Marketing on the Internet - Tools and scope

 

“Digital Marketing Tools and Scope”

Dr. A. Siluvairaja

Abstract

India has an ever increasing 60 million tablet, 450 million mobile phones and around 500 million internet users in 2018. Indian Higher Education system has more than half a lakh higher educational institute infrastructure with ever rising and wide faculty of choice(MHRD, GOI). Attracting good, diverse students is a challenge for any educational Institution. In 2015-16, 50% of seats alone were vacant(9,07,736) in under and post graduate technical programs in the country(India today, 2017).  The efforts of educational institutions in attracting students if not best students is always a challenge. The return on investment on traditional methods like newspaper advertisement, radio, television promotions were inefficient and ineffective. On the other hand the parents, students were with in-adequate information, knowledge and choices on educational programs. There is a link-gap between demand and supply. The digital age has started finding solutions to connect good, diverse and right student population across the country with right educational institutions. What education institutions could not do in reaching out to students and parents is fulfilled by these Digital start-ups and agencies.  An attempt is made to understand various options, strategies of these Indian Digital agencies in this space. This paper establishes a conceptual foundation describing the various tools and techniques available and used by internet startups, digital agencies, Business schools on marketing the educational programs.

Terms- digital marketing, organized educational services, SEO, SMM, SEM

Introduction

According to the “Internet Report of India 2017” (IAMAI and Kantar IMRB) the number of Internet users stood at 481 million in December 2017, an increase of 11.34% over December 2016. The report also found out that an estimated 281 Million daily Internet users, out of which 182.9 million or 62% access internet daily in urban area and 98 million users or 53%, in rural India(Economic Times Feb 20, 2018).  

The higher education sector was facing a challenge in terms of enrollment. In the academic year 2014-2015, the number of seats to be filled was 19,04,922 in 3,455 engineering colleges across the country, of which only 9,81,436 seats were filled, leaving 9,23,486 seats vacant. The next academic year, 2015-16, too showed dismal figures with only 9,15,196 seats filled from 18,22,932 seats available, which meant 9,07,736 seats remained vacant(Mirror-Bangalore, Feb 24, 2017). There were 66(2015-16), 76(2016-17) and 101(2017-18) Business Schools that have applied to AICTE for closure and one among the reasons being few or no takers(College dekho, April 25, 2018).

The internet, the web and digital media have transformed marketing and business since the first website(www.info.cern.in) went live in 1991. The use of the internet and other digital media  technology to support “Modern Marketing” has given rise to a bewildering range of labels and jargon created by both academic and professional. It has been called digital Marketing, Internet Marketing, E-Marketing and Web Marketing (Dave Chaffey, Fiona Ellis- Chadwick, 2016). According to Catherine, Dunrie & Burkle(2012), for both B2C and B2B companies, the internet is an increasingly important Marketing, Sales Tool. Purchasers love it because it’s an information rich medium where they can conduct research and easily make comparison. Marketers love it because online efforts are trackable and measurable in real time.

The efforts of educational institutions in attracting students if not best students was always a challenge. The return on investment on traditional methods like newspaper advertisement, radio,  television promotions were inefficient & ineffective. Several articles have been published questioning if web advertising really works and how it can be better(Sundar, Narayan, Obregon, and Uppal, 1998). The Millennials in a survey said that they favour the digital format(Dayton, 2016). The parents and students were with in-adequate information, knowledge & choices on educational programs.