Which Are The Suitable Marketplaces for Indian Ed-tech Players?

Which Are The Suitable Marketplaces for Indian Ed-tech Players?

Let’s break the suitable definition of marketplace:

A platform where variety of brands cater to a single set of audience. In which the brands compete in themselves to come up with the best offers and gain additional source of traffic from these marketplaces.

The purpose of this blog is to make edtech brands aware of which are teh platforms they need to be active to engage with thier crowd (students):

Few of the popular marketplaces that supports edtech brands:

GenZDealZ.ai: GenZDealZ.ai generates deals on-boarding India’s hyperlocal businesses & edtech brands specifically designed to empower the GenZ with AI/ML insights and discounts on variety of categories. By understanding the financial constraints faced by students and hence their GenAI engine churns out the best educational deals possible to make students life & college experience both affordable and enriching.

Amazon: Amazon isn’t just for shopping, rather it is also for accessing various learning materials (ebooks, books, learning software, etc.). Many Indian educators are using Amazon for distributing thier books, notes and guides for exams, due to thier amazing delivery system, Amazon becomes the 1st choice to list thier learning stuff.

Unstop: Supported by central govt. and a well funded learning platform for all kinda students. Not just focussing on internship, jobs or projects, but also hackathons, scholarships, contests, short quiz, Unstop talent, etc. You can say unstop as the total ecosystem for everything students need in thier academics.

Unstop is best for brands like Microsoft Learning, Byjus to launch various competitions, enter into teh campuses and gain some offline brand recall too.

Udemy: Though listing your courses on your own LMS has many benefits, utilising few third party platforms like Udemy helps to gain global reach. You may not list your signature course here, soemethign like a crash course/short masterclass would give students a brief taste of your teaching/delivery style.

I’ve given you the brief about the platforms popular in India. However there’re many cons of these marketplaces that may not favour your marketing strategy.

cons of marketplaces

Cons of Various Marketplaces:

  • External control & policies: Many terms are updated like payment period, commission or platform fee, watermark placement, etc. and this has a ripple effect on other platforms too.
  • Students support: While mentioning doubt solving, LIVE QnA, etc. seems attractive. But if these commitments aren’t met students would lose the loyalty & won’t consider any of your future products from these 3rd party soruces.
  • Leak of products/learning material: Sharing of notes/courses/any kinda recordings is common among Indian students (following our school approach – textbooks &guides sharing). So content security layers are affected when you involve external parties
  • Ineffective followups: Leads are meant for instant followups. Especially students whore highly impatient needs quick communication by knowing thier want. You may not get the real time status of the leads
  • Tech & uninformed updates: AI is the current change that is bringing new way to ask doubts, learning structured way and progressive analytics. Dashboard updates for students & for the vendor too becomes time consuming to learn & adapt further.
Did ABCD In-Campus Campaigns Hit The Right Market?

Did ABCD In-Campus Campaigns Hit The Right Market?

How did we run the ABCD campaign?

Aditya Birla Capital Digital Campaign

Here at GenZdealZ ai we had signed up for the downloads and the total engagement the app will get in the given period

Here ABCD campaign was started with the psychology:
– To remove the existing UPI players and gain a good mindshare of students as a Indian based all-in-one UPI
– To understand what India’s GenZ manage finance and curate the future products accidentally
– To know the consumption pattern and check whether any UPI player will survive in this competitive space.

 

The engagement was defined as app download, UPI registration and transaction of minimum 150
Here the target audience: students
Region pan-India focus and any offline space GenZ would interact at

Main challenges we faced:
– real-time transaction tracking
– contract with multiple partnerships
– non-responsive students and integration issues

 Aditya Birla Capital Digital Campaign

Why does the target achievement take more than 4 months to achieve?

