1. StudyPlaces: India Strategy
To be the preferred source of information and guidance for Indian
students seeking education.
StudyPlaces.com
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2. Agenda
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Market overview
Understanding the Indian student
StudyPlaces key assets
India-focused strategy
Operations overview
Finance
Appendix – Lead Management System
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3. MARKET OVERVIEW
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4. Market Needs and Challenges
•
•
•
•
Student demand for education options
Fragmented education institution market
Large media spend on student acquisition
Slow but steady shift to online media spending
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5. Education Market Overview
• Pent up demand for postsecondary education from India and
neighboring regions. 112M of postsecondary-age students in
India with below-average postsecondary Gross Enrollment
Ratio of 12% (vs. 22% for China, 17% for Indonesia and 30%
for Brazil)
• Local education is a +$11 billion market, with enrolling
institutions spending an average of 20% of revenue for student
acquisition
• India is the largest supplier of students to the US and is the
second largest supplier of students to the global education
market. In 2008 $200 million was spent recruiting Indian
students; expected to grow to $350 million by 2012
www.StudyPlaces.com
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5

6. India Domestic Education Spending
Tuition paid by institution type
(in $MM)
Private Colleges
Vocational Courses
IT Training
Test Prep
TOTAL
2008
$6.27
$1.40
$0.23
$1.70
$9.60
2009
$7.34
$1.71
$0.28
$2.04
$11.37
2010
$8.58
$2.08
$0.35
$2.45
$13.46
2011
$10.04
$2.54
$0.44
$2.94
$15.96
Confidential
Source: CLSA Education Industry Report.
2012 08-12 CAGR
$11.75
17%
$3.10
22%
$0.55
24%
$3.53
20%
$18.93
19%

7. Education Related Ad Spend in India
•
With a 17% market share in the first half of 2008 Education is the #1 category
in Print Advertising in India
Rank
Category
Rank
Category
1
Education
6
Corporate / Brand Image
2
Services
7
Durables
3
Banking / Finance / Investment
8
Personal Accessories
4
Auto
9
Telecom / Internet Service Providers
5
Retail
10
Media
Source: AdEx India a division of TAM Media Research
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http://www.tamindia.com/Mailer/print_advertising/2008/H1-Part1/graph/3.jpg

8. Sample print advertising page
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9. THE INDIAN STUDENT
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10. The Indian Student
…is seeking
information about
education options…
The Indian Student
Goals
• Maximize career
potential
• Increase short term
income
• Improve academic
test results
…through multiple
sources.
Education Options
India
Abroad
Print
• Historically primary source of
information and advertising
medium
Engineering
Medicine
MBA
• Small portion of education ad
money goes to education
TV
Law
Vocational
Professional cert.
Online
• Students shifting to online for
information about education
options
• Target population already tech
savvy and provided with
access
Test preparation
Studying abroad is one of many education options considered by almost every
Indian student in light of academic performance, financial resources and time
Confidential
constraints

11. Indian Students Search Online for Education
Information
•
•
India is the #1/2 country for the search terms “MBA”, “Engineering”, “Medicine”, “Study Abroad”, and “Tuitions”
Postsecondary prospective students in India and other target countries are already online, doing research and
seeking information (77% of online users are in age group 19-35)
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12. KEY ASSETS
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13. StudyPlaces Key Assets
India leading education site with a Google PageRank of 6 and 180,000 pages indexed
•
•
•
•
•
•
Management team
Rich and compelling content library, driving organic qualified traffic to
Studyplaces.com
Growing targeted traffic of Indian and other international students –
approx 400k unique visitors
Impressive client roster of Indian and international institutions advertising
in India: Manipal, NIIT, ICFAI, ETS
Partnership with leading media outlets in India (e.g., Hindustan Times,
LiveMint,NDTV), broadening reach
State-of-the-art lead enrichment process, delivering qualified leads to both
local and international institutions
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14. Content Library
• College directory: detailed information on
– 3,245 of the largest institutes in India (out of ~ 21,000 total)
– 103 in Australia, 3,829 in the US, and 748 in the UK –
Targeted list of Institutes that Indian students go to
– UK content and site in Association with Guardian
• Valuable and unique information for prospective to student,
driving traffic via SEO and relationships with institutes
• FAQ/forums –enable online communication amongst students
and indexing for SEO
• Result information
• Free test preparation
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14

