StuDocu Case Study“Empower everyone to excel at their studies by providing the best tools to study more efficiently”

Situation Analysis

What is the one thing GenZ shares in common with GenX? Besides a similar propensity for road rage and tiny sunglasses, it’s that they went through eerily similar education systems. Basically from the time computers became a mainstay in everyone’s home, rarely would you find someone studying in the library for a reason other than free internet and solidarity. But as far as the monolithic teaching method of having students recite a lecturer’s opinions backed by science, it has been the same for too long.

StuDocu, is focused on changing this system. As a platform focused on promoting collaboration in education, they offer a place for students to share study materials with one another.

An EDtech platform giving students a voice

By promoting the circulation of information, students get to learn from other people’s perspective, giving them a pluralistic learning experience.

What they found is that students felt the same way as they did. A company that once started as 4 students from Delft sharing a drive with their friends, bloomed. Hundreds turned into thousands and thousands turned into millions, and today over 15 million university students use their platform every month. This is when they knew it was time to bring their ideas to the public at large.

The ChallengeIn the early months of 2020, StuDocu found themselves sitting at a table full of their c-level executives. They saw the numbers were greatly increasing, but their voice wasn’t being heard. Blog visitors were coming and going, but the reach wasn’t external. With no one at the table having any experience inwith a strong PR background, they decided it was time to bring in an agency. specialized in growing the visibility of startups and scaleups globally. This is when they reached out to PRLab for a global PR collaboration. Next to coverage, StuDocu needed to get high quality backlinks to boost their SEO efforts, and that’s exactly what determined success for this PR strategy.

The PRLab Strategy

A platform looking to revolutionize the way we learn

Immediately after being introduced to one another, PRLab knew that StuDocu had an interesting story that appealed to the bigger public. A platform looking to revolutionize the way we learn and increasing its accessibility could be leveraged. It just needed to be done in the right way.

The key to helping StuDocu reach their goal of becoming a thought leader, PRLab planned an intensive research phase. What were journalists looking for and what publications would be interested in StuDocu’s story? PRLab decided that the best approach would be a mix of stories using research derived from StuDocu’s users and evergreen content written in opinion pieces. So it was time to put it into action.

Story Creation

Story Creation

There was no adjustment period, StuDocu was ahead of the curb

Dutch News

PRLab wanted the first story they created for StuDocu, to come out with a bang. The company needed to get their voice heard. After an intensive few weeks of research, there was a sudden change in news values. School facilities around the world began closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Luckily, PRLab had already been scouring news outlets, so there was no adjustment period, StuDocu was ahead of the curb. The company was seeing a massive increase in usage following the closures. This data was used in a story about how students were adjusting following the major change to their study life. As a result, Dutch News took the exclusive story and published an article about it.

Story Creation

The data collected was shocking and the media thought so too

As the media landscape began to change and students continued to work estranged, in their homes, PRLab had to get creative with their stories. Instead of spending too much time focusing on the obvious rise of edtech, a proactive approach was taken by reaching out to the StuDocu users to determine how they were feeling about being locked in their home. The data collected was shocking and the media thought so as well. Trouw, Het Parool, Advalvas, and USA Today all featured the research on their websites.

Aside from the larger publications. PRLab recognized the importance of StuDocu staying true to its roots and getting coverage in smaller local publications. That’s when they leveraged their relationship with Silicon Canals, to get them regularly featured in commentary articles.

Silicon Canals

Story Creation

Trouw Het Parool Ad Valvas

Silicon Canals Silicon Canals

Story Creation

Voice of America

Content Creation

Content Creation

Too long has the education system been stale, it was time for change

As a company with aspirations of becoming a thought leader, it was important that they had some features in the OP-Ed sections of news outlets. But in order to do that, they needed to have a story to tell.

So PRLab had to interview Marnix Broer, the co-founder and CEO StuDocu, to understand his views and opinions. What concluded from this, was the idea that StuDocu wanted to become revolutionaries. For too long has the education system been stale and it was time for a change.

Using this idea as motivation, PRLab used their experienced content writers to get creative. Using Marnix’s ideas, they wanted to create content that was not only fresh, but also provided inspiration for change. This was a success as the articles ended up getting featured on Education Technology, Higher Education Digest, and FE News.

Education Technology

Education Technology Higher Education Digest Education Technology

Content Creation

Industry Report

Industry Report

Any company that is looking to become a thought leader, needs to provide new and insightful data. Your company can provide a platform changing the world, but if you don’t keep pushing for change, you can’t actually become a leader. PRLab understood the importance of this, and worked with StuDocu to create an industry report about the struggle students were facing while working from home during the COVID-19 crisis.

Research was conducted on the right questions to ask and after the survey was finished, it was sent to StuDocu’s users for answering. The results that came back provided a shock as it showed students as a group of people fighting distraction and rarely experiencing happiness.

The results that came back provided a shock

Industry Report

While the data pointed to an unfortunate reality, it was highly relevant for an external audience. So it was important for PRLab’s content writers and designers to work in unity to create an industry report that could be distributed in a timely manner.

When the “Changes in student behaviour during COVID-19” report was finished, the world finally got a view of the data. Trouw, Het Parool, Advalvas, and USA Today all used the data to inform the public and push for change.

The data pointed to an unfortunate reality

Industry Report

The Outcome StuDocu wanted more than just regular media coverage. They wanted to become the voice of the university students. PRLab helped them get coverage in large publications such as USA Today, Telegraaf, Het Parool, and FD. But StuDocu also regularly contributed commentary articles in trade publications like Education Technology and the Higher Education Digest among many others.

PRLab Results

15 3 3 70Stories

PublishedIndustry

Reports CreatedInterviews

Landed with Key Outlets

Hyperlinks in publications with an average of 70 points of Domain

Authority

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