Why Indian Education Industry Needs To Be Serious About It’s Web-Strategy?
During the past 90 days, I managed to meet over 30 educational institutes of various sizes and catgeories across the country.
A majority of these have started working with us now, wherein we provide them simple to advanced demand generation and branding solutions on the web.
However I noticed a few common peculiar attributes:
1. Most of the education instituions in India do not have much experience in marketing on the web.
2. If they are active on the web, it’s purely to generate demand (or leads).
3. The educational instituions do not attempt to build brands or engage audience
4. Educational instituions do not have a complete web strategy and depend upon 3rd party websites/micros-ites for web communication
5. Overall investments on web are dismal.
6. Pulishers and agencies have not gone beyond lead generation mechanism
What does this imply?
According to my analysis the web-spend of education instituions is about Rs40-50cr. As compared to their total advertising spend of about Rs.3000 cr. on other mediums. Also keeping in mind that the overall education market itself is about USD40b
(This is what the consumers spend on education in India every year)
Now, an industry where such huge investments are made by consumers coupled with the fact that it entails a high-involvement decision making process- it’s strange that educational instituions do not invest in engaging with the admission seekers throughout the decision making process!
Also, low investments on web coupled with high focus on lead generation means that educations instutions are doing a blunder at 2 levels:
1. Lead generation here would work on volumes, which means one needs to reach a threshold to achieve economies of scale and qualitative efficiency. E.g. if an instituion were to judge the efficacy of lead generation with 100 leads-it will not work.
One needs to follow a University of Phoenix model- and work on say 10,000 leads from different sources through different communications on a sustained level and then see if web works or not.
2. By focusing on lead generation instituions forget to invest on branding and engagement. A student can fill up 3-4 lead forms but may visit only 2 campused and finalise on one or none. How can instituions ensure that they are at the top of mind of students. How can they ensure that they have built enough credibility so as to hope that a student lands up and take admission?
Action Plan for 2010
The real opportunity for education instituions is now (especially Universities)-when the admissions have closed! They need to use the next 12 months to create a web-strategy which should start with an engagement platoform on the web- Talk to prospcts, let them interact with your alumni and faculty, assist prospscts in making an intelligent career choice, let the prospect take a virtual tour of the campus, invite for a webinar or even an offline seminar. Ask feedback on what they need.
Once you have created an engagement platform and you have enough traction- use this platform to create further word of mouth- it could be thorugh a talent hunt or a scholarship program or a 1 week free workshop for a few selected ones. These will create buzz.
Lastly give enough options to prospects to interact with you- don’t judge the efficacy of your campiagn through leads only- Can you measure how many people downloaded your admission forms, how many saw your webinar, how many opted for a campus tour, how many called you up etc.
This is critical in-particular for a majority of educational instutions in India- who are also new, or who offer new courses- they have not invested in buiding credibility, or engaging with prospects- and have jumped on to web to generate leads hoping that they can fill-in the seats quickly by just doing a lead generation activity.
What do you think, and have you come across a web-activity by an institution in India or abroad- which you want to share with the readers of atomthought.com?
Aug 2nd, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
Aug 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Hi,
I’m just getting started with my new blog. Would you want to exchange links on our blog-rolls?
BTW - I’m up to about 100 visitors per day.
Aug 3rd, 2009 at 12:47 pm
wow, i am certain, i am going to get ‘inspired’ by this post on my next pitch to an educational institute
Aug 3rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Saurabh,
You’ve touched upon a topic, which is very close to my heart !
I think there’s a lot that remains to be done in this space. Specifically speaking can you please share more insights about this point. ‘According to my analysis the web-spend of education instituions is about Rs40-50cr’.
Do you have any other references for this?
Aug 4th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Hi Saurabh,
Excelent article and certainly it has given a me lot to think about.
Cheers !!
Kunal
Aug 4th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Hi Saurabh,
Hope all’s well. Nice to hear from you. I do agree with you - two years back no one bought leads, it is now institutes have started buying leads . I agree the internet staregy of Indian isntitutes needs to evolve.
Leaving aside a few nstitutes not may have the capaibility to manage leads.
Also institutes deans and owners are far to disconnected from the marketing department and are happy to seen an advertisment in news paper rather that an online activity .
Aug 4th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Hi Amitabh,
Great to see you here! All’s well, and I can see StudyPlaces also going places, since the time we last met. The portal has come out very well, and has all the potential to reach even greater heights with your vision and direction.
You raised a very valid point Amitabh. The infrastructure and processes/systems needed to manage leads, respond to them in a specific duration, quality of pitch and follow-ups- are either missing or are inefficient.
Aug 4th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Hi Kunal, Nishant,Jennifer and Allen
Glad you find the post useful.
Aug 7th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Hi Saurabh - Any updates?
Daksh
Aug 7th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Hi Daksh,
Apologies for delayed response. The figure of approx Rs50cr as the online spend of education sector came from a strategic presentation that I made for internal purposes-to understand the market structure. I used a few surrogates and assumptions to estimate the size. However without going deeper into that- I will share an easier and faster source of information:
Total Online Market- Rs 850 cr (or let’s say between 750-850 cr.) Source: Pluggdin, DQ etc.
Share of education market- 7-8% (estimated). Last year education sector’s share of spend was 3-4% (Source: DQ India, Friday May 8, 2009)
Hence roughly this year education sector’s share in online spend is roughly- Rs.50 cr.or so
I will try and share an abridged version of my presentation sometime soon on this website.
Till then hope this suffices your requirement
Aug 12th, 2009 at 5:56 am
Hi Saurabh - Yes, Insightful
Aug 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Education is nowadays called as a business. No wonder the chairman of the college or school is called as the businessman.
They need to earn money in a short time among the strong competition, since online community is increasing nowadays they are making a trend of advertising on websites.
It also yields a good result.
Nov 3rd, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Hi Saurabh
Iam a part of Shiksha.com an educational portal by Naukri.com, Most of your views are very true coz I myself in 15 months have met around 50 colleges & around 150 various IT training centers. From my experience
1.Most of the chairman/Directors of the colleges are not aware of internet and in particular web Advertising
2.Web Advertising is always seen as a last resort for thier branding activities and budgets are kept minimum
3.Leads combined with the the number of conversions is the utmost criteria
for decision makers in the institutes to spend on any medium
I personally feel Web Advertising can be the No 2 medium for thier branding needs if only the target community is educated and if quality results can be delivered by the campaigns .
Looking for more valuable inputs from your end .
Regards
Suhail Ahmed