Ad for students: Private schools use SMS, cinemas to lure ‘customers’

Admission open from Kindergarten up to class XI,’ reads an SMS from a popular school in the city which uses bulk SMS software to send SMSes to a large group of people. ‘Integrated program for JEE main/advanced/NET/ CPT and foundation course is also available’, reads the SMS further.
Admission season is round the corner, and educational institutions, especially schools, are adopting novel ways to market their brand and stay alive in the ever competitive education market.
Distribution of pamphlets and erecting banners have become conventional modes of brand marketing. Effective use of audio visual platform for branding apart from sending SMSes to target audience have become the new mantra in Trichy of late.
Schools are racing up to build their own image and brand as there is intense competition to attract students, says heads of educational institutions in Trichy.
"We have been using mass SMS sending software over the past few years, which indeed is effective. This helped us spread the school’s name over word of mouth," said head of a private school in the city.


Many of the private schools are seeing cinemas as an effective medium to market their institutions. While Vignesh Group of institutions has been using the audio visual platform for its promotion in Trichy, this year two more schools have got their advertisement contents ready to be streamed in theatres.
However, only premium theatres in the city with high quality visuals on 2K technology are preferred by these intuitions to target the upper middle class parents.
Citing popular surveys, an insider from the industry said, "Commercials screened in theatres are eight times more effective than being watched in the television sets. There has been an increase in such advertisements even though it is costlier than branding through newspapers and television channels.
"The competition among schools is becoming more intense over the years and this time it’s even more because of the issues related to NEET. Earlier, Tamil Nadu was not part of the system where entrance examinations were that important for a majority. This has also caused a shift in focus among the parents from the state curriculum towards the central board, which has also triggered an increase in the number of CBSE schools," said head of another popular school in the city.

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