A) ABCD is a trusted brand and having that kinda all in one UPI app helps the students in their personal finance too:
– credit tracking
– fund tracking
– insurance diversity
– financial literacy education
– more sections yet to add
So while promoting the app students had the awareness for the brand and was willing to engage

B) As told above students were keen to engage, however when it comes to banking activities many feels it’s a scam and refrain from following the lengthy process of registration and receiving the cashback

C) Students exam and offline mobilization. For quick mobilization we had chosen the following areas:
– Campus canteen to paste the QR and have a volunteer to push students pay via QR after download ABCD app
– College fest was another destination to allocate a point based system which was installed by one Mumbai University campus where commissions wer given as per their activities

 

What move did ABCD make in the November end?

ABCD announced that the downloads via the partner will stop for a month and partners won’t see the affiliate dashboard, this was done for the following reasons:
– To see the activities and retention time of students without any external push
– To see the students behaviour and on which brands or vertical they use the most
– To analyse the pattern in the transaction frequency and for which students willing to spend the most

 

Does Sankalp Bharat 2024 Best Place To Promote Your Startup?

Does Sankalp Bharat 2024 Best Place To Promote Your Startup?

Why am I reviewing this event?

I’m working as a Community Coordinator at GenZDealZ.ai (side projects still going on:)) and reviewing such types of expos & events helps marketers to analyse which destination is right as per thier product & audience. So talking about Sankalp Bharat 2024…

AKshay Shah - GenZDealZ.ai (Sankalp Bharat 2024)

During the recent event of Sankalp Bharat 2024, Varanasi..Akshay Shah (Founder & CEO – GenZDealZ.ai) represented on behalf of GenZDealZ.ai team.

Standees designed by me (had used for the past Govt. event too):

GenZDealZ.ai stall at Sankalp Bharat 2024

In aspect of GenZdealZ.ai here our audience was GenZ (college students, PHD scholars and other nearby school students who wants to see new innovation happening around India)

Overall Footfall: 500+

Students visited at our stall: 100+

Number of downloads: 20+ (via word of mouth & social media locally)

Brand Partnerships: 3

GenZs are quick in decision – if something doesn’t interest them at 1st time they wont’ consider it again.

Why GenZDealZ.ai Choose Sankalp Bharat To Promote Our App & Offerings?

  • Sponsored by UP Govt. in which there was a pitch of 45 mins and a short talk to be delivered on Deep Tech by Akshay sir (gaining more reach & funding in the market)
  • Interaction with North India students. Though we know some behaviour of north India GenZ crowd, having a fresh interaction would help us know their preferences in 2024 and what they expect us to bring in the application
  • Onboarding more brands that are catering to students. There’re always new or upcoming brands who needs some push from a market leader to get introduce in the market and engage with the crowd. GenZDealZ.ai has a good 1 million students reach PAN India. This would help any new brand to list and give the offline + online boost from our end

 

Appointment With Principal/Dean:

Banaras Hindu University was near to the venue and most students from the university visited the stall and shared reels with their feedback.

Few of them were keen to help us meet with their Principal to execute the offline campaigns we’re running via thier university. So we took their contacts for future meeting

Here it was difficult to predict how the traction of students who will be visiting the stall and engaging with us. In such cases, atleast have 1 buffer day if you’re unsure of the crowd to market, if the target market brings what you want then spending an extra day is worth it.

Cons of Govt. Organised Summits:

  • They won’t give you the complete information (standee size, space, posters, etc.) before the event. Most of thier team is waiting for the last day to clear the candidate’s queries
  • They’ll misspell your company’s name and domain that would result in wrong brand recall by the brand and irrelevant web address
  • No volunteers to assist you. Though, the brochure might contain 1 volunteer at each stall, they don’t mention for how much time and what is the backup if you don’t get one.

Overall, Sankalp Bharat gave us good brands, students’s connect & feedback in 2 days of the visit.

If have any questions, please put them below.

How Much Effective Are Expos & Stalls Are For Startups?

How Much Effective Are Expos & Stalls Are For Startups?

Im currently interning at GenZDealZ[dot]ai involved in operations & brand onboarding.

