PROJECT REPORT

ON

MANAGING END TO END

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE AND
BRAND BUILDING
CAMPAIGNS FOR
ENHANCING USER
ENGAGEMENT
___________________________________________________________
_______
SUMMER INTERNSHIP APRIL- JUNE 2015
AT

CAREERS360
UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF
Prof. A.K PURI
FACULTY GUIDE

SUBMITTED BY
KOPAL SINGLA
231078
FMG 23 (2014-16)

FORE SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT, NEW DELHI

DECLARATION

I, Kopal Singla (231078), student of PGDM 2014-2016, FORE School Of

Management, hereby declare that the Internship Report titled MANAGING END TO
END PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE AND BRAND BUILDING CAMPAIGNS FOR
ENHANCING USER ENGAGEMENT is my original work. The contents of the
project report have not been published before and reflect the work done by me
during my internship from April, 2015 till June, 2015. This project report is being
submitted towards the partial fulfilment for the requirement of the award of Post
Graduate Diploma in Management by FORE School of Management.
This Report is the result of my own work, no part of it has earlier comprised any
other report, monograph, dissertation or book.

Kopal Singla
231078 (FMG- 23)
2014-2016
FORE School Of Management, New Delhi

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Ms. (Kopal Singla, 231078) has completed her summer
internship at Careers360,Delhi and has submitted this project report entitled
"Managing end to end product life cycle and brand building campaigns for enhancing
user engagement at Careers360" towards part fulfilment of the requirements for the
award of the Post Graduate Diploma in Management (FMG-23) 2014-2016.
This Report is the result of her own work and to the best of my knowledge, no
part of it has earlier comprised any other report, monograph, dissertation or book.
This project was carried out under my overall supervision.
Date:

Place: Delhi
Prof. A.K. Puri
Internal Faculty Guide

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I, take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people who have been
instrumental in the successful completion of this project.

I, would first of all extend my gratitude to my company guide, Mr. Anupam Sinha,
(Senior Product Manager) for providing me with an excellent opportunity to do
summer internship with the company. The training has been one of enlightenment
and immense learning. I would like to thank him for providing me an opportunity to
understand the intricacies of the food processing industry.

I, would also like to thank Prof. A.K. Puri, Faculty Guide, Finance, FORE School of
Management, for his mentorship and regular monitoring of the progress of the
project. His constant encouragement and interest in my study have added a great
deal to the quality of my project.

Lastly, I wish to take this opportunity to thank the Institution, faculty members and
peers without whom this project would have been a distant reality.

Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...............................................................................................4
TABLE OF FIGURES.7
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY..............................................................................................6
CHAPTER 1................................................................................................................10
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................10
CHAPTER 2................................................................................................................15
LITERATURE REVIEW..............................................................................................15
CHAPTER 3................................................................................................................22
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..................................................................................22
RESEARCH DESIGN..............................................................................................22
DATA COLLECTION................................................................................................22
CHAPTER 4................................................................................................................27
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION...................................................................................27
Review Your College Contest Campaign...................................................................42
Objectives of the Campaign:...................................................................................42
Benefits of getting more Reviews for Careers360:.................................................42
About the Campaign:...............................................................................................43
Plan of Action:.........................................................................................................43
Initial Execution and Problems................................................................................44
Challenges Faced during execution:.......................................................................45
How we informed the participants about their code and points?............................46
Marketing Strategy......................................................................................................46
Primary Marketing Strategy.....................................................................................47
Change in Mailers Strategy.....................................................................................47
Secondary Marketing Strategy................................................................................48
ANALYSIS:..................................................................................................................50
CHAPTER 5................................................................................................................52
SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS..........................................................52
Annexure-I..................................................................................................................53
ABOUT CAREERS360 - PROFILE.........................................................................53
COMPANY HISTORY..............................................................................................54
Products & Services Offered...................................................................................55

Revenue Model........................................................................................................56
Annexure- II................................................................................................................57
Student Engagement - College Forums and Reviews............................................57
Annexure III................................................................................................................61
Creative's for Review Your College Campaign.......................................................61
BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................64

TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Participant flow map....................................................................................17
Figure 2:The four step process...................................................................................18
Figure 3: Factors determining customer engagement into value creation and its
relations to loyalty.......................................................................................................20
Figure 4: Age group of respondents...........................................................................23
Figure 5: Educational Qualifications of respondents..................................................23
Figure 6: Domain wise distribution.............................................................................24
Table 1: List of websites analyzed..............................................................................24
Figure 7: Are college review and discussion forums an authentic source of college
information?................................................................................................................27
Figure 8: Number of students who have visited any of these websites to access
College information/discussions/reviews etc.?...........................................................28
Figure 9: Frequency of writing reviews and giving ratings to the products and
services.......................................................................................................................29
Figure 10: Motivational factors to write a review........................................................29
Figure 11: Whether a student has ever written a review for a college or not?...........30
Figure 12: Motivational factor to write a review for a college.....................................31
Figure 13: Domain wise distribution to check if college reviews are useful..............32
Figure 14: Current Representation:............................................................................34
Figure 15: After Incorporation of Suggestions:...........................................................34
Figure 16: Edit screen................................................................................................35
Figure 17: Review flagged..........................................................................................36
Figure 18: Edit/ Delete comment on a review............................................................37
Figure 19: Delete comment screen............................................................................37
Figure 20: User finds review helpful...........................................................................38
Figure 21: College review page..................................................................................38
Figure 22: Preview review screen..............................................................................39
Figure 23: Post by anonymous user...........................................................................40
Figure 24: Overall star rating......................................................................................40
Figure 25: Domain wise distribution of reviews..........................................................50
Figure 26: Careers360- The Education Hub..............................................................53

Figure 27: Initial mass mailer......................................................................................61