15. SEO Successes
- First page results on google.co.in for:
•
•
•
•
•
“Study Engineering”
“Study MBA”
“Study Medicine”
“Study Law”
“Study Abroad”
- 10% month to month increase in organic traffic
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15

16. Client roster
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16

17. Media Partnerships
• Distribution deals which allow StudyPlaces to
provide content and expertise to other media
properties
– Hindustan Times, LiveMint (Wall Street Journal),
NDTV
• Media partners depend on Studyplaces for
their online ad inventory
• Increased traffic flow and branding lead to
better monetization opportunities
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17

18. INDIA-FOCUSED STRATEGY
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19. India-focused Strategy
1.
2.
3.
4.
Focus on select markets
Traffic Acquisition
Expand customer base
Broaden media reach
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20. Focus on select markets
Target Market
Focus
Rationale
Private Professional
Colleges
•
•
•
•
• Growing number of new professional colleges seeking students to
fill seats
• Colleges ready to pay high premium to agents for admission
Vocational Institutes
• Service industry job
seekers looking for
qualifications
• Target high-demand occupations such as pharmaceutical research,
animation, hospitality, aviation, financial back office, etc.
• High print advertising spend ready to be converted to online lead
generation
Test Preparation
• Engineering
• Medicine
• MBA
• 1.5 million test takers annually representing a $400 million market
annually
• Students and families willing to spend to improve outcome
Professional
Certification
• Job seekers and
current employees
• Low cost and time commitment to improve career opportunities
• Demand for certificates with proven ROI: e.g., Project Planning,
Java , ERP
Study Abroad Agent
Market
• Candidates
considering
studying abroad
• International universities source a large portion of their foreign
students from India
• Premium pricing for international leads converted into students ($2k
per student)
• Agents receive an advertising budget to acquire students.
Engineering
MBA
Medical
Dental
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21. Current traffic acquisition model
Who are we targeting?
Students
Parents
School /College Teachers
Counselors
How do we generate traffic?
Create and promote original
relevant content
Optimize search results
Acquire PPC when appropriate
• Ask Studyplaces 30,000+ Questions
• Listing of professional
colleges
• #6 pagerank
• 180,000 pages indexed
• Keyword Analysis
• Manage 100,000
keywords across
multiple categories
Integrate StudyPlaces with
relevant digital destinations
• Facebook
Partner with leading media
platforms
• NDTV
• Hindustan times, Shine
Campus
Working Professional
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22. Content development plan
Traffic goals
• Built professional course vertical channels
• Engineering, Medicine, Law, MBA, etc.
• Opportunities for additional advertising
Position StudyPlaces as trusted
source for education options
• Created fully searchable and indexed directory of
2500 India-based institutes
• By type of program, level, geographic
location, focus, etc.
Attract relevant Indian traffic
• Developed database of vocational certificate and
job training options
Develop content that allows for
segmentation and lead
qualification
Customize content and
experience for the prospective
Indian students
• Created counseling zone regarding vocational
options - moderated forums faqs, expert
answers, etc. - to increase stickiness and attract
organic traffic
• Created free preparation zone for millions of
students testing every for the competitive exams
• Engineering, Medicine
• Provide tips, sample exams, exam dates
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Google
PageRank 6
180,000 indexed
pages

23. Vertical Channels
• Targeted vertical channels increases relevance for users and search
engines
• Opportunity to create intent-specific “microsites”, thus increasing quality of
leads
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24. Education Directory
• Directory covers 3,245 of the largest 21,000 institutes. Next
steps is partnership with Google to create the directory at
more granular /city level.
• Continued effort to add content to increase usability and
relevancy
Directory Content by Category 1Q09 2Q09 3Q09 4Q09
2010
Engineering
Medicine
Law
Coaching
MBA
Total
2,550
500
190
350
1,450
5,040
1,940
145
15
125
750
2,975
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2,025
195
20
155
850
3,245
2,110
250
30
190
950
3,530
2,200
300
60
220
1,050
3,830

