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CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the dissertation titled Market Research On COLLEGEDUNIAS
Competitors And Consumer Preferences Towards Search Engine Websites In Educational
Domain submitted by Vaibhav Sehgal in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of
Management, New Delhi is an authentic record of the candidates own work carried under my
guidance. The matter embodied in the dissertation is original and has not been submitted for the
award of any other degree.
Declaration
I also declare that the data in this report is publicly available i.e. nothing disclosed is
confidential and no part of this report has been submitted by me fully or partly for the
award of any degree, diploma, title or recognition earlier.
Date:
Vaibhav Sehgal
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is my proud privilege to express my profound gratitude to my project guide Mr Sanjay
Meena at Collegedunia Web Private Limited, for his invaluable inspiration, guidance and
encouragement throughout this project work, without his help it would have been very difficult
to pull this project up to the present standard.
I would also like to sincerely thank my mentor, Dr Gaurav Joshi at Lal Bahadur Shastri
Institute of Management, New Delhi for her support. I would also like to express my gratitude
to Collegedunia Web Private Limited for giving me the opportunity to work with them.
Most importantly I would like to thank all the respondents who took time out of their busy
schedule and filled my questionnaire which helped me in completing my research.
Title
Page Number
Introduction
13
Literature Review
28
Objectives of study
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39
Suggestions
51
Limitations of Study
53
References
55
Annexures
57
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
India has truly become a start-up Nation. Since 2010, The Indian technology start-ups
landscape has seen a tremendous growth towards creation of innovative start-ups and this
country, a home to a new breed of young start-ups, has clearly evolved to become the third
largest base of technology start-ups in the world. Within one year, the number of start-ups has
grown by 40 per cent, and this number is expected to cross 4,200 by the end of 2015.
Given this pace of growth, if the landscape continues to evolve, then by the end of 2020 more
than 11,500 start-ups are expected to get established in India, generating employment
opportunities for more than 250,000 people.65 percent of these start-ups are housed in
Bengaluru, NCR and Mumbai. Bengaluru, often referred to as Indias Silicon Valley, has been
listed within the worlds 20 leading start-up cities in the 2015 Start-up Genome Project ranking.
Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad, Jaipur are also emerging as start-up-hubs.
India has seen an upsurge in start-up funding. According to data from YourStory, a media body
that covers start-ups, capital worth $9 billion was invested in Indian start-ups in 2015, which is
equal to the cumulative funding in the 2010-2014 period. Online and mobile categories
dominate the deals, owing to the rising Internet population of India, now over 350 million.
Active investors in India have increased from 220 in 2014 to 490 in 2015, says NASSCOMs
report. As of December 2015, eight Indian start-ups - Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola, InMobi, Paytm,
Quikr, Zomato and MuSigma - form part of the Unicorn club (start-ups having valuation
greater than a billion dollar).
Excluding MuSigma, the other seven held the major share in 2015 funding, as around $3billion
(33 percent of total) was put into the Unicorns, says the YourStory report. ShopClues, an online
marketplace, made it to the Unicorn club last Tuesday, following an undisclosed round of
funding led by GIC, a Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund.
According to report of the Expert Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, constituted
by NITI Aayog, Indian entrepreneurs spend an average of four-to-five times more effort raising
funds compared to their American counterparts. The report cites early stage funding as a
challenge, with angel investments in India comprise only seven percent of early-stage investing
as compared to seventy-five percent in the US.
Investors in India are keener towards later-stage funding, in companies which are already
generating revenues, betting large sums of money in fewer companies, says the report. Plus,
eight out of ten Venture Capital and Private Equity firms are foreign-based.
The government has shown their interest to support the start-up ecosystem and Start-up India is
expected to take it ahead with introduction of key policy reforms. According to Nilotpal
Chakravarti, AVP of Internet and Mobile Association of India, Over the last one year, the
government has been steadily building a conducive atmosphere for encouraging start-ups in
India. Initiative like Digital India and Make in India are the biggest enablers for providing boost
to start-ups.
