One of my first projects was this – Transfer from Ukraine. The Ukraine-Russia War of 2022 is an unforgettable chapter in history, marked by missiles, rockets, and tanks on the streets. While many of us were gripped by fear and uncertainty from afar, thousands of students from around the world were living this nightmare firsthand in Ukraine. 

In India alone, over 75,000 students were studying in Ukraine, pursuing various courses. Among them was my friend, who was enrolled at Lviv University. Amid the chaos, she was fortunate to receive help from another friend, Aman Kumar, who was studying in Georgia. Aman assisted her in transferring from her university in Ukraine to a university in Georgia, thus saving her years of hard work and academic semester.

This act of kindness sparked an idea. Recognizing the dire need for students to transfer from Ukrainian universities to safer institutions in Georgia, we decided to launch this project to facilitate these transfers.

Challenges

• Reaching out to the affected students
• Gaining their trust and convincing them
• Getting their transfer to the universities in Georgia

Strategy

The strategy was simple: Reach as many students as possible in the affected areas of Ukraine and facilitate their transfer to universities in Georgia. We focused specifically on MBBS students, leveraging our connections with three MBBS universities in Georgia.

Action

To quickly reach people, I created an Instagram account named ‘Transfer from Ukraine‘ and began posting content. Emphasizing memes, as they tend to garner the most shares and reach, became our focus. However, due to my limited design skills at the time, only one of our reels gained some traction. Content creation was proving time-consuming, prompting us to shift our approach to directly reaching out to students.

How did we do that?

We made a list of the universities, that we wanted to target and began following their Instagram and Facebook pages. And, we started sending DMs to the students who were following the accounts and engaging with their content. However, the approach proved to be very time-consuming.

Realizing the need for a more efficient method, I created this website on WordPress. Our website allowed students to learn about the transfer process, submit their queries, and understand how ‘ Transfer from Ukraine’ operates.

Next, I launched Meta ad campaigns. After researching Facebook ad creatives and using some pre-made Canva templates, I designed appealing ads with compelling copy aimed at driving link clicks and website visits. And soon, we started receiving queries through our website lead forms and WhatsApp.

Result

In two months, with a budget of around 20,000 INR, we generated over 250 leads and facilitated 45 successful university transfers. This achievement wasn’t solely due to our small team of two; we owe a great deal to our friends who assisted us at various steps and extended special thanks to the Georgian authorities and universities for their support and acceptance of these admissions.

And I came to realize one thing
“Digital Marketing is a Super Power”