A PROJECT REPORT

ON

ONLINE EDUCATION FAIR

A report submitted towards the partial fulfillment of the requirements of the two years

full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Management.

Submitted by

ANIRBAN SAIKIA

Post Graduate Diploma in Management

Roll No: 2K10A11

2010-2012

ASIA-PACIFIC INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

3&4, Institutional Area, Jasola, New Delhi 110025

Online Education Fair

A report submitted towards the partial fulfillment of the requirements of the two years

full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Management.

Submitted by: ANIRBAN SAIKIA

Post Graduate Diploma in Management

Roll No: 2K10A11

2010-2012

ASIA-PACIFIC INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT

3&4, Institutional Area, Jasola, New Delhi 110025

CERTIFICATE FROM THE FACULTY GUIDE

This is to certify that the project work entitled “Online Education

Fair” is a piece of bonafied work done by Mr. Anirban Saikia, Roll

No. 2K10A11, batch 2010-2012, student of Asia Pacific Institute of

Management, New Delhi under my guidance and supervision for the

partial fulfillment of the PGDM course.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, the project embodies the

work of the candidate himself and has been duly completed.

Simultaneously, the project fulfills the requirements of the rules and

regulations related to the summer internship of the institute and I am

assured that the project is up to the standard both in respect to the

content and the language for being referred to examiner.

Dr. N H Mullick

(Faculty guide)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The project was a great source of learning and the good experience

as it gave me an opportunity to correlate the theoretical knowledge

with practical experience.

Most humbly and respectfully, I would like to thank the HR team at

Greycells18 Ltd and the CCR team in Asia Pacific for giving me the

opportunity to work and learn in such a great place.

I would specially like to thank Mr. Vipul Manchanda (Vice President

Advt Sales.) and the whole team who supervised and guided me

throughout my stay which led to success of my project work.

At last and most, I express my gratitude to, Dr. N H Mullick

Asia Pacific Institute of Management, Jasola, New Delhi, who gave

me an opportunity to undertake training under their able guidance

and broaden my horizons in the field of management.

Anirban Saikia

DECLARATION

The final project on “Online Education Fair” under the guidance of

Mr. Vipul Manchanda, Dr. N.H Mullick is the original work done by

me. This is the property of ASIA PACIFIC INSTITUTE OF

MANAGEMENT and use of this report without prior permission of

the institute will be considered as illegal and actionable.

Anirban Saikia

ROLL NO – 2K10A11

INDEX

Table of contents Page No.

1. Executive Summary………………………………………………………………..1

2. Introduction………………………………………………………………………..2

3. About Greycells18 Media Pvt. Ltd………………………………………………..5

4. Detail of the Product………………………………………………………………7

5. Justification of the title……………………………………………………………15

6. Competitors with similar products………………………………………………..16

7. SWOT analysis of the Careerwise Education Fair………………………………..22

8. Literature reviews…………………………………………………………………24

9. Methodology of project…………………………………………………………...31

10. Analysis of the clients‟ feedback…………………………………………….….33

11. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….34

12. Recommendation....…………………………………………………………......35

13. References………………………………………………………………………36

1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The project involved in organizing an Online Education fair on the

www.topperleaning.com which is a website meant for students appearing board exams.

The website is the online version of the Topper TV Channel which is available on

various DTH platforms on subscription basis. The Online education fair participant

targets were the private colleges and Universities in around the Delhi and NCR region.

The clients where provided a package of participation in the education fair and also

leads of prospective students. The student leads were generated from the registration of

the students who wanted to check out the education fair. The students did not have to

pay any charges to check out the fair. The packages were tailor made to suit the needs of

various kinds of institutes. The exhibition was designed in such a way that it answers

the queries of the students regarding the stream and courses that are available to them

and also make correct choice to reach their career goals. The students are provided

career counseling without any charges by the expert panel of the topper. The

participating institutes were also able to reap the benefit if the low cost and wider reach

of online marketing, as the comparative cost of the online marketing campaign is quite

low in comparison to the traditional marketing medium.

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INTRODUCTION

The project involves organizing an online education Fair on the

www.topperlearning.com website targeting the higher education institutes in Delhi and

NCR area. The main motive of the project was to encourage educational institutes to

advertise on the online medium and making them aware about the potential of the online

marketing. Since the topper channel and topperlearning.com website main business

module was of providing tuitions to the students on up to class twelve, it was obvious

for the company to target the students who have appeared the finals or have passed out

and looking forward for admission to various under graduates and post graduates

courses for expansion of business. Also the company has a huge database of the

students who have subscribed to the services of the channel or website which could be

tapped for further business purpose. Therefore to exploit this advantage of having a

history in the education sector and also having a large number of students following it

on internet and television, the company came out with the concept of an online

education fair where the students were free to visit and go through the site after

registration which was free of cost, while the educational institutes willing to participate

have to pay according to the type of package they opt for. The participating institutes

where provided a micro site inside the education fair site according to the segment they

are in. The institutes were also provided qualified leads of students who are interested in

doing courses offered by the institutes. Additional facilities such as live chat with the

students were also possible for the institutes willing to subscribe such services. The

whole campaign was designed to give additional value to the clients at a fraction of the

cost that is incurred on traditional modes of marketing such as print media, television,

radio etc. The promotion activities of the education fair was done by using Search

Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Ad-words, Banners in Face book etc.

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The primary objective of the project was to build a new property i.e. an annual online

education fair which caters to the needs of the students and the educational institutes. It

was designed to provide an alternative mode of marketing of the educational institutes

which mostly relies on traditional mode of advertisement such as print media,

television, radio etc. Since the property was new and the awareness of online marketing

was quite low in the educational sector, the company decided to target the private

colleges, universities in and around the Delhi and NCR area as most of the

organizational setup of the company was present in the NCR area.