Hyperlocal revolution
Your local grocer became tech savvy this year; so did your plumber and your local food
delivery boys. Biggies like Amazon, Ola, Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Paytm entered the hyperlocal
grocery services in 2015. Food delivery service Yumist raised $2 million for expansion while
Swiggy ventured to Chennai, covering all tier I cities. Home services provider Housejoy went
from 40 orders a day to 4,000 in 10 months since its launch in January, while its competitor
Urbanclap backed by Ratan Tata among others got 3000 vendors in Mumbai alone. Even
offline shopping was made easier by Shopsity, a discovery platform, and digital payment
provider Momoe ventured beyond restaurants, into grocery stores, spas and salons, and apparel
stores.
Pooling is a virtue
It was probably the entry of French company BlaBla cars, a long distance ride-sharing service
connecting private drivers, into the country in January that ignited the idea of carpooling among
cab aggregators in India. Eight-year-old Meru Cabs launched carpooling in September. Around
the same time, US-based Uber launched the service in Bengaluru, which was followed by Ola
in a month. The trend is sure to grow, with the recent decision by the Delhi government to
implement odd-even rule in which odd numbered cars run on odd dates, and even numbered
cars on even dates provides the perfect platform for these companies to encourage pooling
for their passengers in 2016.
10
E-commerce went handy this year when biggies like Flipkart and Snapdeal focused more on
their rising mobile phone traffic. India is increasingly becoming a mobile-first country, and even
startups like Elanic are going app-only for their business. Myntra made headlines when it went
app-only in May. Although Flipkart was rumoured to go app-only after shutting down its mobile
website, they later settled for a new mobile site Flipkart lite, which is claimed to be 99
percent similar to the native app but is only 10kb. Rival Snapdeal followed suit with Snap-lite,
which is claimed to be 85 percent faster than the original mobile site and is available across all
mobile browsers. With almost 70 percent of transactions coming from their apps, Amazon and
Flipkart provided some offers exclusively on apps during the festive season sales this year.
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Industry Overview
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Digital Marketing
Mobile Marketing
Last year, the number of searched on mobile devices surpassed desktop search for the first
time. 2015 was a big year for mobile- and in 2016, smart money rests on mobile-oriented
online marketing. Smart phones should be a big part of the marketers focus. If your website is
not mobile friendly, then you may lack behind your competitors.
Business Listings
Is your business listed? As the new trends are on the rise, business listing has become a vital
part of digital marketing. Listing your website on Google and other major search engines can
connect you directly with customers, whether they are looking for you on search, maps or
anywhere else.
Content Strategies
No doubt, content is still an important part of digital marketing. Content being one of the best
digital marketing strategies helps connecting a brand with its audience. To convert audience
into the customers, online marketers need to distinguish between content and valuable content.
Attractive blogs should include engaging words, appealing images and interesting videos. A
blog should be capable enough to engage and lure the customers to make an action.
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Link Building
Link building refers to the process of getting external pages to link to a page on your website. It
is one of the many tactics used in search engine optimization (SEO). Building links is a
difficult, time-consuming process as not all links are created equal. A link from an authoritative
website like the Wall Street Journal will make a greater impact on a SERP than a link from a
newly built website, but high quality links are hard to come by.
Social Media
Search your company on a variety of browsers in a variety of locations. Note if your active
social media pages Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter come up. Maintaining and growing a
social media presence can envelope the main page nicely in rank. Optimally, your webpage
would pull up first, but following should be social media channels emblazoned with up-to-date
content and an engaged community. Then, if the user does not click to your webpage first, at
least they are greeted with the essence of your brand; it is here they are invited into your brand
which is a invaluable positioning technique.
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Web Analytics
Bounce Rate Tracking Outbound links
Your website's bounce rate is a metric that indicates the percentage of people who land on one
of your web pages and then leave without clicking to anywhere else on your website -- in other
words, single-page visitors. If visitors bounce, it suggests they either didn't find what they were
looking for, or the page wasn't user-friendly.
ROI on Campaigns
Measuring the ROI of search traffic is great. But its even more important to measure the ROI
of all your marketing campaigns. After all, youre spending money and time on them. We need
to know if its worth it. Google Analytics will track any URL that you can edit. Emails,
Facebook, banner ads, you can track it all. Its also super easy to set campaigns up. Theres no
settings on your profile to manage and no new reports to activate. All you have to do is start
building campaign URLs via Googles URL Builder tool.