Find more info about GenZDealZ.ai:

Target: 500 downloads via QR

GenZDealZ.ai app download QR

Plus, collab with a few brands helped us to diversify our offerings to GenZ

There’re many opportunities for offline promotion I got & still getting at GenZDealZ[dot]ai. I’ll list here few of them and what were my learnings here you can understand.

1st Booth at World Trade Centre (Mumbai)

Pillai College at GenZDealZ.ai

World Trade Centre - fintech Event 2024

This was backed by Maharashtra Innovation Society – GenZDealZ[dot]ai has participated in Maharashtra Startup Funding program and thus this opportunity was offered to them.

This was a 4 day event (inauguration was to be done by Maharashtra Chief Minister – but it didn’t happen). It was a fintech event where all the PAN India fintech startups were invited to showcase thier products & services.

Pillai College Vice Principal at GenZDealZ.ai

Click here to know more about this group photo

Stall size: 5 feet long & 4 feet wide

Here the majority were students (mostly from my college :)) many of them came for preparing a field visit report.

Therefore the TG was perfect and day 1 & 2 were the prime days for promotion (initial hype).

Smit Lakhani Full Stack Developer speaking to one student & I standing in the middle

(Smit Lakhani Full Stack Developer speaking to one student & I standing in the middle)

On Day 4 too we utilised the opportunity as many startups left. Our team shifted the duties in different time period.

Problems we faced:

a) Low internet connection (took much time to download & browse the website)

b) Less space for the booth (hardly 3 people could adequately stand in the booth so one of them need to stand outside of the booth for attracting the crowd)

c) Unavailability of monitor (our own laptops need to be used with a autoloop video)

Metrics We Met:

a) Total 40 downloads and medium engagement level

b) Thousands of impressions

c) Got 12 – 15 internship inquiries to work as student influencer for our campaigns and few interested in full time roles.

2nd Booth at MIT WPU Startup Event

MIT WPU GenZDealZ.ai stall

This was an outreach event were the last year was highly successful and received a lot of engagement. MIT WPU student representative showed us highly lucrative numbers  but those sounded too much hyped.

Investment: ₹5,000 for 4 days
You can go through their different plans here:

Target: 1000 downloads

Campus Strength: 10,000 student across MIT WPU departments

Visits at the event: 2000+

Here we saw a diverse crowd from non technical to highly technicals who understands deep tech & machine learning.

Problems we faced:

a) No support of volunteers

B) Destination too far from our main office (so a lot of trouble in setting up standees)

c) Not much effective lights to show the products well.

D) In effective coordination between volunteers (won’t provide you resources on time)

e) No internet connection at all

Metrics We Met:

A) 50+ downloads and medium engagement level

b) 1000+ stall visits

c) 10+ internship inquiries to join as student influencer

It totally depends on your startup nature and what type of audience you’re targeting. B2B audience can work for large & medium size expos. For B2C, you need some targeted audience who’ll be visiting the exhibition.

Why Attending ‘Awaken The Passionpreneur Within’ Event Worth The Investment?

Why Attending ‘Awaken The Passionpreneur Within’ Event Worth The Investment?

How much worth the Awaken The Passionpreneur Within Mumbai, 2024 Connect Was?

The 1st time I hear about this event, I was curious to know what will happen and will this be the same as other networking events (PP Meetup or PP Connect 2022 & 2023) of Passionpreneur?

But this is totally different (you can say it is networking with ‘yourself’)

The seminar was divided into 2 days and this was the first spiritual healing event I attended of Dev Gadhvi Sir.

First day was filled with most healing with 4 spiritual guides and removing the past traumas with different exercises.

I thought I’ll meet fellow PP members & meet them again, however, in this event you will see many new faces to exchange the energetic vibes and continue to grow together.

awakenthepassionpreneurwithin awakenthepassionpreneurwithin awaken the passionpreneur within awaken the passionpreneur within

Dev Gadhvi sir had a surprising look with a non business suite. You’ll see a lot of change in him after you see him in person.