Figure 28: Updated mass mailer................................................................................62
Figure 29: Updated mailer with new subject line.......................................................62
Figure 30: FREE 20 strategy mailer...........................................................................63

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Industry Analysis
India, with its huge population, is the most exciting higher education market in the
world. The education and training sector in India is standing at $600 billion and the
private education segment alone is expected to cross $45 billion mark by 2015 from
the present $35 billion, according to a research by Investor Relation Society. This
sector is named as the major employment driver in India in the Indian Job Outlook
Survey 2012. It is expected that employment opportunities will continue to grow in
this sector for the next two decades.
Huge potential
The higher education system in India has witnessed remarkable growth in the past
few years. India is definitely ahead of other developed countries in the field of
education and training. The number of institutes offering higher education is much
more in India when compared to China and the US. A latest report by Ernst & Young
states that the number of institutes offering higher education in India is 44,668. Of
that, 33,668 offer various degrees and the rest offers diplomas. The total number of
institutes in China is 4,192, while in the US, the number is 6,500.

10

India Ratings expects the Indian education sectors market size to increase to Rs
602,410 crore ($109.84 billion) byFY15 due to the expected strong demand for
quality education. Indian education sectors market size in FY12 is estimated to be
Rs 341,180 crore. The sector grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 16.5%
during FY05-FY12. The higher education (HE) segment was at 34.04%
($17.02billion) of the total size in FY10 and grew by a CAGR of 18.13% during FY04FY10. India Ratings, a Fitch Group Company, said that it has a stable outlook on the
Indian education sector which includes both school and higher education.
Despite a high demand for education within India, India Ratings has concerns of the
sector. In 2012, the sector faced liquidity issues due to a fall in enrolment growth and
delays in HE students fee reimbursements by a few state governments.
Some segments in the education sector face enrolment slowdown due to macroeconomic factors, lack of industry appeal and employability issues. Management
institutes with less or no industry association witness low enrolment and revenues
leading to loan defaults or closures. India Ratings does not expect enrolments for
these entities to rebound in the short term, said the report.
Education Sector in India
700 Universities
35000 Colleges
Annual student enrolment is around 25 million
Indian Literacy rate is 74.4% which is less than the world's average i.e. 84.1%
550 million population is below 25 years of age
o 352 million population is between 0-14 years of age which is more than the
o
o
o
o
o

entire population of US.

The major concern for any online education website is to engage more and more
users which will increase the website's credibility. User engagement is the

11

engagement of users, with a company or a brand. The initiative for engagement can
be either consumer- or company-led and the medium of engagement can be on or
offline. Online user engagement is qualitatively different from offline engagement as
the nature of the user's interactions with a brand, company and other users differ on
the internet. Discussion forums or blogs, for example, are spaces where people can
communicate and socialise in ways that cannot be replicated by any offline
interactive medium. User Engagement marketing efforts that aim to create, stimulate
or influence customer behaviour differ from the offline, one-way, marketing
communications that marketers are familiar with. Although customer advocacy, for
example, has always been a goal for marketers, the rise of online user generated
content can take advocacy to another level.
The concept and practice of online user engagement enables organisations to
respond to the fundamental changes in user behaviour that the internet has brought
about, as well as to the increasing ineffectiveness of the traditional 'interrupt and
repeat', broadcast model of advertising. Due to the fragmentation and specialisation
of media and audiences, as well as the proliferation of community- and user
generated content, businesses are increasingly losing the power to dictate the
communications agenda. Simultaneously, lower switching costs, the geographical
widening of the market and the vast choice of content, services and products
available online have weakened customer loyalty. Enhancing users' firm- and
market- related expertise has been shown to engage users, strengthen their loyalty,
and emotionally tie them more closely to a firm.
Leveraging customer contributions is an important source of competitive advantage

whether

through

advertising,

user

12

generated

product

reviews, customer

service FAQs, forums where consumers can socialise with one another or contribute
to product development.
Characteristics of user engagement
1. Focused attention
1.1 Users must be focused to be engaged
1.2 Distortions in the subjective perception of time used to measure it
2. Positive Affect
2.1 Emotions experienced by user are intrinsically motivating
2.2 Initial affective hook can induce a desire for exploration, active
discovery or participation
3. Endurability
3.1 People remember enjoyable, useful, engaging experiences and want to
repeat them
3.2 Reflected in e.g. the propensity of users to recommend an experience/a
site/a product
In this study, the objective is to manage end to end product life cycle and work on
brand building campaigns to enhance user engagement on Careers360 website.
The product life cycle includes the following phases:

13

1. Analysis of multiple websites to understand the feature and functionality of

reviews and discussion forums, which are one of the important features of any
website to enhance user engagement
2. New Product/Feature ideation and Existing product/feature improvement
3. Designing, wire framing and documentation of the feature
4. Co-ordination with technical team to ensure the successful implementation of
feature
Planning and execution of campaigns comprised of the following stages:
1. Research competitors product features and campaign methods, also survey the
user behaviour why they write reviews
2. Plan own campaign for increasing reviews on the website, the platforms and set
of activities to be done and get approval for budgets
3. Decide on the campaign pitch and get marketing creative developed for multiple
platforms accordingly
4. Plan and schedule the activities in the campaign and run a pilot
5. Closely monitor the mid-execution results and refine the campaign based on
analysis throughout the campaign
6. Prepare the final campaign summary at the end of campaign and share the
learning across all involved teams.
The project also included participation in the following live campaigns:
1. Petition for IIT JEE Joint counselling
2. AIPMT Maha Coverage
3. Career Caf event