The online education fair project undertaken by the company has a very huge scope of

emerging as a medium through which educational institutes can reach a huge students

based at a bare minimum cost. Also since nowadays it‟s a general trend among the

younger generation to search the internet to find out information for almost anything,

which automatically implies that there is a high chance that they will also try to search

for information related to colleges and universities which can be provided by the online

education fair. Also it is seen that most institutes struggles to convey their message

properly to the students due to availability of a proper channel to interact with the

students which acts as a major handicap for the institutes to attract quality students to

their campuses for admission. Thus to fill the vacuum of lack of a proper channel of

interaction between educational institutes and the prospective students, the company

came out with the idea of holding an online education fair which will help the institutes

to reach students and the students to interact with the various colleges and universities.

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The title of the project “Online Education Fair‟‟ can be easily justified by the fact that

the whole project was based on the “Careerwise Education Fair” which was hosted on

the www.topperlearning.com website. The project was conceived to imitate a real life

education fair on an online medium. It tried to combine the benefits offered by an

education fair to the education institutes and the benefits of low cost of an online

marketing venture. It also provides a wider audience reach then a normal education fair

as, people visiting a education fair a normally comes from the locations in and around

the city where the fair is being hosted. Also the logistic cost for the education institutes

to participate is also very high because of the very fact that they have send manpower

and other resources to handle the fair. Therefore the option of a online education brings

the advantages of participation of a education fair and also provides a low cost option of

reaching maximum number of students at a very competitive cost because of the very

fact that the cost of participation in the education fair is very low in comparison to that

of the of a normal education fair. Therefore it makes sense for the educational institute

to participate in an online education fair rather than going for a normal education fair

which have a limited reach and are also very expensive to participate. Therefore there is

a very high potentiality of the online education fair to expand and increase its reach in

the marketing of the educational institutes as it provides the most cost effective mode of

marketing for the educational institutes.

5

ABOUT GREYCELLS18 MEDIA Pvt. Ltd.

Greycells18 Media Pvt. Ltd. has been set up in association with Network18 and Educomp.

Greycells18 is a pioneer in the world of education, and has created comprehensive

interactive learning services that will help students understand subjects better, and enable

them to excel in their exams. These curriculum-based educational systems will use modern

technological innovations in the ICT space, such as Interactive TV, e-learning and mobile

learning, to create an interactive ecosystem where students can thrive. Interactive video

content of the Topper Learning System is available on Channel 570 on Tata Sky and

Channel 345 on Airtel Digital TV. Greycells18 has launched the Topper Integrated

Learning System, an interactive premium educational service which aims to supplement

the efforts of students by using modern ICT technologies. Topper deals with curriculum-

based content specifically aimed at secondary and senior school students from Classes 9 to

12. It covers Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics for Classes 11 & 12; and

Science and Mathematics for Classes 9 & 10. Interactive video content of the Topper

Learning System is exclusively distributed on addressable mediums such as DTH

Television or IPTV. It is available on Channel 570 on Tata Sky and Channel 345 on Airtel

Digital TV. Interactivity is provided through the platform‟s middleware, on pressing the

red button. The interactive elements include Daily Quiz, Topic Tips, EPG, etc. The web

portal www.topperlearning.com consists of an 'Ask- Expert' section where students can

seek answers to their queries/ doubts. The web portal also creates forums and groups where

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like-minded students can interact about issues relevant to their subjects. The website

supplements the content on TV in a variety of ways. After watching the episode, students

can put up their doubts/ queries on the Ask the Expert section. Replies will be provided by

our Subject Experts within 72 hours, depending on the load. The Lesson-On-Demand

facility allows students to view each episode at his convenience. Therefore, students can

watch episodes multiple times till they understand the theory. Test-Online section has an

advanced test engine that allows students to take a variety of tests online and keep track of

their scores. If desired, a detailed progress report can be sent. Students can also compare

their rankings with all those who have taken the same tests. In addition, reference study

material from various sources is provided in the Study Online section of the website to

help students with their self study.

7

DETAILS OF THE PROJECT

The project involved hosting an Online Education Fair on the www.topperlearning.com

.The education fair went online in the month of April 2011, and it is schedule to be live till

August 2011. The Education fair was named as “Careerwise Education Fair‟‟ The

education fair was divided into 15 different categories namely, Engineering, Information

Technology, Medical, Event Management, Television Production, Business Management,

Hospitality Management, Law, Aviation, Advertising, Architecture, Bio Technology,

Fashion, Chartered Accountant, and Animation. The students visiting the fair could go

through the informative contents regarding the each segment in the website and can also go

through the colleges and educational institutes providing courses in the each segment or

category. The visit to the fair was free of cost for the students; they just need to get

registered by filling a simple online form. The educational institutes that participated in the

fair had to pay according to the package they had subscribed to. The general services

offered to the participating institutes was a combination of a micro-site inside the online

education fair according to the relevant segment for the courses offered by them. Above

that they were also given qualified leads of prospective students who are interested in

taking admission in the courses offered by them. The participation in the fair was a

constant, whereas the number of leads offered differs according to the deal signed. The

8

students lead was integrated with the online education fair because it was seen that that

most of the educational institutes were skeptic regarding the capabilities of the online

medium and they are not willing to invest in the online marketing concepts because of the

lack of previous track record. Since the online education fair as a concept is quite new,

most institutes are very doubtful about its performance. The general questions raised by the

institutes are the about the quality of the visitors to the website, the actual willingness of

the visitors of actually taking in the participating colleges and universities. Therefore to

remove any such skepticism of the would be clients i.e. the educational institutes, the

company had promise to deliver student leads to the participants according to the deal

signed and also guaranteed to refund money or give replacement leads if the delivered

leads were not up to the their required specification.