In this event the focus is not mainly on ‘Business Networking’ but instead healing yourself by knowing which of your 7 chakras are open and which are close.

 

Upgrading To VIP:

If you want to upgrade to VIP, just because to get food and network with other members just buy a food coupon to be in the environment by paying ₹500 extra in the lunch break.

But if you don’t want to be in the VIP because you’ve already taken many programs of Dev sir and has enough material pending to implement, that’s completely fine. Food coupon of ₹500 will save you 🙂

 

Selling Part:

There’s always something to offer for continuous improvements of PP members. However, this time the offer was mainly for non PP members (family & friends of PP members who’re open to open with the registered ticket). Your freinds/ family will likely enroll into PP 4 Month Mentorship to transform themselves holistically.

After investing ₹1,18,000 into Hight Ticket Entrepreneur Mastermind in 2022, I’ve attended various events of Passionpreneur (PP Connect 2022, Mumbai Meetup, APW 2024). All of them are worth the investment (you’ll have endless returns from the community & the business lessons if you implement thoroughly).

 

Here’re some glimpses of the Passionpreneur Programs I’ve been part of:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyas-karade09_passionpreneur-meetup-activity-7073528873807679488-Xb6c?utm_source=combined_share_message&utm_medium=member_desktop

 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyas-karade09_passionpreneurconnect2022-activity-6969854066273214464-WVmz?utm_source=combined_share_message&utm_medium=member_desktop

 

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/shreyas-karade09_passionpreneurconnect2022-ecosystem-activity-6970354148969992192-i7w7?utm_source=combined_share_message&utm_medium=member_desktop

 

 

I didn’t attend the 2nd day of this APW Connect because of clients pending work as I get only 1 holiday to complete backlogs 🙂

I thought to implement all the learnings of day 1 and see the amazing results.

If have any doubts about APW Connect 2024, put them below I’ll answer them all.

 

Unfiltered Review – BBA Digital Marketing Pillai College (New Panvel) & IIDE

Unfiltered Review – BBA Digital Marketing Pillai College (New Panvel) & IIDE

This will be the most comprehensive review of BBA Digital Marketing at Pillai College Arts, Commerce & Science (New Panvel). 
I’ve attached by student ID, student mail ID, plus LinkedIn has also verified that I belong to Pillai college which makes me eligible to review this program. 
Shreyas Karade (Pillai College BBADM student ID card)
kshreyas23dm@student.mes.ac.in
LinkedIn verification of Shreyas Karade
Visit my LinkedIn profile by clicking here
After reading all the points described below, if have any doubts you can contact me (shreyas@leadyourbusiness.in) or comment below.

Remaining SY BBA Digital Marketing Review (writing on 11th April 2025):

Hope you’ve got some idea & clarity of how it looks to be a BBA DM student in the campus (when you’re the only batch in the entire campus)

Here I’ll give you a brief about some crucial things about Pillai College

Why you can see such emotional posts about Pillai’s Alumni who’re passing from the college and who’re wining in each & every area of life

Pillai’s marketing team is very smart in pursuing you with emotional stories of students form their first year to the 3rd year. Students are on the IG constant checking 3 main IG pages with the main page constantly being active

Continuing where I left off..

In 2025, Pillai college have changed their policy from BBA DM to only BBA and is offering Digital Marketing as a specialisation from the 2nd year to the studetns (you can find the official notice by contacting the admission council)

Pillai College notice for BBA DM students

  • I can clearly say, our BBA DM batch is the luckiest one, there’re a few reasons behind it:
    Our program coordinator was Mrs. Priya Ghaloth Mam (super cooperative & would understand you as your 2nd mother). No one in the campus would match the frequency of Priya mam interms of counselling students on any topic (relationship, exam, etc.). Especially I got a lot of constructive learning from her counselling and now she left the campus due to her marriage & relocation to Pune (you may find few pics at Priya mam’s marriage here)
  • We got the exposure of core digital marketing subjects from the 1st year itself and being the only batch our feedback was quickly implemented by IIDE
  • We got the interaction with a lot of digital marketing professors from the early academic year so the number of projects we would have got from these professors were qualitative and many times internal hiring takes place (even before the intenrship fair starts)

