So am into marketing these days! There have been a lot of transformations - from bangalore(a big city) to hubli(a small city), IT to marketing, being with friends to being lonely all the time.
I have started drawing(something like the way Matt is to dancing - read last post for more details). Will update scanned pictures sometime soon.
Anyways what I've learnt in one month is-
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1) In education sector single biggest factor is TRUST. People will not look at money, location of classes, infrastructure, blah blah if you've brand name. And the single biggest challenge for a new coaching is to build a brand name.
2) That brings me to the next point. I've tried all means possible for marketing of MBA coaching here. Posters, Flier distribution, Newspaper Advertisement, Newspaper insertion, Room insertion. But the best way of marketing is "Word of mouth" marketing. Nothing beats that. And the best part is it's absolutely free. But as we say there is no free lunch in the world. It's free when the financial aspect is concerned but it's really tough to achieve. If students are not happy with your classes, whole city will get to know that very soon. If students are really happy, only there few friends will come to know that. So then their few friends will join and then their juniors and hence starts a slow chain reaction.It's easy to spend money on other form of advertisement but to earn RESPECT, you need to work real hard.
3) Local players are a big pain. They've been dominating the market for long and provide courses dirt cheap. And since they've the bulk of students, obviously they've best ranks of city too. Who cares then if only 40 out of 4000 students get selected. Plus they've had solid contacts and a huge system/network in place to suck in the students to their camp.
4) That brings me to the next important aspect- Jugaad or Links. It works really fine here. You need to know a relative of placement officer or principal or a member of director. Else you're welcome to spend a lot of time with the office peon or with stray dog outside the office.
5) Marketing in academic world can be subdivided in 3 parts- Pre, On and Post marketing. Pre marketing- activities before students join in. On - activities when student enters the coaching - posters, counseling or as simple as asking for a glass of water. Post- follow up of queries and updating about info like new batches. Once he registers, taking care that he feels good(student won't tell you he is satisfied but would certainly tell that to others outside). Also once the batch is complete, following up makes him feel important and reflects genuine concern.
6) Coming up with right plan at right moment is a must. or else bite the dust!
7) MUTUAL RESPECT is one of the key ingredients. Further keep exploring the opportunities. For example I studied the market and realized all the queries of test series were coming from outside hubli. Maximum of these were from Jindal Steel Plant from Bellary and we decided to become more aggressive in marketing there. To our surprise, there were people from BITS Pilani, NIT's and possibly IIT's but we never had cared to look out of the well in the past.
8) The strategy should be to go for kill. My final aim is to have a tie up with big institutions and colleges. If this is achieved, we can target our potential customers at one place, saving our time and energy and hence money. Newspaper advertisment is good for catering to a distributed group of customers in city, hoardings are good for big brands but for a coaching, nothing works better than a workshop or seminar!
9) Market segmentation is important. In the starting we were trying to market CAT class room course,test series and PGCET(local mba) everywhere without giving a thought. It was complete waste of money. What we realized after studying the queries were that Engg students were more inclined to CAT, BBA and BCA students for PGCET and people in companies like JSW(outside hubli) preferred test series. As it can be gazed from the fact that we didn't get a single positive response after messaging to 3000 students and 4000 flier distribution, regarding test series, outside biggest college of Hubli for continuous 4 days
10) Just like language changes from region to region, Marketing strategies change from region to region(infact from city to city). Something that worked so smoothly in Bangalore, I realized was recipe for big disaster in Hubli. The major reasons I figured were lack of awareness and exposure. In Bangalore a person sees himself competing with thousands of other and he also sees big software and other firms. This mixture of fight + hopes is a priced combination for coaching. In general motivation level and fighting spirit of students is low in Hubli. Few who are really good don't know that they're good enough.
11) TV advertisements do work! To my horror, everyone knows about TIME coaching here even though their is no TIME in hubli. But nobody knows CL even after all this. Reason- advertisement on television.
12) It's just not about meeting the targets. If you think short term, you may meet target for this month but will certainly fall short in next month. It's about thinking long term. Having a plan and backup plan and backup backup plan in place. Identifying the right set of people. Identifying the right time. For example, colleges will start in august but I've to start my preprations in july. Meeting key people, fixing time, finalising details take time. If I start in august, it'll be not be till September that I'll get permission to interact with students. So it has to be well planned. Another example would be - CAT going online. CL was genuinely prepared for the changes in CAT whereas I feel TIME was caught unaware as it considered itself to be the undisputed market leader. But changes in market scenario turned the tables around and CL was able to gain majority of junta whereas TIME is still struggling to conduct it's free mock test and finalize the schedule yet. Complacence is a crime!
13) How you position yourself in the market is important. Saving brand dilution may cost money but then saving some money sometimes lead to loss of huge revenues in future. So having a Vision is critical.
14) Last but not the least, you should genuinely believe in the product you are marketing. If you're not convinced then it's not possible to convince others.
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Enough gyaan for the day!
