Twenty-six years and 101 centres old, Aakash Educational Services has been successful in building a brand, fulfilling career aspirations of thousands of students looking to enter the medical and engineering professions. Today, Aakash has evolved to include not just classroom courses, but also distance learning and online programmes. The study centres comprise both the branches of the institute as well as franchise partners and are increasing in number, especially in the Tier II and Tier III towns. Devansh Sharma spoke to Aakash Chaudhry, Director, Aakash Educational Services, to find out about their growth strategy in the small towns and why they remain a sought after educational Brand
Q] Aakash Educational Services has become synonymous with quality education over the years. How are you looking at consolidating this position over the next few years?
We began as a coaching institute for engineering and medical aspirants. We had one centre and today, we have 101 centres across India and train more than one lakh students for the competitive exams. The teaching process has undergone a change. We provide education through our classroom programmes, through correspondence courses and through online programmes. Now, we are looking forward to expand to Tier II and Tier III cities. The reason is, people in these towns do not like to experiment. They will go for established players and established brands. People in metros like Delhi and Mumbai look for convenience, efficiency, experimentation and are quite adaptable to new brands or institutions. But in Tier II and Tier III towns, a student will travel 50 kilometers daily for a good teacher if the brand provides value. Aakash as a brand is well known and respected in the industry, so it has great acceptance in smaller towns. That’s where the focus lies in the coming years.
Q] North India is a huge market for Aakash. How are you reaching out to students there and what will be your strategy?
We get 30% of our business from towns in the North. UP is the second largest market for medical and engineering aspirants. In UP we focus on cities like Agra, Aligarh, Bareilly, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut, Moradabad and Varanasi. In fact, students from our institute outperformed the others in the JEE exam in 2014. The whole of UP performed exceptionally well. Ranchi, Dhanbad and Jamshedpur from Jharkhand are also important for us. Patna is yet another important city in the Hindi belt. Our short term courses have received good response this year from several cities in North India. We have a result-oriented approach and that works well for us. When we entered the towns of North India, most students would go for tuitions for individual subjects as there was no such institute that had all subjects under one roof. Aakash provided professional coaching for all subjects under one roof.
We have a 360-degree marketing approach and therefore we use digital, traditional media and on ground activities. We are also using tie-ups, as a part of our core marketing strategy. About 40-50% of our marketing spends are allocated to Print. We use newspaper ads as information bulletins for students where we mention our programmes, the results of the current and previous years to retain confidence in the brand. We cannot ignore Print because vernacular media targets the small areas. In that sense, it creates immense value for us. Print allows us to elaborate the information we want to disseminate. If someone sees the Print ad, they go to the website for further details, or reach out to us offline. Word of mouth publicity happens when people know your brand. So the wide reach of Print helps us in getting word of mouth publicity also. As a part of the strategy for Print, we focus on dailies including mainstream and vernacular newspapers.
Vernacular medium plays a very important role in our Print strategy. Whenever we enter a town or a city, we enter with an intention to become part of that city and not as an outsider with business interests. Therefore, we have to earn the confidence of locals by appearing in the vernacular media to which they are exposed. Vernacular helps to localize the communication with consumers. We use Television for brand-building, to gain the confidence of consumers. Radio is another medium where we enjoy a good bandwidth and good airtime.
Q] Which States are critical for Aakash?
Our 101st branch of the institute launched in Kota. Aakash aims to bring its services to this city and cater to the high-level of demand here. Almost 60% of the aspirants who come to Kota to realize their dreams of entering one of the country’s premier institutes for medical and engineering studies come from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, etc. We are a popular and sought-after educational destination in these States and aim to tap this demand and help students with our tutorial services.
Q] Please cite a few media campaigns that have worked well for your institution.
We had a tie-up with KBC and Satyamev Jayate. For KBC, the format and the genre of the show suited our offerings. Satyamev Jayate’s core proposition was honesty, inspiration, social contribution and so on and those tied in well with the brand values of Aakash Institute. These tie-ups have worked quite well for us. In our Print campaigns, the series of ads that announce our results regularly, work well for us.