 

Additional Tip In Vacation:

  • Innovate something everyday as you’re a DM student and AI is in your hands to build crazy things. So whichever problem you identify , just note your ideas and make it into a tangible form with fast execution (below is the first prototype of our laptop stand that’ll be used for regular commuters to have a productive journey)

1st prototype of a laptop stand for daily commuters

  • Build a good skill base with real intelligence that’ll overpower infinite intelligence (AI) it means try working on your business ideas that AI can’t solve or notice easily.

 

Go Getter Tip To Proceed To 3rd Year:

  • Be highly proactive in noticing & working on anything that goes around you (be a little updated with news)
  • Seek mentorship wherever needed as experience always accelerates your progress.

See the below email from Fiverr CEO and why it is necessary to become so good at digital marketing in whichever subfield you’re working:

Fiverr CEO to employees

  • Here’re some free resources from my side you can use anytime
  • Plus, don’t rely on faculties lecture , just utilise their experience and get quick feedback to grow fast.
  • You don’t need to attend every seminar workshop webinar that college throws to you, action is the most powerful word now and measure each second as $1B as each task you’re doing should contribute to the over & above of AI so you could secure your career ASAP

Before reading my 3rd sem review, you can scroll below and read my FY & initial SY review
Continuing my review for the 3rd semester – SYBBA DM (writing on 25th December 2024 , merry Christmas to you)
a) Raise complaint wherever needed: I raised a complaint against the college on GoogleMyBusiness by posting a negative review. Lectures were being cancelled in the middle of the day or even before the day starts.
I understand it may happen few times (but happening more than twice a week – fluctuates the whole schedule of a student)
In cases when the student is involved in internships & projects – timelines are need to met.
After raising a complaint, Vice Principal addressed it and implement the solution by rearranging the lectures and ensured that there is minimum cancellation (thank you Deepika mam :))
 
 
b) Be very street smart & take part in various initiatives: Street smart means you don’t get fooled by anyone in the college. Stalls, & events happens regularly and you don’t have to attend each event (the committee may influence you through skill credits/certificates/attendance marking). Only attend the genuine ones – I had attended a 1 day workshop of Entrepreneurship (by Deshpande Startups)
 
College offers various competitions to take part in (Alegria – intercollege). Competitions will build you competitive spirit and when you be in the game – you understand the players that pushes you to perform your best.
Showing up is more important than winning.
 
c) Market yourself well: Take part in whichever initiatives offered in your domain. It can be pitching business plan competition, doing something extra for the college (making incampus map, starting a startup via incubation, organizing media agency visit, etc.)
You’ll understand its benefits later when you’re in the 3rd year.
 
 
d) IIDE’s placement assistance: IIDE will make sure you’re properly placed and working in a growing co./agency. They’ll do the maximum followup from their side and you as a student need to revert them for grabbing good opportunities.
 
e) Subjects will be less in 4th Semester: More stress towards application than learning. You’ll have 3 subjects papers (Video advertising, brand management, reputation management) and assignments for subjects like Financial planning, Emotional Intelligence, Influencer & Email marketing).
 
You’ll have more time for your personal projects & regular internships adn thats’ the best part of 2nd year.
 
 
f) Finding your intelligent life partner: Though there’s no one perfect life partner, we say because she is very close to being a kind & intelligent girl. Until 2nd year you’ll get to know who’ll be the right fit for your future.
I studied her from various angles and when I told my mother about this, my mother was happy to know that I was transparent & had clear conversation.
Parents will give you the right suggestion in marriage area.
I’ll reveal her name in 4-5 months :)

Here’s the initial second year review on 9th July 2024 of BBA in Digital Business/ Digital Marketing at Pillai College, New Panvel (with IIDE’s faculties)

If you’ve not read my FY review of BBA DM (fees, placements, etc. will get cleared) please read that first below then start reading the latest SY initial days.

