With the invention of E-Learning, the education system in India has revolutionized, offering more opportunities for students to learn from the best. Many e-learning platforms in India offer students the opportunity to attend live classes, watch pre-recorded lectures, take mock tests, and much more. Among the best e-learning platforms in India, Byju stands at the forefront of offering comprehensive learning solutions across various subjects and competitive exams. Byju is one the best ed-tech platforms in India that provides education to over 115 million registered students. The biggest credit for its success goes to Byju’s marketing strategy.
Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath founded Byju’s in 2011 with the aim of revolutionizing the Indian online education system. Over the years, Byju’s marketing strategy has helped the company establish a strong presence in the Indian education landscape. But how did Byju’s manage to do that? What are their marketing efforts? Who is its target audience? We will discuss all these things further in the blog. Make sure to thoroughly read the entire article.
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Byju’s Journey Over The Years
2006: Started with CAT preparation classes with less than 40 students on board. However, within 6 weeks, this number crossed 1,000 as students started enrolling in Byju’s. By the end of 2006, they expanded their presence in 4 cities.
2007: Started offering workshops and seminars to target college students in different towns and cities.
2010: Established a strong position in more than 45 cities across India. Moreover, the company started preparing students for competitive exams by adding UPSC to its curriculum.
2011: Byju’s registered itself as a company.
2012: Launched the specialised panel and the first-ever continuous learning platform on tablets for classes 8-12. The strong Byju’s marketing strategy helped the company to register its name under Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India and Fast 500 Asia Pacific.
2015: Launched the official Byju’s app. In less than a year, the company gained more than 30,000 active subscribers.
Byju’s Target Audience
Before talking about Byju’s marketing strategy, let’s try to understand who are its target audience.
The target audience of India’s No. 1 Ed-tech company, Byju, is all the millennials and Gen-Z from class 1 to higher competitive exams: CAT, JEE, NEET, GMAT, UPSC, and banking exams. In addition to students, the company also targets parents, who are the final decision-makers.
Byju’s Marketing Strategy During Covid-19
The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a blessing in disguise for Byju. While most of the brands were facing financial losses, Byju’s accelerated its marketing efforts to increase its user base and revenue. During the Pandemic, the company surpassed a $10.5 billion valuation after raising an investment of $100 million from Silicon Valley investor and analyst Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital.
Byju’s marketing strategy came into the limelight when it started providing free access to its educational courses for two months, from April to May. Within a period of two months, the company added 6 million new students in April and 7.5 million users in May. By doing this, the company benefited itself and solved the biggest problem for students during the crisis by imparting free education for two months.
The reason for providing free access lies in their marketing strategy, as they followed the reciprocity principle. According to this principle, when someone helps or favours you, you are bound to return the favour. So, if students use free access for two months, there is a high chance that they will continue to enjoy their learning experience by renewing their membership. With this innovative step, Byju’s marketing strategy, the company witnessed a 150% increase in student enrollments.
Byju’s Acquiring Companies
After the huge success of this strategy, Byju started to develop an ecosystem by either defeating or acquiring its competitors. In August 2020, the company acquired White Hat, an online coding school, for $300 million. Moreover, in April 2021, Byju’s acquired Akash Educational Services for $1 billion, which is also Byju’s largest acquisition to date. The success of Byju’s marketing strategy proved to be a wonder for them, and after that, they acquired many e-learning platforms, such as Toopar, Gradeup, etc.
Byju’s Marketing Campaigns and Sponsorships
To gain the audience’s trust and give the brand a more human touch, Byju introduced Shahrukh Khan as their brand ambassador. In 2017, they made an advertisement with Shahrukh Khan to launch their official app. The company released the advertisement during a cricket match between India and Pakistan. This shows the strong effect of Byju’s marketing strategy as it knew the hype of the India vs Pakistan match to promote their services on a large scale. So when millions of people were watching the match, Shahrukh Khan said, “Let Your Children Fall In Love With The Learning”. The advertisement targeted both children and their parents, and it was a huge success.
To promote the brand internationally, Byju collaborated with Disney to attract kids and boost the brand. The partnership between Byju’s and Disney has made learning fun for kids. Through educational games, digital worksheets, and beloved Disney stories, parents have seen that their children can learn while having a great time.
Sponsoring Indian Cricket Jersey
The strong Byju’s marketing strategy earned them a sponsorship with Indian Cricket Jersey in 2019. The video campaign featured a logo, Byju’s, on the official jersey of the Indian Cricket Team with the name “Keep Learning”. In the video, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawa, KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant came onto the pitch with a big Byju logo on their jersey. This shows Byju’s excellent marketing strategy, as they clearly understand how cricket is treated in India. This was one of the biggest successes of Byju’s as a brand, where they targeted both children and parents alike.
Byju’s Regional Campaigns
India is a land of different cultures and languages, and Byju’s marketing strategy targeted people using their languages and cultural differences. Initially, the brand launched a few campaigns in Hindi, but they soon realised that to connect people on a large scale, they must launch regional campaigns. In 2019, the company launched a campaign with Mahesh Babu to target the people of Telangana and Andra Pradesh. The campaign shows the changing learning habits of children and how Byju’s makes this learning fun and super easy. Moreover, the campaign also showcased how technology can be a good friend to children.
In 2020, Byju’s marketing strategy extended its efforts by launching two ad campaigns, this time with Kannada superstar Sudheer Sanjeev. Apart from this, two new advertisements with their existing Brand Ambassador, Mahesh Babu were also released in the same year.
Global Partner of ICC
After integrating the official cricket jersey of the Indian Cricket Team into Byju’s marketing strategy, the company partnered with the International Cricket Council. In February 2021, the ICC made Byju’s its global partner for three years. The contract allowed Byju’s to partner in different ICC events, including the 2017 Cricket World Cup in India and the Women’s Cricket World Cup in New Zealand. As per the partnership, Byju will get all the rights, including in-venue, broadcast, and digital rights, for all the ICC events.
Learnings From Byju’s Marketing Strategy
If you want to be successful, develop a marketing strategy like Byju’s did. During COVID-19, when businesses started to shut down, Byju’s emerged as a pioneer in revolutionising the Indian education system. If you look at all of their marketing strategies, including sponsorship and collaborations, you will see that they always target both children and their parents. Byju’s marketing strategy made children believe that education can be fun and technology can be their friend. By launching campaigns like Keep Learning, Byju convinced the parents that mobile phones could be used for learning rather than just entertainment, thus tapping into a vast market segment and establishing themselves as a leading Ed tech brand.