I have found myself in situations where I wouldn’t have been there, if not for sheer luck or circumstances. One such meeting happened when Rupsha Di & I were discussing a few ideas when she invited me to accompany her for a meeting with an education institute owner. As is my usual habit, I tagged along. I wouldn’t let go of an opportunity of interacting with people of various fields. The meeting with chairman went well. Fast forward 20 days and I was working as a consultant on the Digital Ecosystem Buildup for this premiere educational institute. I would have the complete support of my team at Orange Media Group & also from the wonderful team I met while interacting with Pathfinder. We first started with the paper advertisements moving onto content marketing & digital sales through whatsapp marketing. There were a number of campaigns which would always be special to my heart since it gave me a chance to interract with the people from the education system. Namely, students & parents.

I am going to list down what I intimately understood of the working of an educational institute & what can be the actionable steps from my learning’s

But today I am not going to share my experience of working with Pathfinder, rather I am going to list down what I intimately understood of the workings of an educational institute & what can be the actionable steps from my learnings.

1. The fact that we always celebrate toppers is a reflection of the society. I have interacted with several parents to understand that topper is more in the parents mind than of the student. With passage of time & constant hammering message of topping the class etc modifies the child’s mind accordingly.

2. Parents are not wrong in putting the “topper” tag as first priority because they are facing the hardships of life & understand if a student actually ends up getting good guidance from an early age, topping actually isn’t that of an impossible dream. If one does end up doing very good in their studies, their children would struggle less. They are talking from experience.

3. I have also interacted with a section of parents, who believe that one should always aim for the top, but if that is not what the result is, even then, take is graciously. So there are various demographics of parents, whose belief system is completely different from each other.

4. If all parents do not have the same believe system, then how to run Facebook ads targeting parents only? Parents as filter won’t serve the purpose, as I would want to reach out to more parents who were matching with the already existing parent clientele of Pathfinder Institute!.

5. Designing the DSF (Digital Sales Funnel) for the educational institute was done in a bottom up approach. At first I interviewed 10 parents. Only if I knew what the parents were feeling, could I communicate to other fellow parents sharing the same beliefs & values.

6. Hyper-personalised communication gives a lot of success, especially over WhatsApp. Communicating with parents over WhatsApp as academic counsellors saw an increase in engagement with the parent community. WhatsApp Status works wonders.

7. Many processes of a business organisation can be transformed using digital methods. Timely deployment of sale content over several digital channels saw results indicating positive ROI in revenue numbers.

8. While all institutes are busy doing digital marketing, what they ought to think, is, with what are they going to market themselves? The content is very important, especially seeing such an increased competition from the EdTech Sector in the recent few years.

9. Not solving all operational problems is going to create even more problems, with information flowing very quickly in a more transparent digital world.

10. All education institutes have equal opportunities to connect with the alumni communities. They are never put an active effort to do so. It is not only going to benefit the institute to get connected with old students, the network reach of your alumni is the strongest network you can ever tap into.

To give you an example of the kind of growth Digital Advertising can give you & your education business can be seen by a 10 day report card for a campaign we were running at Pathfinder

The above are some observations that I made when I was working as a consultant with Pathfinder Institute. It is my perception of how this industry works. I would love to hear your thoughts on my observations too.

NOTE : Byjus acquisition of Akash Institute indicates that maybe down the line when big edtech wants their physical Center’s they ought to approach the well-established education institutes. This can be a collaborative approach that may very well be followed when going forward. This mechanisms can be used by schools as well & form a more inclusive model of business.