A) How much supportive is Pillai College towards your ideas?

Here I’ve 2 instances to share based on my personal experience:

  • We created a digital indoor campus map (accessible with a single QR) that’ll help students & parents to find any classroom /room easily. It took around 2 months for creating this. Principal & vice principal approved however, after a year still the map hasn’t been displayed on each floor (they told that we’ll display this innovation in our NAAC visit). They’ll support your idea on your face but won’t implement it sooner unless you’re super good at following up
  • I & Adithya Iyer (from BBA DM) proposed the idea of revamping the website for a better look & operating with SEO improvements. VP supported our idea by assigning BSc IT, CS & I and Adithya from BBA DM to take up this project & complete in 1.5 months for ease in the admission process. I & Adithya were handling the content part & the IT & CS students were structuring, designing & adding new features and the SEO part was need to be done after the site has been built. All the things were done, even after followups VP & other coordinators didn’t respond once. CS & IT students left the motivation to carry this further, so there was no point in moving forward. This project should get us 2 skill credits delivery to each student (but this didn’t happen). Here are a few glimpses of the new homepage that was in progress to make it live:

Pillai College revamped home page Pillai College revamped home page Pillai College revamped home page Pillai College revamped home page

 

B) Attendance issue?

In my FY I was particular about my attendance, but that was of no use. In my SY days now, I give more priority to my client projects & internships (as I learn more by doing than listening). Though there’s 75% mandatory, it is easily adjustable (I’ve gone from 60% to 73% in a week). There’s no professional exam made for BBA DM, how can a student give then? There’s no attendance concession for your internship (college like to make you sit in the class).

C) 12 Skill Credits Mandatory?

Till you graduate from BBA DM, you should have 12 skill credits to get the graduation certificate. Try to collect it most of them during FY & SY. College will take you to social activity, introduce courses, take part in competitions, etc. to collect it soon. Get all your certificates in a drive to show at the end of TY to calculate everything.

D) Railway Concession?

This facility is crucial to me as I live in Badlapur, Maharashtra (in Thane district) so it takes almost 2 hours to reach college. In my FY I utilised this well with 1st class pass for 50% concession.

In SY the concession won’t help you anyway, they assign Tuesday (for BBA DM) to collect passes, there are so many excuses the person gives. At the end, college don’t want to take effort for you to coordinate with the Railway office and get it processed fast.

So for SY students atleast for the 1st month, you can get your pass on UTS. From 2nd month you can continue for the quarterly pass from the concession form you had taken.

E) New Faculty or Old Faculty?

Mostly the faculty will be the same as you had in FY. Just a few change in 1-2 subjects who has some experience, but don’t rely on them. Internship & client projects on ground working will give you massive learnings than daily lecture.

As I’m writing on 9th July 2024, a few days we’ve online lectures due to rain issues. If you’re living far from college (atleast 80-90 KM away), in monsoon choose safety over lecture attendance. Though you may have other options to travel, you can’t tell the changing weather. College sometimes get the notification in the morning until then long distance students are already left for their daily lectures. So be close to your coordinator for the rain related updates.

If your internship is distance from Pillai College, it should have the faciility of work from home in extreme monsoon. My internship is in Andheri Chakala, so I’ve the fortunate employer to give me all the required adjustments.

Single message for SY students, this is the year where you see the magic of your career, avoid the romantic relationship, unnecessary habits, hanging with friends, etc. World is changing very fast, be highly dynamic & massive action taker on your skills.

From here starts my FY in BBA DM review:

Let’s start with the internship & placement offers…

Internship opportunities available with Pillai College:

a) Beginner students in DM need to learn initially and master 1 skill to gain desired internship (on or off campus] Don’t work in the NGOs internship offerd by colleges that’d take a lot of your time and least learning. Instead find a better internship through Linkedin /internshala (try to work at less stipend) IIDE offers an internship of a few weeks for doing a few tasks with training that’d help beginners.
b) For intermediate students in DM, they can get side projects or clients on LinkedIn
More internships will be offered by college in 2nd year.
 