14

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
Ever since the concept of marketing has dawned on manufacturers, brand building
has become an integral component of most marketing departments. However, when
the question is asked, What is brand building?, it seems to be a long drawn out
answer, pertaining almost to everything about the efforts made by the marketer to
raise the esteem and value of the brand in question. While there could be very
strong reasons for trying to have an all encompassing answer to such a loaded
question, the key to such brand building success is continuous customer
engagement. A study by M.N. Tripathi, states that, therefore, a marketer must not
only aim to make the brand more desirable, more attractive and more preferable to
the consumer, but also do whatever it takes, for the consumer to remain associated,
interested and involved with the brand. In the process of buying, using and
consuming the product, there is an emotional, psychological and physical investment
by the consumer onto the brand. It is this investment that translates into the
engagement we are talking of. Obviously, this investment would depend on the
consumer and would vary from consumer to consumer. So the challenge for the
marketer is to persuade the consumer that the marketer is worth their time, effort,
money and commitment to be involved with the brand. It is a process of building,
nurturing and preserving relationships.
15

Joseph Alexander and Kathryn Luedtke(2013), " The User Centric Approach and
Participant Flow Maps: A New Look at Increasing Participation and Engagement "
questioned that how to get more people to participate in programs? And once they
are participating, how to keep them engaged?
They found a new way to approach this challenge, what we call, The User Centric
Approach. This approach looks at participation and engagement from the
perspective of the end user. Participation and engagement is now seen as a series
of actions and steps taken by people as they interact with our programs. They
wanted to know what people are thinking and doing before, during, and after the
decision to participate and then engage with our programs. This information can be
used to create a visual image of the paths people take with programs, highlighting
especially those steps where people drop out or move away from their programs.
This new approach can be contrasted with the current industry approach, what they
labelled as , The Program Centric Approach. While the program centric approach
views everything from the perceptive of the program, the user centric approach takes
the perspective of the end user. With the program centric approach, one would want
to know, for example, which programs have the most participants? That is useful to
know. With the User Centric Approach, one might take a different tack and ask what
percent of people who are recommended a specific program actually finish it? Both
approaches are useful. The sense is in wanting to drive increased end user action, a
focus on the end user will be more valuable. Certainly, it will offer new insights and
perspectives not previously seen. A second difference in our approach from. The
Program Centric Approach is that they focus on flows not statics. The new approach
understands that the end user proceeds through a number of distinct and different
steps. Each of these steps offers its own challenges and insights. We want to follow
16

our end users as they go through the entire process, not just look at them at specific
points in time. It is the difference between a cross sectional versus a longitudinal
approach. To do this, they created visual images or maps.

Figure 1: Participant flow map

Using this map, the researchers were able to identify those specific opportunities to
change peoples behaviours and attitudes that will have the greatest impact on
driving increased participation and engagement. These opportunities were thought of
as leverage points. Where can the least amount of change create the biggest
impact?
Participant Flow Maps allowed them to:
1. Identify, with great precision, exactly which points in the participants experience
with our programs we should target to have the maximum impact.

17

2. Clarify the specific behaviours and attitudes that need to change or modify to have
this impact.
3. Help them prioritize and sequence the efforts to make these changes.
A clear process was then required to realize the potential of this new approach.

Figure 2:The four step process

Jurate Banyte, Asta Tarute, Inga Taujanskyte, "Customer Engagement into Value
Creation: Determining Factors and Relations with Loyalty" Kaunas University of
Technology stated that Customer engagement into value creation is useful for
companies not only because it helps to better understand and satisfy customer
needs, but also promotes bigger customer loyalty (Selden & MacMillan, 2006).
(Malaviya & Spargo,2002) have determined that when engaging in value creation
customers are characterised with a higher level of satisfaction and trust in the
company, they feel connected to it, and, according to Uncles, Dowling and
18

Hammond (2003), this leads to a bigger loyalty to the company. These research
results of (Malaviya & Spargo, 2002) have encouraged further analysis of relations
between customer engagement into value creation and loyalty.
Considering the scientific problem of the article related with substantiation of the
integrated approach towards customer engagement into value creation, first of all, a
question is raised, which factors determine behaviour of customer engagement that
creates value for the customer as well as for the company. Emphasizing the
importance of motivation when engaging customers into value creation,(Rodie &
Kleine, 2000; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2000) distinguish customer consciousness, role
clarity, abilities and motivation as the main factors determining customer
engagement into value creation. According to (Van Doorn et al., 2010; Ple et al.,
2010; Gambetti & Graffigna, 2010) customer engagement into value creation is
determined not only by customer motivation, but also by actions of the company to
engage customers. Therefore, authors divide factors determining customer
engagement into value creation into two groups: customer factors and company
factors. ups suggested by (Auh et al., 2007) will be used as a basis.
Another constituent that bases the necessity of an integrated approach towards
customer engagement into value creation in the context of service provision is
intermediate variables of the relation between customer engagement into value
creation and loyalty and their interactions.
The theoretical framework given in Figure 1 depicts the integrated approach towards
customer engagement into value creation in the context of service provision
suggested in the article.

19

Figure 3: Factors determining customer engagement into

value creation and its relations to loyalty

The compiled theoretical framework reflects the integrated approach towards

customer engagement into value creation and encompasses two groups of relations
between the research constructs:
1. The relations between company communication, customer competence,
emotional commitment, correctness of communication processes and customer
engagement into value creation;
2. The relations between customer engagement into value creation, their
satisfaction, trust and relationship strength and the relation of the latter constructs
with customer loyalty.
Another research by Marie Taillard, Benjamin Voyer, Vlad Glaveanu, Alkmini Gritzali
states that an effect of the digital economy has been to provide consumers with
almost unlimited ways to customize their consumption activities. They can craft each
consumption experience to fit specific contexts, needs, emotions and other factors. A
teenagers night out is documented and shared with her friends in a series of selfies
posted on Snapchat. With augmented reality technology, combinations of designs
and colors can be tried on before an in-store visit, or a friends opinion solicited in
real time. These examples highlight the fact that consumption is, at its very core, a