25. Comprehensive MBA Listings
• Comprehensive listing allows
for custom searches by
– Degree level,
– Country/cities
– Specialization
– Part-time or full-time
• Additional opportunity for
display advertising
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26. Result/Placement and Test Prep Apps
Low-cost app to attract qualified traffic
right when students ready to make an
education decision
Approx 20% of organic traffic generated
through free test prep application
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27. Traffic Numbers and Projected Goals
2008
2009
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
Unique Visitors
807,074
799,658
921,735
1,003,038
Organic Visits
412,987
438,032
618,019
741,081
Page views
4,043,906
3,359,279
3,603,615
4,070,820
Online marketing
spend (USD)
$84,264
$79,951
$83,471
$50,093
Registered Users
added
80,108
52,834
55,144
47,056
6%
41%
2010
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
830,011
929,612
1,041,165
1,166,105
1,306,038
1,462,762
1,638,294
20%
Organic traffic
growth
Registered Users
added
12%
10%
27,421
25,664
22,608
19,579
21,537
23,691
26,060
28,666
31,532
34,685
38,154
Page views per user
5%
5.0
4.2
3.9
4.1
4.3
4.5
4.7
4.9
5.2
5.4
5.7
150,000
225,000
337,500
506,250
759,375
1,139,063
1,708,594
2,562,891
Estimated
partnership traffic
from NDTV, HT, Live
Mint and others
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28. SALES STRATEGY
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29. Sales Overview
• Current Focus
– Top 100 of institutes in the top verticals: Private College,
Vocational, Test Prep, and Study Abroad categories (see
pipeline)
– Wins already include Manipal, ICFAI, HT, etc.
• Forward Focus
– Broader reach of institutes in the same verticals
– Geographic expansion: sales presence in South, West, and
East
– Aggressively target other big media spenders
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30. Sales Processes
1. Pipeline and revenue forecast management using
salesforce.com
2. Weekly team meetings with status updates and review of key
metrics
3. Prospecting of potential leads through online and offline
media
4. Stringent management of collections vs. invoicing
• India has a higher bad debt percentage so we collect 50%
upfront for all unproven customers
5. Monthly/Quarterly review of quotas vs actuals
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31. Sales Methodology
1.
Market Research
•
•
Pipeline Creation
2.
Field Sales & Telesales
Market Research
3.
Pipeline Creation: Pipeline generated with Location,
Tier, and Category of prospect
Pipeline Distribution:
•
Qualified
Inquiries
•
Customers
4.
Review all Edu ads placed in newspapers across top
10 metros
Interns collecting data from offline/online sources
Pipeline distributed to Field Sales where there is a
sales presence (Delhi NCR, started in Mumbai &
Hyderabad).
Telesales distribution (details next slide)
Prospects called for closure
Weekly review of metrics: call rates, appointment rates, close rates, etc.
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32. Current Status (India)
• Current customer count: 54 (excluding Hindustan
Times partnership)
•
Repeat (47), New (7)
•
•
•
•
•
Professional Private College (9)
Study Abroad (32)
Test Prep (3)
Vocational (8)
Other (2)
• Average Revenue per Customer: Rs. 26,435
(US$550)
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33. Hindustan Times Overview
• #1 newspaper in North India, #2 nationally
• Deal terms:
• Hindustan Times sales team reselling
StudyPlaces
• HT sales team to incudle StudyPlaces as a
strategic component of media sales targeted in
the Education Vertical
• 50% revenue share
• Marketing spend pre paid at start of campaign
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34. Hindustan Times Overview
Relevant
Content for
students
Leads,
Applications
for
Admissions
Helping in
student
placements
Counseling
services –
online/ offline
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35. Hindustan Times Results
• 14 live deals in 1st month:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
WCTM
Ameer Engineering
Ameer Medical
Aureole
Career Access
EYK Consultancy
ILADA
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
IRS
Picasso Animation
R V CORRESPONDENCE
RIMS
Stencil
Study Abroad
YES
• Total deal value at Rs. 8 Lacs (USD $16,000)
• Average deal value at $1,150
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36. Sales Growth Plan (India)
Org Structure (Highlighted already hired)
Head India
Sales
Regional
Head, Delhi
Regional
Head,
Chennai
Regional
Head,
Kolkata
Regional
Head,
Mumbai
Sales
Managers
Sales
Managers
Sales
Managers
Sales
Managers
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37. Sales Growth Plan (India)
Cumulative headcount at end of each period:
2009
2010
2011
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 CY Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 CY Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 CY
6
6
9 12 12 15 18 21 24 24 27 30 33 36 36
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38. OPERATIONS
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39. Business Operations
• 20,000 students visit portal daily
• Every day, 2,000 unique students fill up their information to enquire about a
specific course/ country/ vocational institute/ college etc.
• All these enquires reside in our database
• These enquires/user data are sold as
•
Verified Exclusive Lead
•
Verified Shared Lead
•
Counseled Lead
•
Complimentary Enquires (for advertisement buyers)
•
E-mail Campaign Product
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40. Lead Management System (LMS)
• Order Entry in LMS triggers campaign planning and
lead inventory for starting the delivery
• Campaign once deployed create leads, in parallel
delivery starts with the matched leads in inventory (reverified)
• LMS gives a powerful basic and exact matching
functionality based on order parameters and several
business rules
• LMS workflow handles the delivery of leads right from
the order entry
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41. LMS – Workflow
Lead Verification
Order
Entry
Basic
Match
Exact
Match
Lead
Database
Leads created
LMS
Lead
requirement &
Campaign
planning
Campaign
deployment
Student fills in
aspiration
Confidential
Delivery

