 2014
Combines insight from students and students’ unions
…creating a full picture of the current situation in the student market now and how it is changing over time
Aims to both inform and inspire
This year sees the third edition of Success in the Student Market - with a focus on segmentation
Reviews opportunities for students’ unions to provide an excellent service to all students, regardless
of their individual circumstances.
Just as a bit of background for those who are less familiar with Success in the Student Market.
It’s a large scale piece of research that…
Gathers information from students and students’ unions
Looks at the ‘here & now’ but also tracks changes over time (annual project)
This was the third year the research was conducted. Last year there was a focus on innovation whereas this year we focused on segmentation
Serves to inform and inspire students’ unions so they provide an excellent service for all students

6. One of the aims was to segment the student market…
So as I mentioned the research has multiple objectives which are consistent year on year such as ….
Understanding student lifestyles, attitudes and priorities
How students spend their money
Is anything changing over the years?
But we also had a specific aim this year to segment the student market and show how this has an impact on lifestyles and attitudes
So I’m now going to talk a little bit about what we did and how we got to our segments

7. Segmenting the student market to show how this impacts on lifestyles and attitudes
We asked lots of questions to better understand students’…
Priorities
Attitudes
So how did we go about creating the segments?
The previous 2 years’ SISM used a segmentation model that grouped students based on their engagement with the students’ union. This year however we were keen to look at what other ways we might be able to segment the student population to help us understand them better. We wanted to know if there were any specific characteristics or features that categorise students based on their lifestyles and attitudes.
In the student survey we asked a range of questions to enable us to better understand student priorities, attitudes & behaviours. For example, what activities do they do in their spare time, who do they spend their time with, where do they go to socialise, what do they think of their students’ union?
We then set about looking at all this data to see if there were any specific factors (questions) which split the sample into subgroups.
It was a case of coming up with a hypothesis and testing it out to see if there was anything interesting emerging. For example, did participation in certain activities have an impact on satisfaction with students’ unions? Or were certain students deemed to be more at risk based on a lack of engagement with certain activities? We didn’t know so we set out to look for any such relationships.
Behaviours
Person designed by Paulo Sá Ferreira from the Noun Project

8. Student Segmentation
Students can be classified into two groups based primarily on
which social groups they feel closest to – their friends from home
or their university / college friends, and this has implications on
their perceived risk of failure and levels of happiness with
university and their students’ unions.
And what we found was….

9. Who students feel closest to and participation in extracurricular activities were key
Who do you feel closest to?
Flat / house mates,
Friends from my course,
Friends from clubs
Friends from school,
Friends from my home town
University Socialisers
Home Town Socialisers
No extra-curricular activities
1 or more extra-curricular activities
Friends from my course,
Friends from clubs
Flat / house mates
In & Outs
And this is how we got there…
What we found was that students can be allocated to one of two groups based on who they say they feel closest to. In particular those who said they felt closest to their friends from university (flat / house mates, friends from their course, or clubs) seemed to behave differently from those who said they were closest to their friends from school or their home town.
Then within those two groups we found a further two subgroups…
So in terms of how these groups differed…
Study Buddies
Home Comforts
Resident Partiers

10. Home Town socialisers make up around a third of the student population and University socialisers around two thirds
I’m now going to take you fairly briefly through the key segments
Base: 1632
Q19g. Which of these groups do you feel closest to?

11. Home Town Socialisers 36% of the student population
These students feel closets to their friends from their home town or school
Family commitments are likely to feature heavily in their spare time
They are more likely than University socialisers to have considered dropping out of university / college and feel less able to achieve their full potential on their course
They are less likely to use their students’ union facilities and less likely to be aware of what’s on offer
They are less likely to be satisfied with their students’ union and with the daytime and evening activities on offer to them
Home town socialisers are less likely to feel their students’ union has an important and influential impact on their experience of university / college.
This group are generally less positive than the University socialisers about their students’ unions ability to change and innovate
Generally Home Town socialisers are:
Have family commitments keeping them at home
Less engaged and less satisfied with their students’ union
Are at a higher risk – considered dropping out and not feeling able to achieve their potential