The Online Education Fair „Careerwise Education Fair‟ was designed in various stages,

before starting the fair a survey was conducted among the registered users of the

www.topperlearning.com to know what kind of courses the students are looking forward

after completing their 12th

class exam, and after getting the feedback it was decided to

divided the online fair into 15 different segments namely, Engineering, Information

Technology, Medical, Event Management, Television Production, Business Management,

Hospitality Management, Law, Aviation, Advertising, Architecture, Bio Technology,

Fashion, Chartered Accountant, and Animation. After that details information regarding

the each segment such as eligibility, career scope, entrance test etc were provided in the

website. The online education fair was designed in such a way that the students find it

relevant to their needs and it acts as a source of information to them. The whole idea was

to make the education fair site a source of information resource for the students and also to

attract educational institutes to participate in the fair by using the strength of the fair of

9

being able to attract students to it. The participating institutes were provided many

additional value additions in and above the participation on the education like online

counseling and chatting facilities with students, leads of the students who are interested in

taking admission in the courses offered by the institutes. The online education fair was a

fully online marketing event where all the promotions of the education fair was done using

online mediums such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Ad-words, Banners in

Facebook etc. Promotion was also done on the topper channel which is part of the

Greycells18 media ltd. To minimize cost of the event no promotion was done on the

traditional platforms of advertisement. To bring the educational institutes to participate in

the fair, the company deployed its sales force which also included Interns recruited from

the management colleges. Direct sales approach was deployed to market the education fair

among the potential clients. The area that was primarily targeted by the company was the

educational institutes in and around the region of Delhi and NCR, because of the very fact

that the most of the company‟s manpower was based in the NCR. Also because of the very

fact that it was the first year of the fair and the company wanted to focus in a small area at

the beginning to be able to provide the best service to its clients and built up the fair as a

property which can be portrait as an annual event and it being able to sustain itself in the

long run, where the clients are more eager to participate in the fair. At the beginning after

short listing the potential client list the sales force visits the client‟s places which can vary

from corporate office of the institutes or visiting the institutes itself. Mostly presentation of

the proposal was made to either to the Directors or Chairman of the institutes. In most

cases deals were closed after visiting the clients many times and offering custom made

deals to them. In most cases institutes used to ask for money back guarantee for the

students leads if incase they are not up to the mark. Also most clients wanted the micro-site

of the education fair to carry a copy of their official site along with the provision of a small

10

video of the facilities and infrastructure of the institute. The institutes also had the facility

of accessing the data of the students who have registered on the education fair and also of

accessing the data of the students who have shown interest in their college or university in

the micro-site. The details of the students that were provided in the leads given to the

clients includes their names, telephone number, the city in which they are interested in

studying, Email Ids, the courses they are interested in taking admission, etc. The primary

source of generation of the lead was the information provided by the students while

registering to visit the fair. Thus the database of the registered users acted as a primary data

for the leads. These students were called by a dedicated call centre of the company who

verifies the details like telephone numbers, the courses they are interested in taking up, the

city were they wanted to pursue their course etc. After gathering the complete profile of the

students, the leads were filtered according to the states the student belongs, the course they

wanted to pursue their studies, the courses they are interested. In above to this additional

information like the percentage of marks they have earned in the qualification exams, the

amount of fees they are comfortable with, etc. This inputs turns out to be very helpful for

the institutes to complete their admission process. Thus the leads provided detailed

information for the counselors of the institutes, who in turn call up the students to convey

them the facilities and courses provided by them. It helped the institutes to call up a

focused grouped instead calling up a huge data base of students which in turn minimize the

admission cost of the institutes. It also helps to optimize the available manpower resource.

Also it a known fact that most educational institutes in the private sector, needs to call up

the students and send information pamphlets to them to make them aware about the

courses offered by them. As it is observed that due to the growth of the educational

institutes in a higher proportion than the number of students opting for such courses, there

is a fierce competition among the institutes to get the best students which is often difficult

11

due to lack of genuine data of the students. Therefore the qualified leads provided to the

institution turns out to be very valuable for the institutes in getting admission. Also it was

observed that many institutes were more interested in purchasing the leads rather than

participating in the education fair, but such clients were told that they have to participate in

the fair if they wanted to purchase the leads, as the leads were given as a additional add-

ons to make the education fair more attractive to the institutes rather than just selling the

leads. There were many institutes who liked the idea to an extent but were still skeptic

about the concept and did not wanted to come abroad the education fair, while there were

some other institutes who wanted to see the performance of the fair for a while before

committing participation in the fair. Even though it was the debut for the education fair on

the topperlearning.com site, it got a good response from the institutes and about more than

15 colleges and universities came abroad the fair. Some of the most prominent of them

were NIIT University, RIG, Guru Nanak Institute of Management, Inlead, CG Mantra,

Agol, CBS, Niam etc. It was also observed that most institutes who came abroad were

already a bit involved in the online space in the form of listing in the educational portal

like shiksha.com etc. Another fact that came out of the on field experience was that most of

the clients that came on broad were medium size institutes, the institutes that have

established in the region long ago were not interested in coming on board. Also institutes

which are very low key also did not come on broad. Also stand along colleges were more

eager to participate in the fair rather than those institutes which operate under a group of

institutions. Those institutes those who are controlled by a central body and part of a bigger

group found itself unable to take decision to participate because the centre head was not

authorize to make marketing decisions and most of their marketing plans were made by the

central body.