This was the Digital Indoor Campus Map created by me, Aditya Iyer, Vineet Singh & Rafiq Shaikh (Leon Mendes was our supporting staff)
Pillai College Digital Indoor Campus Map created by BBA DM batch students (Aditya, Vineet, Shreyas & Rafiq)
 
This was the last lecture of Commercial Designing subject of Priyanka Jadhav mam. On this day we were playing blocks w.r.t. matching colors & creating different structures:
FY BBA Digital Marketing 2024 batch at Pillai College New panvel
FY BBA Digital Marketing 2024 batch at Pillai College New panvel
FY BBA Digital Marketing 2024 batch at Pillai College New panvel
FY BBA Digital Marketing 2024 batch at Pillai College New panvel

Overall experience with campus life, focusing on social aspects, club involvement, and the infrastructure provided?

a) I travel from Badlapur to New Panvel (total of 4 hours/day) so I wasn’t involved in any clubs or events. Technical events like Kavach Hackathon & Alegria tech fest happened. In food fest if you’re setting up your food stall, you can execute your marketing skills to attract audience and make enough profit.
b) No need to read any book (course is highly practical and online resources are many). Projector with a camera to record the entire lecture that gets uploaded on IIDE bookmarks (this is of no use). Even though the offline lecture gets recorded by IIDE it doesn’t have any sound clarity and visiblity so better attend offline lectures & interact lively.
c) Students can charge their laptops on their desk but need to use thier own hotspots as college wifi doesn’t work.
IIDE gives you a personal domain & hosting with IIDE’s extension to practice WordPress
 
 

 What happened in Alegria?

What are my learnings from Alegria

In 2024 when I participated in many competitions including solo singing, brand quiz, business quiz, etc. I was selected in none

Means have got selected under final rounds for business quiz and brand quiz then lost it.

Main motivation behind participating in these events were…all these were related to what I’m learning and atleast winning in one of them would return the investment.

Solo singing auditions also I lost it – have asked them the reason but the Coordinators don’t have an idea of this (only the judges know the grading system)

Patience and persistence fuels your success.

Plus, I read a quote – good things take time but I realised this is true only in few context. Good things don’t take time when you clarity of what’s going and have some control on it.

However I helped in getting some success for my internship co. – GenZDealZ.ai to have them a stall and coordinate with management for multiple collaborations.

 

More details on the fee structure and the availability of scholarships, financial assistance, or campus employment opportunities?

a) The complete fee BBA DM course didn’t have any scholarships (neither at MahaDBT nor at National Scholarship Portal) even if I had got good marks in SC category.
b) Me & my parents visited Mantralaya (CSMT) in the Social Justice department many times (through references) but those executives told that Pillai College hasn’t mapped this course. As it is an autonomous college, University of Mumbai doesn’t want private colleges to charge so much fees for BBADM as a result they’re not granting any scholarship for this course, still Pillai College is trying to avail scholarship and will be informed students soon.
c) Students can apply in MahaDBT selecting plain BBA course and also try for regional NGOs (Eklavya India, Guruji Foundation, Mudita Alliance, Deepstambh Foundation, Vidyadan Sahayak Mandal, etc.) in Maharashtra who helps in securing scholarships with required evidence
 
 
IIDE bookmarks interface
 

Rating the course curriculum in terms of relevance and comprehensiveness?

a) Already I was aware of all the subjects in DM, the curriculum is highly practical (students need to bring laptops daily means whenever DM lectures are there) IIDE is the mediator between students & Pillai college.
b) IIDE takes care of the assignments, case studies, activities submission on IIDE bookmark and feedback is provided to each student. Sometimes IIDE doesn’t provide the faculties that have the required skills/experience (especially for subjects like Google ads & SEO) In such cases student’s overall feedback help them to bring a better one.
c) In my first year (started from June 2023) I had Sem 1 & 2 with two cumulative assessments (very easy to score) and compulsory 2 skill credit courses (based on your choice) here you need to pay additional amount to college. I prefer to choose soft skills & public speaking. For a beginner in Digital Marketing, one can learn a lot with faculty’s feedback on his/her work. For an expert in DM, one can do thier side projects easily.
 