12. University Socialisers
64% of the student population
Students who feel closest to their university / college friends (those they live with, those on their course or attend clubs with).
They are less at risk of having considered dropping out of university / college and feel more able to achieve their full potential on their course.
They are more likely to be satisfied with various aspects of their university life and with the facilities offered by their students’ union.
University socialisers are more likely to feel their students’ union has an important and influential impact on their experience of university / college
This group are also more likely to feel positive about their students’ unions ability to change and innovate
University Socialisers are generally:
More positive about their students’ union
At less risk of dropping out / failing

13. Within Home Town Socialisers there are two subgroups; Home Comforts and the In & Outs and within the University socialisers there are two subgroups; Study Buddies and Resident Partiers
Base: 1632
Q19g. Which of these groups do you feel closest to?

14. Home Comforts (37% of Home town socialisers; 13% of overall population)
These students feel closest to their friends from home or school and choose not to participate in any extracurricular activities at university / college
They are less likely to socialise during the daytime or evening
Less likely than In & outs to know what their students’ union offers
Less likely to be satisfied with their students union and tend to feel fairly ambivalent towards their students’ union
Home comforts are generally less positive about their students’ unions ability to change and innovate compared to the In & outs
Making lots of friends and meeting people and participating in clubs & societies are less important to this group in terms of being successful in life compared to the In & outs
Home comforts spend more on average than In & outs on their weekly food (+£3.24), travel (+£1.38), course books (+£1.85) and course related equipment (+£1.31)
Perhaps almost see University / college like a job!

15. In & Outs (63% of Home town socialisers; 23% of overall population)
These students, whilst feeling closest to their friends from home / school, do engage in some extracurricular activities at university / college – notably playing sport, joining some clubs and societies and gaining work experience
They will also use some of their students’ union facilities e.g. the bars, pubs and nightclubs
The majority (55%) of In & outs are satisfied with their students union
In & outs are generally more positive about their students’ unions ability to change and innovate compared to the Home comforts
Making lots of friends and meeting people, learning to work well with others and participating in clubs & societies are more important to this group in terms of being successful in life compared to the Home comforts
In & outs are more likely (*but not significantly so) to say there is good morale at their institution and on their course than Home comforts
They are also more likely (*but not significantly so) to say undertaking their current course was one of the best decisions they’d made and that they feel able to achieve my full potential on my course than Home comforts
Not fully integrated into University / College life but are more so than the Home Comforts

16. Resident Partiers (56% of University socialisers; 36% of overall population)
These students feel closest to the people they live with at university and are a very sociable group
Their social life is likely to be top of mind and they tend to use their students’ unions facilities and local facilities in the evening
This group are also the most active in terms of joining clubs and societies and taking part in extracurricular activities. Subsequently they are quite positive about their students’ union
Resident partiers spend more than Study buddies on bars / pubs / clubs (+£1.91) and alcohol (+£1.70)
Resident partiers are more likely than Study buddies to say their students’ union is better than others they know of and that it understands the students
This group are more inclined to think that learning to work well with others and participating in clubs & societies is important to their success in life than Study buddies
Resident partiers are more likely (*but not significantly so) to be happy with their chosen institution than Study buddies
Sociable and active students.

17. Study buddies (44% of University socialisers; 28% of overall population)
These students feel closest to their course friends
Whilst they might socialise in their students’ union café during the day, they are less likely to socialise in the evening
Study buddies spend more on average than Resident partiers on clothes (+£2.31), travel (+£3.44), internet (+£1.50) and unsurprisingly on course books (+£2.87), course related equipment (+£3.18) and other course related expenditure (+£1.96)
This group are generally more ambivalent towards their students’ union feeling neither particularly negative nor positive about them
This group are less likely to think that participating in clubs & societies is important to their success in life
Integrated and embedded into University / college life but with their main focus being on their studies as opposed to socialising and activities

18. How do these 4 segments apply at your institution?…
Discussion time
How do these 4 segments apply at your institution?…
Do you have a sense of how big the segments are?
Do you think they could be further sub-grouped at your institution?
Then we will feedback

19. Final thoughts…
- opportunities & challenges?
Any questions?

20. Thank you
Jo Stanton
Research Officer – Commercial Intelligence