12

The education fair was well taken in the market, even though there was a lot

apprehension among the clients about its relevance and the benefits they will derive

from it, and above all as the fair was a newly conceived one, their apprehension was

added up. To minimize this fact the sales team had to make a very clear cut presentation

of the product and also take every step to clarify any doubts that may be present in their

mind. The end result of the whole sales operation was very good and the online fair was

able to gather more than 15 clients on board who came from various categories. It was

observed that most management colleges were the top participant in the fair. Even

institutes providing specialized course like animation also came aboard the fair. The

project could have been more successful if the sales operation was started a bit earlier

than the mid of April start, as many institution who wanted to come abroad was unable

to do so because they have to get their marketing budget approved from their central

committee, and most these budgeting are over by the end of January of each year.

Therefore the late launch of the fair did have an impact on the number of participants.

But the clients who came in were largely satisfied with the fair because steps was taken

by the company to ensure that there would be only 5 to 8 colleges or institutes

participating in each segment of the fair. This was done to ensure that there is no clutter

of institutes, and the students visiting the fair do not get distracted by the presence of a

large number of colleges. It also meant that the institutes participating get exclusivity of

participation and also the leads that they were provided also become more relevant to

them, as if the same sets of students are called upon by all the institutes, it is highly

possible that the students will not give positive response to the institutes. The clients

also took the fair in a positive way as the cost of the fair was very competitive and the

package were very flexible and were tailored to suit the needs of individual clients.

Even though gerycells18 is new to the market of online fair and leads selling it was able

13

to generate a good response from the market. Many clients were very skeptic about the

capability of the company to generate interest for the education fair and able to gather a

sizeable number of visitors to the website, but after the launch of the fair, they were

quite happy with the kind of response the site was generating. Though few problems did

arise about the quality of the leads provided to the institutes like wrong phone numbers,

or false name, or the student is not interested in taking etc, which lead to some

disharmony among the clients. But these issues were promptly addressed by providing

replacement leads or if the client insists, refund of the fees for the leads. But refunds

were very few as most institutes were satisfied with the quality of the leads and happy to

take replacement leads in exchange of the bad leads. One factor which acted as a

challenge for the company was the very fact that many other firms had came out with

ventures selling leads of students to the institutes and the general experience of the

institutes dealing with them was not very good. Many firms had sold fake leads to the

institutes in the past which had lowered the general trust level in the market. The clients

who had past bad experience were very skeptic. In many cases they have asked for

demo leads the first stage before signing the deal. Only when they were satisfied with

the results that, they went decided to participate in the campaign. In overall it can be

said that the online education fair which is branded as “Careerwise Education Fair” was

able to garner quite a sizeable business even though it was a new venture of the

Greycells18 under the banner of the Toppers. The history of toppers was quite helpful

for the event and if the fair did not had the backing of the Greycells18 and its promoters

in the form of Network 18 and Educomp. If the same event would had been organize by

some smaller brand the results would had been quite different because it was observed

that most of the clients entertained the concept only because it had the backing of one of

the biggest media group in the country in the form of Network18 and also being

14

associated with Educomp which is a big name in the field of interactive learning. Also it

was seen that the most education institute were comfortable with in dealing with bigger

companies as they automatically implies better reliability as no company with good

business sense would damage their name in the market by coming up with dubious

ventures.

15

JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE “ONLINE EDUCATION FAIR”

The title of the project can be justified from the fact that it is based on the experience

gained while trying to sell the “Careerwise Education Fair” which is a online education fair

being organized by Greycells18 Media Ltd, on its website. The project tries to explore a

new segment of advertising through a online medium. It tries to embed the features of a

normal education fair with the features of a online marketing campaign. The main target of

the project was to popularize the mode of online advertising among the educational

institutes. It also tries to introduce the concept of online education fair among the

educational institutes and also show them the benefits of online advertising versus the

traditional modes such as print media or electronic media such as television, radio etc.

Other aspect of the online fair which was highlighted was that it is very interactive mode of

advertisement and a highly customizable.

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COMPETITORS WITH SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Even though the concept of online education fair was quite new in the country, there are

numerous companies who are dealing in the business of selling students leads to the

educational institutes. Many of these firms also provide online listing of the institutes in

their website with a easy to use search engine. Some of the companies which are very

active in this domain are namely, shiksha.com, Htcampus.com, sulekha.com,

justdial.com, etc.

Shiksha.com is one of the foremost companies in the field of listing of educational

institutes and providing leads of students to the institutes. Shiksha.com is part of the

naukri.com group. Other portals owned by the parent company Info Edge are

99acres.com, JeevanSathi.com, Brijj.com and AskNaukri.com. Shiksha.com was setup

as a mode to connect education seeker with the education provider.

It is one of the most aggressive player in the market and while interacting with the

clients it was observed by the sales team of greycells18 that shiksha.com was one of the

most trusted player in the market in the field of leads, the general perception of the

clients was that the leads provided by shiksha.com was authentic and reliable to a great

extent. Also the traffic of shiksha.com was also very good, the students were aware of

the services provided by shiksha.com and to a extend it can be said that shiksha.com is

one of the most potent competitor of greycells18 as they have been in this business for

quite a long time and thus they have the advantage of being the early movers.

17

HTCampus.com is an education portal from the house of Firefly eVentures, the internet

subsidiary of HT Media Ltd. The site is aimed at students passing out from school and

college to help them take the right decision about their higher education.