20

creative activity. Beyond the product or service itself, creativity is in the experience:
alone or with others, privately or in public, physically or virtually, now or later, homemade, customized or factory-made. These are only the most obvious of the infinite
ways in which consumers creatively craft or design each of their consumption
experiences. The present research explores the role of creativity in the mechanisms
through which consumers create value in their consumption activities and
experiences. Hennessey and Amabile (2010) define creativity as involving the
development of a novel product, idea, or problem solution that is of value to the
individual and/or the larger social group. Previous researchers (Kleinaltenkamp et
al.,2013) have suggested that there is a need to better understand how consumers
integrate resources to create value.
The current study in the project includes understanding the user's requirements to
engage them on the website by enhancing the product and the user interface and at
the same time launching brand building campaigns to enhance user engagement on
the website and to increase number of college reviews.

21

CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH DESIGN
This research is a combination of exploratory and descriptive research types.
Exploratory research is used when the topic or issue is new and when data is difficult
to collect. Exploratory research is flexible and can address research questions of all
types (what, why, how). Descriptive research describes data and characteristics
about the population or phenomenon being studied. Prior to the descriptive research,
a survey investigation is usually conducted. The formulation of the survey was based
on an exploratory research method with critical points being based on secondary
data. Collection of primary data through the survey and then the processing of this
data to derive a descriptive analysis is part of the descriptive research.

DATA COLLECTION
Data collection has been done through

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources

Primary Sources : For the purpose of this study, survey and unstructured interview
were conducted. Visits were made to colleges of Delhi University, IP University, MBA
Schools in Delhi, Schools and coaching centres. Research was also done by floating
the survey to potential target groups which is shown in Annexure II.
The main purpose of the data collection for this research is to study the user's
behaviour and motivation for engaging on a particular website or using a particular
product/feature, for writing online reviews and participate in discussion forums.
22

The research objective is to know basically "why users write reviews on any
website?"
The data was gathered on the following parameters:

Figure 4: Age group of respondents

Figure 5: Educational Qualifications of respondents

23

Figure 6: Domain wise distribution

The data on the following variables was collected for the research:

Is College Reviews and Discussion Forums an authentic source of College

Information?
Number of times a person has written review on any website
Motivational factor to write a review
Motivational factor to write a review for a college

Secondary Sources : The secondary research was carried out by analyzing various
websites in different domains to understand their features and functionality of review
page and discussion forums, to analyze competitors product features and campaign
methods, also to know why people write reviews on a particular website.
Following websites were analyzed in different domains:

Table 1: List of websites analyzed

DOMAIN

WEBSITE NAME
www.getmyuni.com
www.shiksha.com

Education

www.pagalguy.com
www.MBAUniverse.com

24

www.collegeconfidential.com
www.minglebox.com

www.htcampus.com
www.amazon.com
Shopping/Lifestyle

www.flipkart.com
www.snapdeal.com

Entertainment

www. digitalspy.com
www.rottentomatoes.com
www.desimartini.com
www.commonsensemedia.org
www.digiwonk.wonderhowto.com
www.ibibo.com
www.tripadvisor.com
www.makemytrip.com
www.yatra.com

Food

www.zomato.com

25

CHAPTER 4
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Based on the data collected through survey , it was analyzed why people write
reviews on a particular website and what motivates them to write reviews.

26

Figure 7: Are college review and discussion forums an

authentic source of college information?

From the above pie chart, we can see that 56% of students find college reviews and
discussion forums as authentic sources of finding college information and to know
about college while only 12% says that No, they do not find them an authentic
source.

Figure 8: Number of students who have visited any of these

websites to access College information/discussions/reviews
etc.?

27

From the above figure, we can interpret that 88 respondents have visited
Pagalguy.com to access college information and participate in discussion forums
while 61 respondents are familiar with Careers360.com and Shiksha.com. Also, only
6 respondents said that they have never visited any of these website to gather
college information.
54 respondents have visited MBAUniverse.com while only 7 know about
GetMyUni.com. So, here we can also say that major competitors of Careers360.com
are Pagalguy and Shiksha.

Figure 9: Frequency of writing reviews and giving ratings to

the products and services

The above pie chart, signifies that 69 respondents out of 125 have rarely written any
review or given ratings for the products/services that they use online in any domain,
while 32 said that they write reviews once or twice a week. 19 respondents have
never written any review and only 4 do that every time they purchase any
product/service.

28

Figure 10: Motivational factors to write a review

The above chart shows the various motivational factors to write online reviews

68 respondents said that they write online reviews to help other consumers

make a right decision.

58 respondents write

product/service/company.
Other motivation to write reviews are cash prizes, vouchers, gifts/prizes in

reviews

to

share

bad

experience

about

kind and also to express gratitude for a better than expected product/service
or experience.

29

Figure 11: Whether a student has ever written a review for a

college or not?

The above pie chart shows that 59% of respondents have never written a review for
a college while only 41% have written a review/ shared their experiences about a
college they have studied or have visited.

Figure 12: Motivational factor to write a review for a college

Following observation can be made from the cart depicted above,

30

The major motivations to write a review about college are that respondents
feel that it is their responsibility and also to contribute to the success of the

college
While others think that it is a best way to express your gratitude towards the

college and it will also help in college promotion on different platforms.

Also, monetary value like rewards, or some competition also motivates them
to write a review about the college.

Figure 13: Domain wise distribution to check if college

reviews are useful

The above chart depicts that mostly management students find college reviews an
authentic source of finding college information while engineering, B Com students
and other school respondents did not find college reviews as authentic.
Hence, we can see that using primary data source, the major motivation for writing
online reviews for a particular college is to contribute to the success of the college
and to help in college promotion while monetary value, vouchers, rewards and gifts
also play a major role.

