Leveraging Additional Traffic during XAT or CAT Exams?
Who gains the most during competitive exam (like CAT or XAT) season? Well the obvious answer is the test prep coaching centers like Time or Career Launcher. But with the CAT exam likely to follow the GMAT way, Online only Test Prep centers that have mushroomed recently, also leverage the eyeballs during the peak exam season.
Most of us know that XAT 2009 was conducted on January 4 across various centers in India. As expected after the exam there is a spurt of activity on the net. Candidates wanted to know up to date information, solutions and analysis of the just concluded exam. Who gains the benefit of this additional traffic? Blogs, Splogs, Traditional Prep Sites and Online Only Test Prep Sites. Let me clarify- Traditional Test Prep Companies are like the ones who started their business as class room coaching centers (read brick and mortar) and then augmented their presence with the help of websites. Example for such institutes are Time, Career Launcher, IMS and Career Forum. The Online Only Test Prep Sites are those who started their business online. Examples for such sites are TCYOnline, TenADay, TestFunda and CATIndiaOnline. The picture below is from Google Search Trends for January 4, 2008.
With CAT examinations going online from this year, many other exams like XAT, JMET etc will follow the suit. Seeing opportunity many Test Prep Sites have mushroomed over a period of 6 to 9 months. Traditional Test Prep sites have also scaled up their operations to entice future CAT/XAT aspirants.
How are the Test Prep Companies capitalizing the additional traffic?
During the peak season the test prep companies advertise heavily. MingleBox, TestFunda, TCYOnline have run campaigns to get more eyeballs. Apart from that these companies devote a team of experts to publish insights, analysis, solutions and expected cutoff for the exam. Most of the sites require a login before a user can read the information. Hopefully these sites get some additional customers either in the form of online registration or enquiry for the next batch. Most of them just bounces off after digesting the information. Having a blog to dispense information or breaking news is more important that ever before to drive additional traffic to the sites.
We can equate this situation to offline advertising campaign where Traditional Test Prep Companies distribute pamphlets/brochures on the courses they offer. Some of them do join the courses. But I assume the conversion rate will be low. But that is a accepted fact. The picture of the right is a sample advertisement by Test Funda enticing user to try its online test prep material.
Is there any tangible benefit by driving additional traffic to the site during peak season?
- More traffic to the site will lead to more more conversion rate
- Information is linked by other bloggers or forwarded by emails which leads to additional traffic
- By virtue of registration, the sites get hold of the email addresses which can be used to send an occasional email
- Opportunity for the sites to brand themselves by offering the best information.
Who is gaining benefit?
CAT 2008 was conducted on Nov 16, 2008 (Peak 1) and SNAP 2008 was conducted on Dec 21, 2008 (Peak 2). As expected the traffic peaks around those dates.
Traditional Test Prep Sites: The page views of traditional test prep sites did peak around the time of exam. But the page views drastically fell after the exam as the visitors to do not find a reason to come back to these sites. But during the peak season, these sites should have gained additional customers.
Online OnlyTest Prep Sites: The page views of New Test Prep peaked on the exam dates. These sites were able to sustain some growth.
Comparison: The Online Only Test Prep sites is giving neck to neck competition to the Traditional Test Prep sites as far as Online Test Preparation is concerned.
Crossposted from Oodami on January 5, 2009
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