HTCampus.com provides the students with comprehensive, updated and reliable

information on over 30000 colleges across various courses and streams. The site also

has certain value added tools for students like the Future Salary Calculator, which helps

the student map out his earnings after pursuing a particular course, a unique compare

colleges feature and access to expert counseling.

Htcampus has also tied up with various colleges which enables it to bring in a system

through which students can also apply to more than 200 colleges across categories of

MBA, Engineering, BBA and Hotel Management through the HTCampus Common

Application form. This facility minimizes the cost of applying to colleges for the

students and the colleges have the advantage of getting exposure among the students

looking for admission.

While interaction with the client it was also found that Htcampus.com was providing a

very competitive package to the institutes wherein they provide them a free listing on

the Htcampus.com site if they advertise on the Hindustan Times newspaper. Thus

Htcampus.com was trying to exploit the advantage of being part of a newspaper printing

house and clubbing the services with the newspaper advertisements to maximize sales

of both the ventures. Htcampus.com also have the advantage of being able to advertise

its services across the wide spectrum of newspapers that its group owned and thus it was

18

possible for them to spread the news of any new service or features of their site without

having to spend any money for promotion. The awareness of Htcampus.com was also

very high among the students due to the large number of events organize by

Htcampus.com in school and colleges. Thus Htcampus.com can be said to be a very

worthy competitor for the Greycells18 and its online education fair project.

Sulekha.com is a global, interactive, mobile and internet platform for connecting

Indians worldwide and serves them through a portfolio of industry-leading services

including Classifieds, Yellow Pages Business Search, Events and Social Media reviews

and participation. Today, Sulekha serves an exponentially growing online and mobile

member base of 6.2 million in over 50 cities in India, US and elsewhere as one of the

most popular online/mobile provider of YP business search results to users and business

leads to small to medium business advertisers and merchants, online/mobile provider of

classifieds in the broadest range of categories, social media site offering largest

events/opinions/reviews in targeted domains. Some of the services of sulekha.com

include one of the largest listing of general Classifieds, comprehensive and accurate

Yellow Pages business listings in India, the largest number of Small to Medium

Business advertisers in the online/mobile space, the largest base of member-generated

content amongst Indian sites that spurs local commerce, a sophisticated and scalable

mobile/online platform that serves millions of users on a daily basis, Sulekha derives its

revenues in India through a „performance guaranteed‟ response model through which

we have served a customer base of nearly 20,000 SMB customers and hundreds of

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major brands. Sulekha has married world class technology with effective business and

monetization processes to achieve accelerating growth of both revenue and usage.

Sulekha.com continues to rapidly expand its user and customer base both through its

own sales force and through a growing network of prominent alliances with major

mobile and online partners such as Reliance, Vodafone, Airtel, Spice, Sify and

others….making the use of Classifieds and Local Search easy and ubiquitous.

While interaction with clients it was found that the view of the clients about the quality

of leads and indexing of sulekha.com is not very good. The general mood among the

clients about sulekha can be said that they have lost trust in its services due to lacking of

reliable leads and most of their leads are turning up to be useless.

JustDial is one of the most favorite local search destinations in the country. The

company caters to over 57 million unique users. This one of a kind local search service

is accessible from across 2000 towns and cities in India on Phone (08888888888 /

69999999), Web (justdial.com), WAP (m.justdial.com) and SMS (08888888888).

JustDial in India employs 4000 strong work force and has more than 135,000 paid

advertisers. The company bridges the gap between buyers and sellers by helping buyers

find the right providers of products and services while helping sellers improve the

efficiency of their marketing channels.

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While interacting with the clients it was observed that justdial has also emerge as a

leading player in the business of leads selling. Since the user bases of justdial is huge

and it has a huge database, it is exploiting it to gain a share of the education pie. Justdial

offers its advertisers leads as an add-on to increase its sales. Justdial can posses as a

major challenge for the Greycells18 in the field of leads selling due to its fast growth

and its large registered user data base.

Other forms of competition for the online education are the traditional education fairs

which are organized by many big and small companies. Most institutes are accustomed

with the working of the traditional format of education fair, feels that real life

interaction with the students in a normal educational fair with their counselors are more

fruitful and delivers more goods than a online solution, it is perceived that the online

fairs are not serious in nature and most students do not give too much of importance to

these online events. But it is also a given fact that the traditional real life educational

fair are very costly in nature because the organizers have bear a lot of logistics cost.

Therefore the charges are on a higher side. Above that the participants have to send

counselors to these events which results in high operation cost. Also since education fair

are hosted in different cities throughout the country, the travelling and lodging expenses

of the man force also have to be incurred by the institutes. Even then it is seen that the

institutes are ready to bear the high cost of the education fair, because of the fact that

they don‟t have many other option of reaching the students for admission. The online

education fair concept thus, if properly organized and its publicity is properly done, it

can turn out to be a worthy competitor to the real life education fair. Also efforts have to

be taken to educate the clients the benefits of online education fair to that of the real life

fair, so that the several inhibitions of the clients can be removed. Also effort should be

21

taken to verify the traffic data generated in the site by some third party because it is seen

that many clients have doubts on the numbers claimed by the organizers of online

events. The clients have this notion that most of the figures are bloated to attract more

clients and thus to increase its trustworthiness, some corrective steps are required to be

taken up.

Thus the competition for Greycells18 in the field of online education fair and sales of

leads is quite a sizeable. The company would definitely need to bring in constant

upgrade in its services to be a step ahead of its competition. The company has to exploit

its popularity among the students and its large fans following in the online social

mediums such as facebook.com to popularize its services. The company has to also

improve upon the quality of the leads, as it is observed that most institutes have come

abroad the education fair to get leads.