31

Using secondary data source, multiple websites were analyzed to :

1. Find out why people write reviews
2. Understand their review and discussion forum page for product
enhancements/new product features and implementation.

Analysis using Secondary Data

Snapdeal conducted Write a review contest for writing a review about a
product that has been purchased from snapdeal, the motivation to write a
review was on monetary terms. They offered that the top 1 reviewer will get a
Nexus 5, Rs 1000 gift voucher to the next top 5 reviewer each and Rs 200 gift

voucher each to the next top 100 reviewers.

Flipkart also offered that write a review about any Flipkart product and get a

chance to win voucher worth Rs. 500

Amazon sends free stuff to top reviewers to get more reviews for their

products
GetMyUni.com conducted a live project for B schools to get college reviews
on their website. They were able to get around 25000 college reviews through

that live project.

Shiksha.com organised review your college competition, where a participant

with best reviews gets a chance to win a 100 Rs. BookMyShow voucher.
It was also observed that a rich UI with good features/products also play an
important role in attracting people to write a review, such as acknowledgments
and notifications for writing reviews/participation in discussion forums keeps a

user engaged to a particular website.

Zomato.com sends personalised e-mail for first time review of any restaurant,
and otherwise sends notifications for every activity that a user does on the
website, e.g., following someone, followed by someone, reviewing a
restaurant, rating any restaurant etc. This creates a connection with the user
and helps in long term engagement.

32

Ibibo.com, a travel and tourism website, sends a personalised e-mail to the

customer for rating hotel facility, flight, attractions etc. to know overall

customer experience. This also creates a personal touch with the user.
TripAdvisor.com allows a user to preview the review before submitting, which
helps in correcting errors, also the user gets a chance to see how will the
review look like after getting published.

Based on these analysis, new product/features were ideated and existing

product/features were improved on Careers360 website. Following enhancements
were done :
Review Format on Review Listing Page

Figure 14: Current Representation:

Figure 15: After Incorporation of Suggestions:

Description:
33

By clicking on Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, it links user

to college Review tab.

By clicking on Sneak Peek into IMT Ghaziabad, it links user to Permalink.

Clicking on View 9 more comments, all comments gets expanded.

By clicking on Add Friend, the button changes to Cancel Request. And as

soon as the user accepts request the button changes to Friends.

By clicking on Follow (100) / Follow Review (1000), the button changes to

Following (101).

Edit, Delete and Flag as Inappropriate Options:

Present UI of Reviews on College Reviews page does not support the features of
editing, deleting by the reviewer and reporting by the reader.
CASE 1
If the Reviewer clicks on the down arrow, he/she will be given following options to
choose from.

Edit

Delete

If the user clicks the Edit option, the written review will be shown in the form of a
text box (same as write review form), which can be edited by the Reviewer. After the
required editing and final submission of the review, following screen will pop up for 5
seconds:

34

Figure 16: Edit screen

If the user clicks the delete option, a pop-up would appear as shown below and if the
reviewer selects Yes, Review will be permanently deleted from the website.
CASE 2
If any user opens a review (not written by him) and clicks the down arrow then he
would be given an option to Flag the review as Inappropriate.
If the user selects this option, then following window will pop-up on his screen. This
review will not be further visible to that user.

Figure 17: Review flagged

Once a review is flagged by more than 10 users, a report would be sent to the
careers360 moderator. Flagged reviews are not automatically removed by the
system. If a review doesn't violate our (i.e. careers360) guidelines, no amount of
flagging will change/remove that, and the review will stay on the site. This will be
supervised by careers360 moderator.
Only careers360 moderator can delete a review permanently.
35

CASE 3

If a user wants to delete/edit his comment on a review, he can do it by clicking

on the Icon on the right of comment. (Same as Facebook)

Figure 18: Edit/ Delete comment on a review

Figure 19: Delete comment screen

On clicking delete the comment will be delete permanently.

Rate a Review Feature
This feature enables the users to have their say whether they found a review useful
or not with just a click of the mouse.

36

If the user finds the review useful, he can simply click the Yes button as shown
above and the count in Yes button will get increased by one and same will happen
with No button also.
Notification to the User: Whenever a user votes any review as useful or non-useful,
then the reviewer will get a notification stating xxxxxxxx found your Review (with
College Name) useful.

Figure 20: User finds review helpful

Representation of College Review Page

37

Figure 21: College review page

Preview Button
A new Screen will pop-up after clicking on the Preview Button:

38

Figure 22: Preview review screen

If user clicks on Edit, the user gets back to the review form.

If user clicks on Submit, the review would be submitted.

Submitting a Review
Once the user Click on SUBMIT, a pop-up would appear for 5 seconds. The
message will be Your review has been successfully submitted for approval and it will
be posted soon
User Profile Picture and Anonymity
If a user has posted the review as anonymous then the profile picture will become
which depicts that it is a hidden user.
Also we will not show 'Follow' and 'Add' button in this case. And, it would be shown
as "Posted by: Anonymous User" as shown in below screenshot

39

Figure 23: Post by anonymous user

Placement of overall star rating and On hover Ratings and reviews block

Figure 24: Overall star rating

The hover rating and review block should show just the last 3 reviews.

At the end of hover block there will be option of Read All Reviews as shown
in figure below that will link user to college review tab.

The hover should pop up below to star rating.

40

Design of Notification e-mails

Notification e-mails were also designed which would be sent to the user for the
following activities:

Account verification

Congratulating for writing first review

When the review gets published

When a user started following another user

When a user started following another user's review

When a user commented on a post

When a user creates a new thread

If a user likes your post

And, if a user tags another user in a comment

After understanding product line features and working on enhancements, a

campaign was designed to get college reviews on the website. The survey helped in
understanding major factors that motivates people to write reviews and they were as
following:

People feel that it is their responsibility and also to contribute to the success
of the college

While others think that it is a best way to express your gratitude towards the
college and it will also help in college promotion on different platforms.