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Collegedunia, launched in 2014, focuses on data and provides information on about 20,000
colleges. It covers areas like fee, placement, alumni record, rankings, awards and
extracurricular activities.
Collegedunia.com is working with an objective to make the lives of college applicants easier.
Collegedunia aims to address the vast gap between universities, institutions, students & parents.
It is an extensive search engine for the students, parents, and education industry players who are
seeking information on higher education sector in India and abroad.
With majority of Indias Internet population, especially the students accessing it on mobile,
collegedunia.com, a premier College Search engine becomes the first app to launch on the app
store.
Collegedunia has scaled the traffic to top 1022 websites in India (Alexa) and have the most
impressive growth rates for an education platform with 80000 ++ unique visitors per day.
The notifications and announcements from colleges/institutes are scattered, and students are on
the lookout for in-depth information such as detailed fee structure, scholarships available, cut
offs, the admission process, eligibility, and even co-curricular facilities. As a classifieds portal,
theyre focused on small details like amenities, fests and hostels etc. which are important for
students while taking college related decisions.
Collegedunia recently launched an exam feature where they notify aspirants about entrance
exams deadlines, provide free sample papers, tips, and counselling and result advice. Features
such as institute listings, personalized notifications, authentic alumni advice talks and college
reviews.
The start-up also plans to provide solutions to colleges and coaching institutes, such as
application management systems, customer relationship management tools and online
counselling tools, listing coaching institutes, polytechnic institutes and entrance exams details.
It plans to become the Zomato of the education industry.
Getting detailed information about colleges was the toughest part of filling the information gap.
Thats why the start-up set up a research team of about three dozen to gather data. Getting
information like reviews of students and alumni becomes really important.
Information on loans and scholarships are not available anywhere on the internet,
Therefore, Collegedunia aims to make students and parents life easier by providing organized,
detailed and genuine information to them.
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Product Offerings
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SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS
Counselled Responses
Collegedunia provides counselled responses which no other competitor does. The leads are
highly valued and sold by the company at the quoted price because theres no competitor
providing the same in the market.
Website Design
They have a simple 3-click website design wherein you can reach your destination with just 3
clicks on the website.
For example if a student is looking for a MBA college in Mumbai, he just needs to click on
MBA colleges States (Maharashtra) Mumbai (a 3-click process).
The design is way classier, attractive and user friendly as compared to other websites.
Everything is accessible from the home page itself and the home page is very simple too.
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Content
Collegedunia has one of the best lot of content as compared to others in the education domain
because of which Google, organically ranks Collegedunia at the top for almost every keyword
therefore they dont have to put in a lot of efforts in terms of SEO because the content is already
very good and it keeps on updating on a daily basis.
For BBA colleges in India, we organically stand on the number 1 position on Google.
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For MBA colleges in India, we organically stand on the number 3 position on Google.
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Listings
Collegedunia lists out colleges according to their actual rank unlike other competitors. They do
have a proposition of page listings but the page listings only start after organically listing the
top colleges. Therefore they dont sell out the authenticity of the colleges.
WEAKNESS
Trust Factor
Collegedunia faces a lot of issue in regards of trust amongst the clients. Since its a start-up and
just 18 months old it doesnt have a strong client base which leads to suspicion of target
fulfilment of the clients. This poses a lot of problem in the sales of the inventory.
Back-end Operations
Operations is one of the weaknesses. Once the company gets a campaign or a partnership with
any of the colleges, there are no set rules defined for the campaign publishing process. The rules
are then and there made and created, its like checking the whereabouts, like how will they
exactly do it. Its all on trial and error basis. Theres no smooth flow of the process that if a
company gets a campaign, it easily gets in process, published and gets successful.
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OPPORTUNITIES
TECH Team
It has its own internal Tech team comprising of 25 experts from the market. All the products that
Collegedunia has in its basket is solely made by the tech team from scratch viz. the website, the
mobile app and the other side products and software. Generally other websites outsource their
tech work to agencies whereas their tech team has made everything from the scratch including
the software LMS Leads Management System which is in process. Its a management system
being created for the clients so that they have their own private accounts to keep a check on
their deliverables.
Mobile App
They also made the mobile app which is first education search engine website in the market to
enter the mobile application system. It already has 35000+ downloads in just a span of few
months with an average rating of around 4.1.