22

SWOT ANALYSIS OF THE CAREERWISE EDUCATION FAIR

On the basis of the attributes of the Greycells18, the organizers of the careerwise education

fair and it‟s other competitors with a similar kind of product line, the product does faces

challenges and also have many strong points to succeed.

One of the key strength of Greycells18 is that it is a company which was founded with the

vision of looking into the education domain, it is operating a interactive educational

television channel form a long time and it has a very large viewership via the mode of

DTH platform. It is a premium channel and the subscriber have to pay to view the channel,

above that it has a registered user‟s base of around four lakhs students on its website, i.e.

www.topperlearning.com , which is the site where the online education is being hosted.

This is what most of the other competitors lack.

One of the key weaknesses of the Greycell18 that hampers the education fair is the fact that

most of the clients are not aware of the topper brand and thus they refuse to come abroad

the online fair, whereas other competitors like www.shiksha.com are very well known in

the market and is a recognized brand in the field of education. Also the visibility of

shiksha.com in the market is high, and with the students and the institutes are regular users

of the services of the shiksha.com.

The key opportunity that the online education fair provides for the company is that it will

help it to remain connected with its students who are passing out of the class 12. As the

companies target group is the students of class 9 till class 12, most students stop coming to

the website after passing out. The online fair will provide a opportunity for the passed out

students to visit the site regularly and thus the company will not lose out on its old users.

23

The key threat for the education fair are the inability to provide the desired leads to the

institutes which results in the institutes opting out of the fair. It also results in the monetary

loses and losing a potential client for future events also. Since the company‟s core business

is the education domain, it will suffer a serious loss of market reputation if it is not able to

fulfill the client‟s expectation and also might result in losing out of future business also.

24

LITERATURE REVIEWS

Article 1

Name of the article: The Internet as a medium for marketing communication

Authors: Author: Feng Yan; Li Po

Publisher: University essay from Luleå / Business Administration and Social Sciences

Publication: 2006

Abstract: The advent of the Internet has added various new dimensions to the marketing

communication efforts of organizations today. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a

deeper understanding of how the Internet is used as a medium for marketing

communication. In order to reach this purpose, research questions on the mix of online

promotional tools as well as the stakeholders targeted were stated. A literature review was

conducted based on these research questions, resulting in a conceptual framework used in

obtaining empirical evidence. A qualitative, case study mythology was used, relying

primarily on interviews to collect data. The findings showed that the online communication

tools such as online advertising and public relations are the most important tools within the

online toolbox. Furthermore, the way to communicate with stakeholders on the Internet is

through intranets, extranets, Websites, E-mail and Chat functions. The main functions of

websites are to provide general information, provide customer service and support, as well

as improve communication with stakeholders.

Article 2

Name of the article: Online Advertising: Hit Rates for Jumps from Banner Ads

25

Authors: Author: David R. Thompson and Birgit Wassmuth

Publisher: The Web Journal of Mass Communication Research

Publication: March 2001

Abstract: This article reports a content analysis of newspaper practice regarding targeting

jump links to banner ads. By "targeting," the authors refer to the practice of matching the

content of the banner ad to the content on the page to which the banner is linked. Perhaps

because of click-through measurement techniques, previous research conveys an

assumption that a banner must always jump to the advertiser's home page. This study

extends prior research to examine the "hit" rate for jumps from banners to relevant content.

Also, this is one of the first studies to record banners with no jump links and failures to

connect to a jump page. Banner ads were coded for targeting banner ads to their jump links

(hit; near miss; miss; no jump link; failed to connect). A strong majority (88.6 percent) of

all jumps from the banner ads coded were hits. In most cases, clicking on a banner ad

resulted in landing on a new file, the jump page, with content related to the banner ad.

However, the researchers believe modifications to online advertising strategies are needed

to improve the "information" connection between banner ad and jump page. And the

researchers believe that the findings presented here may be applied to other studies of Web

site content and design, navigability, and interactivity. By investigating online newspapers,

this pilot study breaks the short tradition of previous research that examines "Top 50" sites.

The research reported here is one of the first studies of online newspaper advertising based

on a systematic sample. And it is one of the first studies of online newspaper advertising

that looks beyond the home page to examine all levels of the site.

26

Article 3

Name of the article: The I Online - Identity Conceptualization in Social Media and the

Implications for Online Marketing Communications

Authors: Charlotte Diaz De La Vega; Madelein Fagerlind

Publisher: University essay from IT-universitetet i Göteborg/Tillämpad information

steknologi

Publication: Feb 2011

Abstract: Purpose: To determine which, why and how social media tools are used by

young adults to conceptualize identity/identities online, the extent of such activity and the

implications for online marketing communications. Literature review: New internet

technologies have altered the way brands and consumers interact with power shifting from

organizations to consumers‟. Social media allows users the possibility of creating and

maintaining multiple identities making the task of locating them increasingly difficult for

marketers. In reality we adopt several aspects of self but the extent of this behavior online

is little researched. For marketers to understand and successfully target their audience it is

necessary to also understand individual uses and gratifications of online interaction.

Methodology: The research undertakes a qualitative data collection. Primarily a pilot study

was undertaken. Thereafter primary data for the main study was collected through in-depth

interviews and secondary data was collected from academic literature and reports.