41

Also, monetary value like rewards, vouchers, gift prize or some competition
also motivates them to write a review about the college.

Review Your College Contest Campaign

"Review Your College Contest" campaign was organised and planned to bring
maximum reviews on Careers360 website keeping in mind the results of the
research conducted.

Objectives of the Campaign:

Increase in User Engagement

Increase in Brand visibility.

Word of Mouth Promotion

Increase in number of reviews

More credibility in market

Benefits of getting more Reviews for Careers360:

Increased Student Engagement on the website

Generation of more user-created content for the website

Increased credibility in the market

Improved Ratings of the College

New and unique content

A student who creates an account for writing a review, might come back to the
website for information or other available tools.

42

Increased crawl frequency for each college page

More data for recommending Colleges

About the Campaign:

Review Your College Contest is a contest which gives a person, a platform to

write reviews of their current college or previous college to share their
experiences.

It is a platform where students can give an honest opinion about their colleges

Students in return would win free mobile recharge by writing a descriptive and
authentic review about their college.

Best 100 reviews would also win vouchers worth Rs. 1000/ each.

Plan of Action:
Step- 1

Inform the students through mass mailer/ select top 100 B school and float the
competition

For B school data of 1st year was provided by student body or placement cell
of the college.

In B school for data of second year we contacted alumni cell or Class

representatives.

Step-2

Once we have informed the concerned college, and mail is sent through
database, the task of students was to write reviews. In case of B school one
review of their post-graduation college and other review of their graduation
college.

Each review was provided 10 points for registration and 10 points for writing
review.
43

Each participant was provided with a unique referral code when he/she wrote
review for the first time with a unique code/name/email id fetched 10 points to
the unique code/name/email owned by any particular person.

Now the person who has already registered and wrote his review will promote
his unique code. So when he will tell the other person to write review, he will
also tell them to use the code so that the person with unique code gets the
points. When his referral code will be used to write a review he will be
awarded with 10 points for each subsequent reviews.

So the registered person can earn as many points as many times his/her
unique code is used before writing reviews.

Minimum redemption for free recharge is 40 points, for which a participant get
Rs 20 recharge i.e. points to redemption ratio is 2:1.

Initial Execution and Problems

To identify that who all are writing review through our referral code campaign we
created a Google doc in which we asked information like name, phone number,
email id, and once this form is submitted we directed the user to the page of the site
where he or she can write review.
Problems:

The link which we sent in initial mail, the problem that we identified that users
are having issue with dual registration and they are finding difficulty in finding
the page of review writing

The first 500 mails that were sent for pilot run, out of those 500, 50 registered
in Google doc but they did not write review. When we called them why they

44

did not write review they confessed that they were not understanding why
they need to register twice

After filling the Google doc we provided link of engineering, B school and
universities. Once the user reached to these place they need to register at
website before they can write reviews but once they used to register, the page
of my activity used to open and the user were not able to find where to write
review.

Solution:

To overcome this problem where created a new Google doc which was
exactly like review form of the website and we instructed the user to write their
review in Google doc only. And we understood the backend process how we
can publish the review on users behalf

While doing so we faced two kinds of uses. I) who are already a registered
user, ii) who are not registered in website.

For those who were registered we published their review after verifying it in
their respective domain and for those who were not registered we created a
new profile for them and then published their review.

Challenges Faced during execution:

We had database of engineering colleges mostly, so reviews came mostly

from engineering colleges.

Write a review button was not clearly visible on screen
While publishing reviews, many colleges were not available in the backend or
we find it really difficult to search some colleges

45

There were no option to upload pictures in the Google form so we created a

new jot form and instructed users to upload photo der. And in this way we

collected more than 900 photos of colleges

Recharge glitches: Paytm did not allow more than 10 transaction in a day but
we were facing problems due to redeem request lines up by points bearer.

As we floated Google doc for review writing completion we faced problems like
a)

Assignment of referral code manually

b)

Making of point tally sheet of each participants manually

How we informed the participants about their code and

points?

When referral code was being assigned, first 100 participants were informed
through text message and the rest were sent mail and the end of the day.

Points tally sheet was a sheet where an updated information regarding which
candidate earned how many points and what was his/her referral code is, is
being maintained and mails were sent accordingly about his points and
referral codes.

We

created

kind

of

helpline/participants

help

email

id

writeyourreview@careers360.in which was like a contact point of customer

and we also provided them with a mobile number.

Marketing Strategy

Primary Marketing Strategy: Primarily we employed direct marketing strategy

using mailers.

46

Secondary

Marketing

Strategy:

It

included

Facebook

advertisement,

Facebook Posts and Strip Banner advertisement on www.careers360.com.

The campaign ran around the theme of writing genuine college reviews and
referral system so as to earn points which can be redeemed against free
recharges. The target segment was students studying in undergraduate and
postgraduate colleges. So, direct marketing using mailers was adopted to be the
primary marketing strategy of the campaign.

Primary Marketing Strategy

Advantages of using direct marketing using mailers:
I. Highly targeted approach of mailers.
II. Cost Effective.
III. It can be personalized.
IV. It can be designed easily.
V. No limit on content.
VI. Frequency of mailers can be controlled.
Database of over 11 lakh students was used as a target audience of the mailers.
Mailers were sent across these databases thrice. The database comprised of
students from diverse backgrounds and these were Management, Engineering,
Medicine, Law, Arts, Science, Commerce, Computer Applications, Hotel
Management and Animation & Fashion.
Amongst all, more than 85 per-cent of the database comprised of engineering
aspirants and students. This factor has also been indicated in the campaign also

47

with over 90 per cent of reviews coming from Engineering students alone
followed by Management students.
Mailers were sent thrice on the entire database to push the students for writing
more and more reviews.

