IK: Ok I joined Cairneagle in 2007 and Cairneagle really got involved in education in 2008. We pitched for Promethean to help them develop their five-year plan. We convinced them that we had the international capability to support their ambitions and that worked well. Promethean at the time was growing like crazy, adding 20-40 million dollars per year to its revenue line.

The PIE: Wow, and for our readers, what does Promethean do?

IK: It is one of two leading providers of IWB [interactive white boards] around the world. At the time it was a global duopoly, a very interesting place to be. As they were growing that much, they needed a lot of support, in thinking about how they adjusted, not only for their sales function but also their support,  finance, marketing function, the whole lot. We were very lucky to have the opportunity to work with them on their growth trajectory.

The PIE: So that brought you into the education sector?

IK: Yes and it was slightly accidental because it was all part of our technology and media practice at that point. And in 2012 we thought quite hard about how much experience we had in education and thought that we should take a more systematic approach to marketing our services in education.

“British education has incredible brand value and whenever we look at what international students want, British education is high up the list”

So I set up the education practice at Cairneagle in 2012. The businesses we’ve had traction with are businesses like Promethean that are growing very quickly. Sometimes they are backed by private equity and sometimes not.

The PIE: And how do you do your research?

IK: We do some desk-based research of course. There is a lot published about education and there’s much that can be done to analyse this and really understand the non-obvious implications for different market participants. But our core research is in interviews. We carry out hundreds sometime thousands of interviews every year about education in the UK and internationally.

Carrying out 20-30 minute expert interviews with lots of people in that space does yield extraordinary understanding of what’s going on. Not just what’s been reported in the last quarter but what’s going to be reported in the next year. I think that helps us a great deal.

The PIE: And aside from edtech, how do you see the internationalisation of UK education changing over the next five years?

IK: There is this ongoing debate over how many people we can actually bring to the UK. That’s driven by many things, among those the relationship between BIS and those in charge of immigration. British education has incredible brand value and whenever we look at what international students want, British education is high up the list, even when the qualifications being offered are not necessarily of a standard that might be interesting in the UK.

“It’s clear that international education is coming down the price range”

For example, there is an increasing number of vocational qualifications that are sold more heavily internationally than in the UK and that’s pretty exciting.

The PIE: Do you think the opportunity is more offshore than onshore then?

IK: Well, it’s clear that international education is coming down the price range. One or two years ago, the focus was very much on students who are willing to come to do a foundation year and pay a steep price for an excellent introduction to a UK university. Now UK firms have better ability to access demand from mid-market learners, who can’t afford to come and spend £12-15,000 on one year – let alone a total of £50,000 for their entire HE qualification – and that’s very interesting.

It’s clear that the blended learning model and remotely-taught models of various sorts have got a lot of room to run now and that’s going to be the larger growth area over the next five years. Because although the top end will still grow, the “mid-market” is the real opportunity.

The PIE: How does a company tap into these students directly?

IK: The marketing of UK education to international students is one of the most interesting and exciting dynamics of UK HE. There is a real arms race going on in student acquisition.

“Every institution should find the right balance between high-cost, high-touch marketing, tele-marketing and potentially outsourcing”

The players are, on the one hand, pathway providers who have a pretty interesting offer. On the other hand you have people like Hobsons who are providing UK universities with tools to find their own students. In the middle, you have institutions hiring their own sales and marketing teams. For example, LSBF is an interesting player that has a lot of people sitting on the phones marketing directly to international students. I heard yesterday that INSEAD, one of the world’s top business schools, has just hired 80 telesales people in one swathe.

The PIE: Do you think tele-marketing is a growth area in terms of student acquisition?

IK: It’s obviously a lot less effective but it’s a lot cheaper and it potentially has greater reach. I think every higher education institution should find the right balance between high-cost, high-touch marketing, tele-marketing and potentially outsourcing.

Two years ago there was almost no tele-marketing, now there is a lot of tele-marketing as an alternative to agents.

The PIE: So will agencies be squeezed in this new world order?

IK: Probably not. The best way the agent model works is for high net worth, high budget learners and there is no better way to reach them than through agents. However the fastest growth area is in the mid-market where the tuition fees paid are in the range that may not support agent commissions.