Scaler earmarks Rs 100 cr for marketing in 2022; bets big on original content and influencer marketing

Edtech brand Scaler has said it will invest Rs 100 crore towards marketing in 2022. Buoyed by its 4X growth in the last year and a half, Scaler has been leveraging the power of the digital medium through original and curated content to capture the minds of young and aspiring techies.

Scaler has partnered with various creators and influencers, with some of their recent branded content endeavours being Alright, Ankur Warikoo, JordIndian, RVCJ, TVF and more. The company has found immense success in its unique and tactical approach to using BTL and direct marketing efforts, leading to a 100% increase in enquiries for enrollment into online programs and a 200% increase in the time spent by existing learners on their platform. Significant marketing efforts will focus on curated content IPs with premier OTT players and YouTube creator networks in the coming months.

Speaking about the investment, Rahul Karthikeyan, Chief Marketing Officer, Scaler, said. "The pandemic served as a reality check for many who suddenly realised that merely having a university degree or even work experience is no longer a guarantee for securing or retaining their jobs. This has led to a surge in the number of ed-tech businesses offering thousands of courses and programs promising the allure of knowledge and job security. However, for a niche offering like ours, the challenge is to be seen distinctly in the crowd and be heard above the current cacophony."

Over the last year, most brands have focused on getting brand ambassadors on board and running digital marketing campaigns that engage with influencers or even digital films. However, since most upskilling programs target a specific and narrow audience that is well-informed and part of the decision-making process, not many brands have built a niche. Given this opportunity, Scaler also partnered with ScriptRoom to help create a differentiated brand story built on the back of a strong product offering. Scaler is also in conversation with Dice Media, and several other leading creators to create original content to nurture its sizable community of learners and passionate coders.

"In our assessment, as a digital native entity, we understand the power of the digital medium in democratising information access and also create communication that resonates closely with the aspirations of our target audience. The limitations that conventional media puts on creativity does not extend to the digital medium, and we are confident of leveraging this abundant opportunity to reach our audience in a meaningful manner," added Rahul.

Scaler is also proactively building a community of enthusiastic developers and coders on new-age platforms in an endeavour to bring the country's aspiring coding talent together. With over 74,000 members, Scaler runs India's largest active online tech community on Discord, where tech enthusiasts share their knowledge with community members, collaborate for projects and discuss everything about technology. Scaler hosts 50+ weekly activities, including exclusive events and competitions like the 100 Days of Coding challenge, the HackX open-source virtual hackathon and the Scaler Wizards & Masters program. The idea is to bring together coders with varied experience levels in different areas and empower them to share their knowledge with the larger community on Discord. In addition, the company has also initiated the Scaler Star program, which helps in growing and engaging the community with the help of dedicated community ambassadors.

Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder, Scaler & InterviewBit, on the need for a differentiated marketing strategy, said, "When it comes to a service like ours, we understand that we are talking to a well-informed and mature audience who need to be engaged with creative narratives that don't scream advertising at them as they don't care for it. The power of the digital medium lies in doing targeted communication, and we understand that today's user is empowered to skip these ads and move on. So as opposed to using conventional ads digitally, we are keen on engaging the right partners to help us contextually communicate Scaler's value proposition through interesting storytelling. Our content strategy will be much like a publishing house that will create and distribute content at scale to make meaningful connections with our consumers."