Case Study 05 · BYJU'S
K-12 EdTech · India · Vice President, Marketing
25,000 schools a season, four brand launches in three years, cost per lead down 70%.
I joined BYJU'S when it was a Bengaluru app brand and left it a national household name. Over seven and a half years I ran the offline-to-online acquisition machine — India's largest school quiz, one of the country's largest below-the-line operations, and the brand integrations everyone remembers.
- Schools per season
- 25,000
- Students reached
- 70 lakh
- Cost per lead
- −70%
- Brand launches in 3 years
- 4
Discovery School Super League
Per DSSL season
Over the tenure
Including Disney BYJU'S Early Learn
Figures from public record and the author's tenure. Scale figures are per season at peak.
01 — The Situation
Take an app brand to every school in the country, and make the leads cheaper while doing it.
Digital alone could not reach the parent who decides. The job was to build the offline surfaces that create demand and the digital surfaces that capture it, at a cost the unit economics could carry.
Where it started
- Acquisition concentrated in digital performance channels with rising cost per lead.
- No national school-engagement property.
- Brand known in metros; thin recall in Tier-2 and Tier-3.
- Single-brand portfolio.
Where it is now
- Discovery School Super League: 25,000 schools and 70 lakh students a season.
- A below-the-line operation across 170+ cities with 600 on-roll and 4,000 off-roll team members.
- KBC and Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah integrations; national brand communication.
- Four brands launched in three years, including Disney BYJU'S Early Learn.
02 — What I Did
Build the properties, then wire them to the funnel.
- Headline property
Discovery School Super League
Conceived and ran India's largest school quiz, with Discovery — a demand-creation engine that put the brand in front of 70 lakh students and their parents every season.
- Scale
One of India's largest BTL operations
170+ cities, 4,600 people, offline-to-online activations wired into the lead funnel.
- Brand
ATL think tank
KBC and Taarak Mehta integrations, national campaigns, and go-to-market for four brand launches in three years.
- Efficiency
Cost per lead −70%
An omnichannel mix across ATL, digital and BTL, managed against one cost-per-lead target.
03 — The Result
A national brand and a cheaper lead, at the same time.
Scale is easy to buy and hard to afford. The point of the offline machine was that it made the digital funnel cheaper, not more expensive.
Cost per lead
Baseline−70%
Reach
25,000 schools and 70 lakh students a season through the Discovery School Super League.
Operation
170+ cities, 600 on-roll and 4,000 off-roll team members, wired into the lead funnel.
- 25,000 schools and 70 lakh students a season through DSSL.
- Cost per lead down 70% across the tenure.
- Four brands launched in three years, including Disney BYJU'S Early Learn.
- A team of 4,600 across 170+ cities.
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