42. Organizational Structure
Amitabh Nagpal
CEO
Executive
In San Francisco
Sr. Sales ops Team
Pankaj Bengani
VP, Business
Development &
Sales
Naini Singh
Director Sales,
India
5
Deepti Chitkara
Sr. Manager
Counseling Ops
3
Unless exception noted, all
employees in New Delhi,
India
Pankaj Batra
Architect
Virender Bisht
Director
Engineering
Harpreet Singh
Sr. Manager,
Business Ops
&Finance Control
10
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14
Saurabh Shakya
Sr. Manager, Prod
& Mkt
4
Mayank Kumar,
Sr. Manager
Content Ops
3
Support Functions
HR & Admin
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43. PLAN AND FINANCE
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44. Additional initiatives
1. Sales: Expand sales team in India
2. Product & engineering: Expand product offering to
enable to service students better
3. Partnerships: Invest in partnerships with MSN,
Yahoo for traffic acquisitions
4. School Counseling: Expand reach in to schools for
counseling sessions to High schools students
5. Content Acquisition: Increase content depth in each
stream – Engineering, Medicine, Law, Medicine
Vocational courses
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45. Operating Plan
Traffic
Customers
Operations
3Q09
• Partner with media companies
• SEO- Improve keyword density
on targeted pages for 100
keywords that drive traffic
• Focus on HT
• Strengthen Delhi Team (hire
regional head)
• Add few more engineers
(SysAdmin and Infrastructure)
4Q09
• Partner with coaching institutes
• Offer Scholarship
• SEO – measure the previous
keywords and add another set of
keywords
• Create 1 new key channel
relationship
• Continue supporting HT
• Build out Chennai & south India
territory
• Recruitment on MBA vertical
• Build out 5 more headcount in
televerification team
• Expand content team by 3 to
focus on content collection and
service Google partnership
1Q10
• Partner with coaching institutes
• Create additional channels in
Retail and Pilot Training
• Hire regional head Mumbai &
Kolkata
• Formalize direct sales presence in
all 4 regions
• Recruitment on MBA vertical
• Add management level finance
and marketing operations staff
• Expand Counseling staff
2Q10
• Partner with other publishers
• Create more channels to attract
students in other verticals
• Recruit customers in other
vocational programs
• New office space needed either
Q2 or Q3
• Expand televerifcation staff as
needed
Confidential