Collegedunia immediately sensed the opportunity when it saw that the 60% of its websites
traffic is from mobile users and thats when they launched its mobile app.
Review Platform
Collegedunia is very much focused on becoming the review platform apart from just providing
the listings and college information, the website visitors are provided with authentic reviews of
colleges which will help develop trust of the customers.
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THREATS
Shiksha.com, Careers360 and HTcampus.com are the three major threats to Collegedunia.
Careers360 is more of a threat than Shiksha.com reason being Carreers360 has a very
competitive content as compared to collegedunias content.
Whereas, Shiksha stands as a threat when we talk about banners and partner colleges and
deliverables.
26
On the other hand, HTcampus is a threat, again in terms of content and SEO rank on Google,
its ahead of collegedunia.com
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Clients Delivered
During the Internship, I was given specific regions for sales visits namely Faridabad, Gurugram,
Palwal, Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida. To cover this region and to acquire clients, I
made approximately 75 sales visits. Besides this, I was also given the South Region of India for
cold calling in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Tamil Nadu and Pune.
All this resulted in achieving the following clients.
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LITERATURE REVIEW
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manner. On the other hand, OBrien and Keane (2006) propose that underlying reason behind
this behavior is likely to be users seeking satisfactory as opposed to optimal results. One of our
research goals is to consider how our informants view search results and their overall
satisfaction with the results in fulfilling their research needs.
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This is to present you the work on the topic Marketing Research for College Search Engine
Websites", undertaken to develop an understanding of consumer behaviour visiting search
engine websites to identify the following:
To identify and rank choice criterion for selection and admission in colleges at
graduation and post-graduation level.
Forwarding the same for your kind perusal and necessary action.
Objectives of Study
The primary objective of this project is to enhance the quality of the decision making at
Collegedunia and to reduce the business risk through acquisition of relevant data and
information.
1. To determine the positioning of Collegedunia against those of its competitors in the minds of
its customers (visitors)/clientele.
2. To determine the factors that influence organic traffic on our website and reduce bounce rate.
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Research Methodology
Research method
Firstly exploratory research was conducted on secondary data to know the problem then
descriptive research has been conducted to know the choice criteria of the consumers and
various other aspects in order to take Marketing decision.
Secondary research
Secondary data are those which have been collected by someone else and which already have
been passed through statistical process. Data from various web analytics websites and data from
the website of the competitors has been collected for background work.
Primary research
Primary data is the first hand data, which are selected a fresh and thus happen to be original in
character. Primary Data was crucial to know various customers and past consumer views about
Collegedunia and other cafes and to calculate the market share of this brand in regards to other
brands. Primary research was conducted partly by floating online forms to our mates and partly
by surveying the clients directly during our sales visits.
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2. Likert Scale
The Likert scale would be used to find out how the respondents perceive the features of various
features on our website.
Sampling Plan
Population: Sampling unit is the population which is to be targeted .The research was done in
Delhi-NCR& Pune and the respondents were in the age group of 19 and above.
Sampling Unit: A single section selected to research and gather statistics of the whole. Here it
is a visitor on College Search Engine Websites.
Sampling Element: These are the ultimate respondents for the research questionnaire and
include a group of potential visitors namely students, families corporate houses and
professionals.
Sampling Frame: Potential visitors and clients who visit the Collegedunia application and
website.
Sample Universe: All the potential visitors and clients who visit college search engine
websites.
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Data analysis
To analyse the data statistical tool SPSS is used. In the field of Marketing Research SPSS
proves to be a very effective tool. After the data was collected we applied tests such as factor
analysis to reduce the number of variables (which are causing the least variance). MultiDimensional Scaling has also been used to analyse our competitors which helped us come to a
conclusion. Besides excel and graphs have been used extensively in this research.
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Findings
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Factor Analysis
Factor analysis is a form of exploratory multivariate analysis that is used to either reduce the
number of variables in a model or to detect relationships among variables. All variables
involved in the factor analysis need to be interval and are assumed to be normally distributed.
The goal of the analysis is to try to identify factors which underlie the variables. There may be
fewer factors than variables, but there may not be more factors than variables. It is a statistical
method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a
potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors.
Analysis:
Step 1: Bartletts test & KMO
Null Hypothesis H0: The variables are uncorrelated
Alternative Hypothesis H1: The variables are correlated with each other.