Findings: The social media tools adopted are motivated by respondents private and career

interests. Self representation is apparent and differs between sites regarding what part of

their identity to disclose and conceal. Status, empowerment and reputation are important

motivators for the respondents‟ social media interaction, through which we also discover

27

their central uses and gratifications of social media. In terms of brand interaction we

discover various ways in which two ways online communication between both users and

brands is greatly appreciated. Conclusion: Through social media tools, young adults

choose to disclose different parts of their self depending on the uses and gratifications of

the site. Both communication among peers and direct brand communication are important

when adopting brands. Although they are individualistic, peer group support does play a

role in their online interactions. Motivations for young adults online are immediacy,

empowerment and the creation and management of identity. For marketers the challenge

lies in regaining partial control by motivating consumer interaction

Article 4

Name of the article: Customer perceived E-service quality in online shopping

Authors: Xi Zhang; Yu Tang

Publisher: University essay from Luleå /Business Administration and Social Sciences

Publication: 2006

Abstract: The advent of the Internet and e-commerce has brought a new way of marketing

and selling many products. There are evidences indicating that the e-service quality is an

essential strategy to a success, probably more important than a low price and a good web

presence. The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of the e-service

quality dimensions that affect the customer perceived e-service quality in online shopping.

On the basis of a detailed literature review, a frame of reference was firstly developed.

Then, five most important dimensions of the e-service quality, i.e. the website design,

reliability, responsiveness, trust and personalization were selected out for exploring how

28

these dimensions affect the customer perceived e-service quality in online shopping, which

constitute the research questions of this thesis. After that, a qualitative research approach

was used and the empirical data were gathered through open-end and focused interviews

with four different kinds of customers to investigate the research questions. Moreover, data

presentation and data analysis were conducted in accordance with the research questions

and the frame of reference. Finally, the findings and conclusions were presented by

answering the research questions, i.e. to describe how the website design, reliability,

responsiveness, trust and personalization affect the customer perceived e-service quality

and the implications for managements, theories and future researches are addressed.

Throughout this study, some new factors of the dimensions and some new dimensions of

the e-service quality are discovered.

Article 5

Name of the article: Conversion Rate Problem of SMEs in Internet Marketing - a

Developing Country Perspective

Authors: Mohammad Sheikh

Publisher: University essay from Blekinge Tekniska Högskola / Sektionen för

Management (MAM)

Publication: 2009

Abstract: In the recent years, electronic commerce has become an important alternative or

additional sales and marketing channel. Many companies are only selling through this

channel while many others are using it as an additional channel for boosting their sales.

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce represents an important research area because

29

retail consumer expectations, attitudes, and behavior are studied. Companies can design

their marketing models around desires and preferences of the customers. Because of

inherent nature of e-commerce retail websites, customers can log on to the sites, perform

research and product / price comparisons, fill in their shopping carts, and may log off

without making any purchases. Main reasons on the part of website visitors for not

converting into paying customers are low level of trust on this medium of purchases

because customers are required to give out financial and personal data, customers can do

comparison shopping or window shopping, high shipping costs, unclear pricing and return,

and refund policies of the websites, etc. From the point of view of sellers, abandoned

shopping carts represent potential sales that could not be realized. Companies are, for

obvious reasons, interested in converting these lost customers into sales. Retail websites, of

large as well as small-to-medium sized (SME) categories, experience this low conversion

rate problem for customers including those from developing countries. Specifically,

purpose of this research was formulated as four research questions: 1. Categories of

products and services e-commerce consumers from Pakistan prefer to buy from internet. 2.

Reasons for low conversion rates. 3. Extent to which Pakistani online customers are price-

sensitive. 4. Choice between product / service differentiation and low price Pakistani

customers would make. This thesis aimed to look at what goes on in the minds of

customers from developing countries when they do not make purchases at retail e-

commerce websites. A questionnaire asking customers from Pakistan as to what are their

preferences about e-sellers and their main turn-offs at vendor websites was developed and

circulated among the sample population. Analysis of data collected via the survey indicates

the following with respect to the research questions: 1. In terms of preferences and features

concerning products purchased over internet, Pakistani consumers are not basically

different from their international counterparts as Pakistani consumers generally purchase

30

the same kind of products and services as international consumers do according to what is

reported in the relevant literature. However, some concerns revealed by subjects of the

survey were related to reluctance of merchants to ship to Pakistani destinations, potential

credit card problems, unavailability of services like Pay Pal in Pakistan, etc. 2. Main

reasons for low conversion rates for Pakistani consumers are also similar to those reported

for international consumers from a number of countries. Major reason of low conversion

rates is low trust in websites because of concerns related to sharing personal and financial

information on the internet. 3. Pakistani consumers are found to be relatively low users of

e-shopping and strongly price sensitive. 4. Pakistani consumers are also found to not very

much interest in availing differentiated products/services over the internet. This thesis also

presents a review of relevant literature and offers some recommendations for future

research into the relevant area.

31

METHODOLOGY OF PROJECT

The project was made of the basis of the information collected while going on sales call to

potential clients and on the basis of the inputs received from the team members. The sales

operation was carried out by doing both cold calls and by visiting clients whose leads have

been provided by the company. In both the cases the sales operation was carried out by the

help of presenting the proposal to the clients as the product is a online education fair and

only way to make sales pitch for that product was through a proper presentation which tries

to explain all the features of the product. As it was decided to focus in the Delhi and NCR

area to sell the product, a list was made of the potential colleges and institutes in the area.