 
 

Admission process? Cut-off , student’s ranking, etc.

a) The course is eligible for anyone securing minimum 60% in any stream in your 12th class. Students need to visit the college, take the brochure of BBA Digital Marketing and follow the online admission process as told by Pillai College admission team. As BBA Digital Marketing course was newly introduced in 2023 at Pillai College so there wasn’t any tough competition in selection of students.
b) If you’re little late in taking the admission for BBA DM, you might fall into the donation trap (so have little connections build before). Reservation & scholarship is only for Malyanam students, don’t know why they’re not providing to Maharashtrian of other states students.
c) BBA DM is so new course that is is not available on MahaDBT/National Scholarship Portal as it is a autonomous college so University of Mumbai isn’t providing the fee structure that is necessary for further scholarship process.
Parents can request a 1 month extra period (till July or August) to pay the total fees.
 
 
 
 
 

Talking About IIDE In More Detail:

IIDE has partnered with different colleges in India to provide Digital Marketing (DM) or Digital Business (DB) education. IIDE has its own professors and the college has some extra subjects (maths, professional communication, yoga, HRM, Economics) with DM subjects.
 
 
IIDE Professors: Most of the IIDE professors have industry experience in ecom, agency operations, coding, etc. IIDE is flexible to receive feedback and change prof.
 
However, few of the professors aren’t so professional in their field. For e.g. subject like Google ads & Google sheets could be taught very indepth. Those who’re learning DM for the first time will find these professors helpful but the intermediate students will need a highly PRO person in his/her subject which IIDE didn’t provided.
 
Curriculum: It matches current industry requirements. In 1st Sem we had Google sheets, marketing fundaments, HTML & CSS and analytics. In 2nd Sem we had commercial designing, wordpress development, SEO & blogging, and Google ads.
 
Other campus subjects like professional communication, statistics, and economics compliment the DM subjects. It was must for us to bring laptops daily, IIDE also conducts in-person masterclasses on DM subjects those are free to attend by college students.
 
During the skill credit course period during Diwali Vacation, IIDE conducted short-term course (₹3500) – Social Media Marketing at Pillai College of 15 days which had too basic knowledge and nothing in-depth of any social media platform. Instead you could buy a specific social media course like LinkedIn Growth Hacking or Twitter Growth from GrowthSchool at less price and indepth practical explanation.
 
IIDE has different bookmark portal for assignments & case studies uploading. Grad students can find the case studies done by their senior on IIDE web page to take insights from.
 
IIDE had arranged a small IIDE campus tour to attend ORM masterclass, meet other professors & placement orientation lecture.
 
Regular presentations & class activities are conducted to make you speak and jel with your peers on any given topic.
 
 
Placements: As we’re in FY a few internships from college was offered but that was not directly related to DM. IIDE has a mandatory internship scheduled in the Feb 2024 of 20 days (2 hours/day) with some assignments & feeedback. You get a LOE after completion of all tasks from IIDE.
 
I had done these tasks before, so it was easy for me. But for a beginner, he/she might need to practice more & experiment to get good results.
 
You could start pursuing internship in the FY (apart from what college offers) if your skills & internship requirements matches. Don’t worry much about the stipend initially, especially in DM where things change fast. When you show what you can do in your specialised area and become the only person on this planet to do a task that’s when you become super valuable.
 
Overall a good choice for beginner in Digital Marketing to choose Pillai College or any other college with BBA in Digital Marketing or Digital Business degree.
 
This review will be updated in my 2nd year of BBA DM at Pillai’s campus so you get clarity which degree or sujbects to pursue