How an education institute created its online presence to attract potential candidates and build strong network of influencers? Client: Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Ahmedabad Product: Programme in Development Studies, 2 years full time PGDM Course. Marketing Channels tapped: Social media, Banner ads, Education Portals, Blogs and mailers.

1. Online Marketing Case
Study
Entrepreneurship Development
Institute of India

2. How an education institute
created its online presence to
attract potential candidates and
build strong network of
influencers?

3. Campaign Details
• Client: Entrepreneurship Development Institute
of India, Ahmedabad
• Product: Programme in Development Studies, 2
years full time PGDM Course.
• Marketing Channels tapped: Social media,
Banner ads, Education Portals, Blogs and mailers

4. Objective
• Break the clutter around MBA institutes and increase brand
awareness
• Tap MBA / PGDM aspirants category and generate interest for
PGDM Development Studies
• Build influential web presence and connect with brand
evangelists

5. Target Group
Youth of age group 18-24 years, especially students
aspiring for MBA / PGDM equivalent course.

6. Challenges
• Upcoming & Existing B-Schools
– Priorities of students are changing these days. With numerous options
available for Micro specializations, the prospective candidates are
scattered. So even well established institutes with rich teaching
pedagogies, excellent campus placements etc. find it difficult in
securing applicants year after year. Moreover, the MBA fad is now
declining and thus, the number of applicants is rolling off.
• Low Awareness about EDI
– Despite its 30 years of excellence, various entrepreneurial activities,
past achievements and international recognition, EDI is not a top of
mind recall for most MBA aspirants.
– Unclear Identity as an academic institution
– While EDI offers PG management courses, there is lot of confusion in
the minds of academicians and development professionals on account
of the name of the institute. EDI is easily misunderstood as an
entrepreneurship institute.

7. What EDI wanted?
• Increased brand awareness
• Growth in traffic to its web site
• Positioning as a forward thinking institute
• Make the college accessible, personable and more attractive to
prospective students
• To promote its lesser known course – PGDM-Development Studies
• To educate the public in general about the field of Development Studies in
layman’s language so that its scope isn’t limited
• But most of all ….To raise enrolment

8. Delivering Brand Prominence through
Brand
Prominence
Email
Online
Search
Content
Seeding
Official
Website
Influencer
Marketing
Strong
Social
Media
Presence

9. Solution
• Create a strong Social Media for the Digital Natives
• Created a digital environment to stay in touch
• Tied graduating class with the past classes
• Devising and implementing a communication strategy that
encompasses communication via web, mobile, social media
and involves the various stakeholders – students, faculty-staff,
alumni
• Content generation tactic and frequency based on content
category type, content objective & content channel. Content
is optimized on content performance.

10. Key channels tapped
• Facebook, twitter, MBA Education portals, Blog
• A Facebook Page is a great place to post noteworthy
happenings around the school via status update that posts on
the Page’s wall.
• Most of our TG is in the age group of 18-24 and are active
Facebook users. We engaged them on the brand effectively.
• Making optimum use of Social Networks for propagating
brand value

11. Facebook
• Celebrate works of our student.
• Field trips
• Experiential learning activities
• Assemblies or school-wide celebrations
• Recognition of individual students for excellence
• From 0 likes to 9k has been a journey of reaching out
to the relevant TG and spreading awareness about
the lesser known world of Development Studies.

12. Twitter
• Research indicates that the students who used twitter for academic and
co-curricular discussions displayed significantly greater engagement and
higher semester GPAs.
• We thus, started the twitter trend and connected with industry influencers
and the students.
• Special promotions on Twitter, live tweeting during festivals, events and
student field trips helped stake holders to stay connected with the
institute.
• Twitter became an efficient medium for influencer reach out. Since
Development Studies is a comparatively new and complex field, twitter
helped this programme gain positive word of mouth from the fraternity.

13. Blog
• Though the segment of Development Studies exists, it is in the
Arts & Humanity domain. To look at it from a Management
perspective requires an image makeover. EDI took up the
challenge and started a Blog called – Development Studies in
India. Which has become a torchbearer of Development
Studies in country by now.
• While blog promotes various initiatives from government,
institute, various NGOs etc., it also talks about how
Development Studies can become a lucrative career option.

14. Linkedin
• A linkedin Group called ‘Development Studies in India’ was
established and relevant industry people were enrolled on to
it.
• This group mainly focuses on discussing opportunities in
Development sector. Large group of professionals have
welcomed the initiative and buzzing discussions are proof of
popularity of group.

15. Education Portals
• Strong presence on MBA / Education portals is ‘must have’ for
an MBA institute.
• We tied up with various education portals – pagalguy.com,
shiksha.com, minglebox.com, mbauniverse.com etc. to build
strong presence on these portals.
• Continuous tap on ongoing conversations helped us gauge
sentiments of MBA aspirants and estimate their demands.
• We continuously drove conversations on such forums to drive
positive sentiments for EDI and drive interest towards
Development Studies course.

16. Ad Campaigns
• A paid advertisement campaign was devised in order to
increase reach and tap MBA aspirants user group.
• Platforms used: Education portals, MBA portals.

17. Growth
Site Traffic: DevelopmentStudies.in. Growing at 30% MoM
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Jan-14 Feb-14 Mar-14 Apr-14 May-14 Jun-14 Jul-14 Aug-14 Sep-14 Oct-14 Nov-14 Dec-14 Jan-15 Feb-15 Mar-15 Apr-15 May-15

18. Growth
Site Traffic (Development Studies page) – Comparison – Admission cycle 2013-14 Vs
Admission cycle 2014-15
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
Cycle 2 - 2014-15 Cycle 1 - 2013-14

19. Growth
Facebook: Growth of fan base
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
10000

20. Results
Continuous growth in admissions for Development Studies
course:
• Batch 1 (2012) – 8 Students
• Batch 2 (2013) – 16 Students
• Batch 3 (2014) – 19 Students
• Batch 4 (2015) – 25 Students
Strong online presence and word of mouth has triggered a
positive wave for the brand. Every year, growing number of
students have acknowledged influence of online mediums in
their decision making process.

21. Looking for online marketing solution for your brand?
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