Change in Mailers Strategy

The Mass-mailers were sent with four different subject lines. The subject lines were
improvised over time to experiment with the click rates. The change in open rates
and click rates of the mailers were noted after delivering each set of mass-mailers to
compare the results.
Subject Lines:
Write a Review, Refer and Earn

May 13

Love/hate your college? Review and Win Free Recharge!

May 18

Write An Authentic Review About Your College & Get Mobile Recharge!

May 21

Is your college worth your money? Share the truth and get mobile recharge

May 27

<Name>, Review Submitted! Your recharge is waiting.

May 27

Secondary Marketing Strategy

Facebook Advertisement, Facebook Posts and Strip Banner across various domains
of Careers360 were identified to be productive marketing platforms and hence these
channels were chosen under secondary marketing strategy.
Facebook Advertisement:
Facebook advertisement was a strategic extension of our target audience. With
mailers, the reach of campaign was limited to the existing database of the company.

48

So, to increase the reach of campaign, a content advertisement on Facebook was

launched which ran for one week i.e. from 21 st May to 27th May.
We initially analyzed the reviews we had received by 20 th May and identified colleges
from where we had received at least 2 reviews. Students of NITs, state and private
universities were also targeted with the help of Facebook advertisement which made
a total of 21 lac students targeted by the FB Ad.

Facebook Posts
Multiple Facebook posts were done so as to tap more number of students.
Strip Banner on www.careers360.com
List of domains on which strip banner was present on the upper fold of the website:

Law.

Medical.

Bschool.

List of domains on which strip banner was present on the lower fold of the website:

Arts, Science & Commerce.

Pharmacy.

Computer Applications.

Hospitality & Tourism.

Media & Journalism.

49

Animation & Fashion.

FREE20
Free 20 was a strategy adopted for students who had written only one review and
had 20 points. Thus, to motivate them to write one more review, a mail was sent
saying that if they write just one more review using the Referral Code FREE20,
theyll get an instant recharge of Rs 20. The strategy adopted was successful as 247
out of 2868 people wrote reviews again. Out of 247, 169 wrote review for different
college, comparing with their former reviews and 78 wrote again for same college.

Blast SMS
A small database of 5000 students was tested for the efficiency of Advertisements
through Blast SMS. The content of the messages urged the students to click on the
given link and write a review to win recharge and vouchers.

ANALYSIS:
The duration of the contest was 11th May- 3rd June 2015.
Facts and Figures:

Total Number of Reviews Written till 3rd June 11:59 P.M. 5594
No. of Unique Participants: 4455
Reviews were written for 2447 different Colleges

50

Figure 25: Domain wise distribution of reviews

Domain wise distribution of Reviews

374

Others
Medical
Law
University
Management

38
16
201
137
1459

Engineering

516 Reviewers Referred their Code to their friends.

The highest level of the Referral Hierarchy was Level 8.

Bitly Link
The shortened bitly link of the Review Writing Form was also shared on a few
platforms:

Facebook Posts and Cover Page (Non-Sponsored)

Blast Messages (Targeted to 5000 people)

A few e-mails sent to some groups (around 1000-3000)

51

CHAPTER 5
SUGGESTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Since students were not getting instant gratification in the form of mobile
recharge after writing a review, word-of-mouth promotion was almost absent.
A lot of Participants were not aware that they will not get recharge by writing
only one review, or that they have to request for redemption of points to get
recharge, a negative opinion was being formed by some people about the
campaign.

Thus, any mass level competition should have simple rules. Instead of the
Referral and Points system, a simple contest of getting a mobile recharge of
Rs 10 or 20 for each review would have generated more audience for the
contest. Instant gratification would have routed more people to the registration

52

form, decreasing the need for sending mass mailers to the same audience
again and again.

Also, keep in view the lack of technical support in running the campaign
(referral codes and points tally were being handled manually), a simple
rewards mechanism would have been easier to execute and, hence, would
have been more efficient.

A major problem faced in the execution was the lack of recharge support from
Paytm, freecharge and Mobikwik. Before running a campaign it should be
made sure that the promised rewards are ready for delivery. The delay in
mobile recharges garners negative publicity for the company.

Annexure-I
ABOUT CAREERS360 - PROFILE
Careers360- The Education Hub is a

data enabled and technology driven

education products and Services Company, Careers360 seamlessly integrates

millions of student and institutional data points with user generated preferences of its
6 million plus monthly visitors to build sophisticated prediction and recommendation
products to enable students explore and achieve career plans based on their
interests

and

abilities.

From exam preparation to college recommendation, they have 250+ products used
by a million students, cover 9000+ colleges and 200+ courses, driven by a 200+
member young

team.

53

They are a hub of activity on everything to do with education. Their products,

content, forums, experts and events help students, parents, policy makers,
educationists and academics take informed decisions. They are driven by data, tools
& products. They predict and recommend. They also enable the best decision for
every student, every time.

Figure 26: Careers360- The Education Hub

COMPANY HISTORY
Careers360 (Print)

The largest magazine player. Launched English Magazine in 2009 & Hindi

Magazine in 2010
Launched counseling Guides & Almanac series in 2011
India's largest educational rating company. Across Engineering, B-schools,
Universities and distance learning institutions we have rated over 5000
individual institutions.

MyCareers360

Launched Online Education marketplace selling educational products in 2013.

1200+ products across categories; Engineering | Management | Medical | Law

| Study Abroad | Jobs and many more

Around 100 Brands selling products on Mycareers360
54

Dedicated Helpline to counsel students.

Careers360 (Digital)

Launched web portals in 2012.

India's largest higher education portal, 6Mn monthly Visitors (higher than
that of the next 3 competitors added together). Our deep understanding of
student needs, decision points enable the portals to inform, engage,

interact and advise - all based on data and information.

