With the business of running coaching classes emerging as a very profitable one, there is a big competition among the institutes offering coaching today. Offering coaching, which was just a local business before has grown into a nationwide business with some big institutes having branches all over the country. This article is an attempt to study the techniques used by coaching classes to promote themselves.

Institutes today offer coaching for various purposes, the most common one being coaching students for various competitive examinations. Gaining admission into professional courses like business management, banking, doctoral studies, defense services, etc. requires the students to clear tough entrance exams. Apart from the domestic competitive examinations, international universities also have rigorous procedures for admissions. Moreover, internationally recognized competitive exams like TOEFL, IELTS, SAT, etc. test students on a variety of parameters like proficiency in English language, aptitude, quantitative reasoning, etc. The scores of these tests are used by students to gain admission into various international universities for various courses. Furthermore, admission to credible universities abroad also requires the students to gain good scores in GRE and other evaluative exams such as USMLE, etc. In such a competitive environment with a stringent exam procedure, coaching institutes prove to be of great help. Special coaching institutes have sprung up all over the country where students can have hands on experience of the competitive exams, learn the nuances of `dealing' with these exams, all these in a friendly and healthy environment.

Although these coaching classes charge exorbitant fees for the training, students do not mind paying these huge fees as it is a question of their future. Thus, over the past few years, the business of offering coaching has emerged into a profitable and fully structured one. This lucrative business is also attracting many players, thereby increasing the competition for the existing players. Coaching classes need to promote themselves against their competitors for attracting more students and that too those of higher caliber. This requires a huge advertising effort.

Although coaching classes do not confer any degrees or offer any certificates, they have become a very important part of today's education system and are running successfully. And a profitable business needs to have a right marketing mix (4Ps) and the 4 P of the marketing mix, i.e., promotion, plays a very important role in marketing. This article identifies 10 strategies commonly used by coaching institutes for promoting themselves against their competitors.

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