Test Statistic: KMO and Bartlett's Test
Level of significance: 5%
Interpretation:
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Test:
KMO measures sampling adequacy, i.e., appropriateness of factor analysis. Its value should be
greater than 0.5 to proceed. Since, in this case value of KMO is 0.721 which is greater than
0.5. Thus, factor analysis is appropriate.
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Bartletts Test:
It indicates the strength of relationship among variables. It tests the null hypothesis stated
above. Since, in this case, significance value is 0.000 which is lower than 0.05. Thus, it is
statistically significant and thus, null hypothesis is rejected.
Step 2: Communality
It shows that how much of the variance in a variable has been accounted for by the extracted
factors. Thus, it shows the percentage of variance in a variable that is captured by the common
underlying factor.
In this case, the value is highest for variable 14 and is lowest for variable 11.
Eigen values represents the percentage of total variance explained by each factor. In this case,
first five factors cumulatively explain 73.149% of the total variance.
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The five major factors for Collegedunia to focus upon are User Interface & Content,
Rankings & Accessibility, Availability of Brochure, Convenience Features and
Advertisements.
Advertisements and Availability of Brochure have been the stand alone attributes in the
above described factors.
It explains Banners, Listings and Social Media Marketing are integral part of a website
in educational domain.
Brochure brings the viewers in direct touch with various colleges and helps answer the
doubts in their mind.
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Multi-Dimensional Scaling
Attribute Based Mapping: To identify attributes which best discriminates college search
engine websites and develop an attribute based perceptual map.
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Since all the functions except one are less than .05 that is statistically significant and explain
cumulative 100% of variance, Therefore we will continue with the significantly discriminant
functions.
Also, 4 Functions significantly discriminate the websites.
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Now with the help of following tables we will plot attributes and brands on the map taking
discriminant functions as dimensions.
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Perceptual Map
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From the perceptual map, we see that Function 2 is characterized by Website Design while
Function 1 is characterized by Functionality, Originality and Freshness of Content and Quality
of Information Presentation.
Collegedunia scores high on F1 dimension, Consumers who attach a higher importance on
Functionality would prefer Collegedunia, as Collegedunia is perceived strong on Functionality.
None of the search engine websites score high on Function 2 which is characterized by Website
Design.
Since Compatibility is not close to either of the functions, therefore it is not represented by any
of the dimensions.
Collegedunia is close to the origin, suggesting that it is significant in the college search engine
domain. However, it is a part of a cluster namely Collegedunia, Careers360, MBA Universe and
HT Campus and thus does not have its own USP.
The closest competitors for Collegedunia would be HT Campus and MBA Universe and are the
potential reason behind loss of sales to Collegedunia.
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Suggestions
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Five major factors have been identified for Collegedunia to focus on, User Interface &
Content, Rankings & Accessibility, Availability of Brochure, Convenience Features and
Advertisements.
Banners and Mobile application are strong points of Collegedunia and these need to be
leveraged.
Website Design and Compatibility are determining attributes and should be emphasized upon.
Collegedunia need to undertake a campaign, aimed at customer in age bracket 18-24 as they
formulate the major share of organic traffic and there is a lot of scope for this age bracket to
become loyal Collegedunia visitors.
Collegedunia does not have its own USP in the eyes of viewers. Hence, the increasing bounce
rate.
Collegedunia should focus on people working in education sector as they can promote the
website easily to their target audience.
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The research is limited only to New Delhi and Pune; hence error might creep in while
generalizing the results.
The sample size of 384 might not be adequate to generate a general perception about the
search engine websites characteristics of Delhi and Pune.
The respondents might not have disclosed their actual viewpoint to questions in which they
had to recall from their past experiences.
Consumer is a focal point in the market research. However, his buying motives are difficult to
judge precisely and accurately
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REFERENCES
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Kotler, P (2013), Marketing Management (14th edition). New Jersey: Pearson education
international.
Malhotra, Naresh K. & Das, Satyabhushan (2013). Marketing Research (6th edition).
New Jersey: Pearson education international.
Data for analysis. (April May 2016). Retrieved from Google Analytics
(https://www.google.com/analytics/web/)
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Annexure
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Questionnaire
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