Only private institutes were targeted as government institutes do not advertise to get

admission. Also it was mostly large or medium size institutes were targeted as most small

institutes are not very active in the online medium. Also institutes which have; listed

themselves on the sites like www.shiksha.com etc were targeted as they are likely to

advertise on other online mediums also. Also since most institutes are skeptic about the

online mode and are more comfortable going for the traditional modes of advertisements,

the entry cost was kept low and they were shown the benefits of low cost and higher reach

of the online medium. Day to day records kept doing the period of sales done was used to

compile the project. Also information gathered from the websites of the competitors was

also used to compile the information of the activities of the competitors. Feedbacks of the

clients were also used to compile the report, the client feedback was considered as a

primary source of data regarding the experience and trust on the online medium of

advertisement of the educational institutes. Feedbacks received from the colleagues at

Greycells18 were also used to compile the report.

32

The period of study of the report was during my summer internship period ranging from

18th

April 2011 till 3rd

of June 2011. The projects related information was collect during

the interaction with the clients. A constant day to day feedbacks received from the clients

during the meetings were kept in record which was ultimately used to derive a outcome of

the whole project. No questionnaire was put forward to clients because it was a sales call

and the primary objective at that point was to make the deal and thus it was not possible to

ask the clients to fill up any questionnaires, but the inputs received from the clients were

kept in record to come to a conclusion of the kind of response the clients were having

about the project, i.e. the online education fair. No previous reports could be used as a

reference to make the report because of the very fact that it was the first time that the

company has come up with the concept of coming up with a online education fair.

Therefore very few matters were available with the company to refer to. The project could

not be compared with any other project, because the online education fair concept is still in

its infancy stage and a very few record are available to compare it with and thus it cannot

be referred as success or failure. The sole purpose of the company was to build up a new

property for future years and thus the online fair can be termed as a success as it was able

to bring awareness about the online fair as a concept and also a good number of institutes

came on broad the education fair.

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ANALYSIS OF THE CLIENTS FEEDBACK

On the basis of the feedbacks received from the clients during the course of the meeting,

the online education fair can be analysis. Some of the observations made on the basis of

the feedbacks are, around 75% of the clients are highly skeptic about participating in an

online education fair as they have doubts about the actual number of visitors to the site

during the fair period. Around 80% of the clients who participated in the fair did so only to

get access to the leads of students. Around 50% of the clients have used online medium to

promote their institutes before they being approach by Greycells18. Almost all the clients

have a fair idea of the business of selling of leads. Almost 90% of the institutes have

purchased students leads at some point of time. Most of the institutes who have purchased

leads are not satisfied with the quality of the lead they have purchased. The competitor

who has the best satisfaction level is shiska.com whose quality of leads is considered to be

the best till date. Around 30% of the clients were totally not interested in the concept and

though that it is not going to be useful to them. Almost all the clients mainly depend on the

print media to advertise their institutes, the general perception among the institutes is that

print media is the most trusted mode of advertisement and they feel that it has the

maximum reach among the targeted audience. Around 40% of the clients were open to

experiment with the online education fair, because they found out that the cost of

participation in the online fair is very low in comparison to the traditional mode of

advertisement. Around 75% of the clients had no problems regarding the funds or paucity

of budget, but still did not came abroad the education fair because they did not had faith in

the online medium as they though it lack transparency, as they thought that it is not

possible for them to keep a tab of the actual number of people visiting the site and the

authenticity of the data provided by the people who registers themselves on the sites.

34

CONCLUSION

The online education fair “Careerwise education fair” was fairly successful. The response

the online fair got from the clients was quite good, even though it was a debut product

from the Greycells18. The concept of mixing participation on the online fair and bundling

leads of students with was quite a hit with the clients. The clients were happy with the

feature of the qualified leads wherein a dedicated call centre of the company filters the

leads by personally calling them up and thus filtering out junk leads. It was observed that

most clients were more interested in getting access to leads rather than the participation in

the fair. The online education fair was able to combine the features of a normal education

fair and the features of online marketing. The online education fair was also able to attract

clients to it by the very virtue of being a low cost medium with a wider reach than the

normal education fair. It was also observed that many of the clients were first time

advertiser on the online medium. The response of the students was quite up to expectation

and the number of students visiting the online fair was quite good. The promotion of the

online fair was quite successful in attracting traffic to the education fair site. There is a

huge potential for the growth of the concept of online education fair as it provides a lot of

additional advantage over a normal fair and thus over the years it can grow as a major

property for the company if proper focus is given to the collection better leads and

increasing the client profile. At the end it can be concluded that the “Career wise education

fair” was a success and have achieved most of the goals and it was a good opening year for

the fair. The fair has all the features which if properly taped can make it as one of the most

sought after online fair in the years to come.

35

RECOMMENDATION

Some of the few improvements that are required to make the online fair even better

performer in the next year are as follows, at first the timing of the fair should be corrected

a bit, this year the fair went online at the start of May and is schedule to be live till August

depending upon the clients response. Most clients felt that fair should have started

somewhere in the month of January or February when most the entrance test such CAT etc

starts. Another aspect that needs to be kept in mind is that the company should ensure that

colleges with dubious reputation should not be allowed to take part as if substandard

institutes are part of the fair the students‟ trust in the fair will go down. The ultimate goal

should be to build up the “Careerwise Education Fair” brand. Steps should be taken to

improve the quality of the leads by proper verification of the leads and the call centre

executives should try to gather the maximum information about the priorities of the

students. Facility of online chat of the institutes counselors and visiting students should be

added. Institutes outside the Delhi NCR region should also be targeted to make the fair a

national event rather than restricting it to the specific area, which will help to bring in more

clients and also give students more options.

36

REFERENCES

Websites Referred

1. www.topperlearning.com

2. www.htcampus.com

3. www.shiksha.com

4. www.justdial.com

5. www.sulekha.com

Other Sources

1. Inputs received from the team members

2. Inputs received from the clients during interaction.