46. Financial Summary
StudyPlaces
CY 09
Q1
Q2
Domestic Leads
65,133
International Leads
CY 10
Q3
Q4
83,201
148,400
239,000
83,079
88,900
108,850
148,211
172,101
84,185
Total COGS
Gross Profit /(Loss)
CY 09
CY 11
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
CY 10
Q1
Q2
535,733
300,800
394,400
500,200
606,000
1,801,400
715,800
825,600
162,900
443,729
208,350
246,600
269,802
284,193
1,008,945
299,919
257,250
401,900
979,463
509,150
641,000
770,002
890,193
2,810,345
14,079
102,900
157,892
359,055
196,549
242,623
285,050
321,834
84,185
14,079
102,900
157,892
359,055
196,549
242,623
285,050
64,027
158,023
154,350
244,008
620,407
312,601
398,377
Total Sales Costs
50,876
45,932
56,024
63,804
216,636
56,353
81,195
Q3
Q4
CY 11
935,400
1,045,200
3,522,000
317,103
335,881
356,399
1,309,302
1,015,719
1,142,703
1,271,281
1,401,599
4,831,302
1,046,057
358,464
393,670
427,598
460,397
1,640,129
321,834
1,046,057
358,464
393,670
427,598
460,397
1,640,129
484,952
568,359
1,764,288
657,255
749,034
843,683
941,202
3,191,174
100,804
121,192
359,543
136,518
144,362
165,101
185,841
631,821
Revenues
Lead Revenues
Total Revenues
Cost of Goods
Lead Acquisition
Online Marketing
SG&A
Total Operations Costs
30,779
30,680
34,331
35,631
131,420
37,631
44,090
47,467
47,944
177,132
54,980
61,457
66,293
72,070
254,800
Total Technology Costs
55,500
42,548
47,159
63,159
208,365
77,159
83,159
83,159
83,159
326,634
83,159
83,159
83,159
83,159
332,634
Total Marketing Costs
17,246
26,303
33,750
35,750
113,049
36,750
36,750
38,250
38,250
150,000
45,750
45,750
47,250
47,250
186,000
216,026
157,323
219,536
225,777
818,662
235,182
243,971
247,337
248,907
975,397
257,342
254,821
255,075
255,328
1,022,566
370,426
302,786
390,800
424,120
1,488,133
443,075
489,164
517,016
539,452
1,988,706
577,748
589,548
616,877
643,647
2,427,821
(306,400)
(144,764)
(236,450)
(180,112)
(867,725)
(130,474)
(90,787)
(32,065)
28,907
(224,418)
79,507
159,485
226,806
297,555
763,353
Total Admin and Operations Costs
Total SG&A
Operating Profit (Loss)
Confidential
46

47. APPENDIX
LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
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48. Order Entry
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49. Order Search
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50. A Typical Order Entry
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51. Corresponding Sub-order
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52. Basic Match Operation
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53. Basic Match
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54. Tele-Verification
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55. Elements for Verification
• Intent Verification
• Data Correctness
– Mandatory parameters
• Contact Details (email, phone)
• Category and Course
• Destination Country (for Study
Abroad)
• Target State/City
• Education Level
• Mode of course (part time, full time,
distance learning)
– Premium parameters
• Work Experience
• Subjects in last education
Confidential
– Expected Year and Month of
joining
• Intakes (e.g. for US Fall and
Spring are marked with intent
Yes)

56. Verification Calls
• Intent Yes
• Intent No
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57. Exact Match and Lead Delivery
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58. Distribution (LMS)
• Shared
– Can be contacted by multiple partners through
StudyPlaces (4 partners)
• Exclusive
– One student-one partner
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59. Exact Processed Match
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60. Partner Testimonials
I have a long and steady relationship with StudyPlaces. The lead quality is great and so is the
customer service…
Mr. Suneet, Director – Fateh
Education
StudyPlaces has delivered what it promised. The concept was new but it is here to stay.
Target Consultancy
We are very happy with studyplaces.com leads quality. In fact last year we got 12 students from
study places leads and we have already converted two students from this year leads. We
used to invest lot of money in newspaper advertisement but we never got such a good
response. Studyplaces.com is a very cost effective medium. We are getting students in such
a low cost in comparison of other media. Best thing about studyplaces.com is that we are
paying for per response only as other media never take guarantee of response.
Studies in Russia
We have been using services offered by StudyPlaces for last 6 months. The branding and quality
of leads provided by StudyPlaces remain unparalleled. All the best, StudyPlaces.
Mr. Atul Goel, Director – OGIS
Confidential