Launched 250+ Paid Advisory products in 2013-14 for students build on

top of data points which we have collected in last 5 years.

They have around 22 dedicated sub-portals for education domains like
Engineering, Management, Study Abroad, Medicine, Law, University,
Hospitality, Media, IT, Finance, Degree Programs & Other Professional
Programs

Products & Services Offered

PLAN

Choice based search and filtration

Taking the first step
Find Best Fit, Alumni Insight

PREPARE

Progress Tracking
Reality-check for better planning
Prepmeter, Ebook/Sample Papers

PREDICT

Trend Analysis
Forecasting
Rank Predictor, Result Predictor

55

RECOMMEND

Personalized Analysis
Actionable Advice
Pathfinder, College Predictor

Revenue Model
The revenue can be classified as B2B and B2C or print and digital.
Business-wise:
Careers360 magazine 35%, Careers360.com 63.6%, myCareers360.com 1.4%
Transaction-wise:
95% is B2B, 5% is B2C
Platform-wise:
65% is digital, 35% is print
B2B (Digital + Print) Completely Advertising. Colleges, coaching institutes, test
agencies, event organizers (for educational fairs) and banks (for education loans)
are some of the B2B clients, where again colleges constitute more than 95% of the
share.
The motivation for all these entities is to advertise with Careers360 is that they have
the largest student audience engaged and it makes sense for all these entities to
have a presence on such a powerful student medium.
B2C(digital + print) B2C print is the revenue through the English and Hindi
magazines and the Almanacs. B2C digital revenue is through our e-commerce
platform i.e. myCareers360.
Domain- wise distribution Domain wise distribution of the revenue is as per the
overall market size of B2B and B2C. In terms of B2C audience engineering and

56

medical have the largest student audience, followed by management, study abroad
and law. But in terms of prospective advertisers, the order is engineering,
management, study abroad, law and medical. So, although they engage the medical
audience also, but B2B revenue wise medical doesnt add much to the pie.

Annexure- II
Student Engagement - College Forums and Reviews
1. Do you consider College Reviews and Discussion Forums as authentic
sources of College Information?
o Yes
o No
o Maybe
o Can't Say
2. Have you visited any of

these

websites

to

access

College

information/discussions/reviews etc.?
o Careers360.com
o Pagalguy.com
o Shiksha.com
o MBAuniverse.com
o HT Campus
o GetMyUni.com
o MingleBox.com
o None
3. How often do you write/have you written reviews & give ratings for the
products & services that you use online in various domains?
o Never
o Rarely
o Once or twice a Month
o Once or twice a Week
o Every time I purchase a product/ Use a service
o Everyday
o Other
4. What motivates you to write reviews?
o Gifts/Prizes in Kind
o Cash prizes
o Vouchers
57

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Habit
To help other Consumers make a right decision
To share bad experience about a product/service/company
Self-Interest (Reputation as a reviewer/writer)
Self-Promotion (For experts/bloggers etc. in that field)
Marketing Campaigns
Peer Influence
Brand Building for the product/service
Responsibility (Writing positive reviews of a brand you are associated

with)
o To spoil the reputation of a product/service/company
o To
express
gratitude
for
a
better
than

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

product/service/experience
o Relationship Building with the company/brand
o Other
Have you ever written a review for a College?
o Yes
o No
What motivates/can motivate you to write a review for a College?
o College Promotion on different platforms
o Share something negative about your College
o Peer Influence
o Responsibility
o Contribute to the success of the college
o To express gratitude
o Self-Promotion
o Rewards (monetary or in-kind)
o Marketing Campaigns/ Competitions
o Other
Your Age Group
o 13-17
o 18-22
o 23-28
o Above 28
What is your Current/Highest Educational Qualification?
o SSC (10th Grade/Class)
o HSC (12th Grade/Class)
o Graduate (Includes Professional Degrees)
o Post-Graduate (Masters/ PG etc)
o Doctorate (PhD)
o Other
Which field of study are/were you pursuing?
o Engineering
o Medical
o Law
58

expected

o Management
o Finance, Accounts and Commerce
o Hospitality and Tourism
o Science
o Media and Journalism
o Fashion and Animation
o Architecture and Planning
o Historical and Philosophical Studies
o Languages
o Arts, Animation and Creativity
o Other
10. Your Name

Annexure III

59

Creative's for Review Your College Campaign

Figure 27: Initial mass mailer

60

Figure 28: Updated mass mailer

Figure 29: Updated mailer with new subject line

61

Figure 30: FREE 20 strategy mailer

62

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Joseph Alexander and Kathryn Luedtke, (June 2013), "The User Centric
Approach and Participant Flow Maps: A New Look at Increasing Participation
and Engagement"

M.N. Tripathi, "Customer Satisfaction and Engagement - Customer Retention

strategies for brand manager "

Jurate Banyte, Asta Tarute, Inga Taujanskyte, "Customer Engagement into

Value Creation: Determining Factors and Relations with Loyalty" Kaunas
University of Technology

M.N. Tripathi, "Customer Engagement Key to Successful Brand Building"

Marie Taillard, Benjamin Voyer, Vlad Glaveanu, Alkmini Gritzali, "Value

Creation and Consumption: When Consumer Creativity Generates Value in
Online Forums" ESCP Europe Business School, United Kingdom

Dokyun Lee, Kartik Hosanagar, Harikesh S. Nair,(2014)," The Effect of Social

Media Marketing Content on Consumer Engagement" The Wharton School

Timothy Bickmore,

Daniel

Schulman,

Langxuan

Yin,"

MAINTAINING

ENGAGEMENT IN LONG-TERM INTERVENTIONS WITH RELATIONAL

AGENTS" Northeastern University USA

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