How to Build a sustainable Demand for your MBA Program?Micro communities, Applicant Life Cycles, and Integrated Content mapping strategies

Case studies from PaGaLGuY.com

Extremely active Micro-communities Brilliant and relevant content mapsDedicated time and resource

Common Denominator for all success stories on PaGaLGuY

Some results/casesCase 1:B-school in Chennai generates more than 25% growth in Application numbers each year through this strategy

Case 2: B-school in New Delhi increased its application base by 30% from 2013 to 2014

Case 3:A tier-2 b-school from Bangalore generated 200% improvement in their enquiries and counseling numbers within 1 year

What’s the model behind these success stories?

Step 1: Identify the Applicant life cycle

Phase 1 >> ResearchPhase 2 >> PrepPhase 3 >> ApplicationsPhase 4 >> Admit

ALC varies typically between 3 to 8 months depending upon profile of the candidates

Step 2: Define a Clear strategy per phase

Phase 1 >> Research >> DiscoveryPhase 2 >> Prep >> NetworkingPhase 3 >> Applications >> ConversationsPhase 4 >> Admit >> Conversions

Step 3: Design objectives for each phase

Discovery >> How would you maximize access to your b-school brand? Creating Early adopters

Networking >> How would you scale the network and create your micro community?

Conversations >> How would you “maintain” your community and headhunt better candidates?

Conversions >> How would you help candidates with the final round of queries and reduce loss of applications?

Step 4: Relevant Content - Discovery

Step 4: Relevant Content - Networking

Step 4: Relevant Content - Networking

Step 4: Relevant Content - Networking

Step 4: Relevant Content - Conversations

Step 5: Integration

Aspirants life cycle begins

Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7

Discovery

Networking

Conversations

Conversions

Step 6: Measurement

Metrics: - Unique Candidates engaging with the micro-community- Average time spent per visit- Number of Followers/comments/subscribers- Total Unique pageviews generated by your brand across all systems

Tangible results you could realize:

1. Candidates spend more time on you brand due to relevance, integration, and proper content maps

2. Micro-community generates its own moderators, influencers, mentors, and generates super-linear demand trend

3. Continuity and stability of your brand equity

We will need to Change definitions

From To

Broadcasting as per our deadlines Engage as per the candidate’s life cycle

Publishing what we deem important (like PR articles)

Strategize on the 4 phases (DNCC) and integrate different forms of content

Measuring traffic to our site/webpage Creating a micro-community

Advertising and marketing definition Recruiting and headhunting frameworks

Over to Gaurav