Marketing automation is the here & now for Edtech companies

"An omni-channel marketing automation and analytics platform is what Edtech brands need" says Gaurav Gupta, Sr. VP – Enterprise Sales, Netcore Solutions.

From chalks, desks, a blackboard and a teacher to logins, uploading homework through a portal and learning biology through 3D immersion, education has come a long way. The latest developments in technology, coupled with funding and innovations have contributed immensely to making online education an effective alternative to traditional teaching processes. The increasing use of smartphones and easy internet access have led to students being more inclined towards the sector. This has led to a boom in the industry leading to scores of edtech startups entering this space.

According to a report by Google and KPMG, the EdTech industry is all set to grow to $1.96 billion by the year 2021. This implies that existing companies are going to grow exponentially, new companies are going to capture the market with big spends, or a healthy amalgamation of the two. Nevertheless, growing businesses are bound to face several challenges, but the future is bright.

At a roundtable organized by IAMAI & Netcore, the challenges of capturing data were highlighted by Upneet Grover, Founder, GetMyUni: "Collecting data and then making the students reach the right organisation is the most difficult task."

Similar to many other fields, hyper personalization of consumer experiences is the solution to age-old marketing dilemmas that present itself in growing businesses. However, how is this hyper personalization achieved? The best solution – an omni channel marketing automation & analytics platform.

Gaurav Gupta, Sr. VP – Enterprise Sales, Netcore Solutions, stated at the roundtable, “Edtech companies are bridging a huge gap in the market by enabling students/professionals to learn at their own pace, providing career counselling, information on scholarships, job orientations, talent assessments, and placement opportunities.” He added, “Thanks to the digital ecosystems, ROI is emerging as an important metric here to gauge customer experience and stickiness of the brand itself. An omni-channel marketing automation and analytics platform is what Edtech brands need to achieve through hyper-personalization of consumer experiences.”

Without a doubt, marketing automation is the accelerator of growth for the Edtech sector. Innovations in technologies are changing how Edtech businesses acquire, mobilize, engage, and retain customers. Kshitij Jain, Marketing Head, NIIT said, “The major role of technology is to be able to do deep data analytics and then personalize content or learning patterns for appropriate recommendations.”

Creating personas to market to will be the basis of customization in content delivery and this was underlined by the Chief Innovation Officer of Netcore Solutions, VeerChand Bothra, who stated, “Companies that are in the early stage, need to invest in the data architecture and data layering during the early days so that they can start capturing customer data and then build customer data platform out of it around individual customer profiles, then create segmentation and personas out of it. The capability to analyze and market the personas is only possible with marketing automation.”

Automation is the future? Well, automation is the here and now, and how!