Marketing Plan for

MBA (IB) -2009-12 Students

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

Title: Marketing plan for The Statesman

Organization: Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

Author: Subhajit Ghosh (39)

Sarup Paul (32)
Prasenjit Roychoudhury(25)

Date of Submission: 6.05.2011

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE
Table of Contents

Overview 4
Present Problem with The Statesman 5
Core competencies 8
Product Betterment 9
New Marketing strategy 10
Budget 11
Results expected 12

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 3

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

Overview
The Statesman is the daily English news paper published from Kolkata,
Siliguri, New Delhi and Bhubaneswar. The news paper was first published
in 1875 from Kolkata. The English daily was a leading news paper during
1980 decade and early 1990. The paper was mostly considered for authentic
English and unbiased journalism.

The English daily newspaper lost its market share by major proportion after
1990 when other daily newspaper The Telegraph, The Times of India and
The Economic Times gradually have grown it’s major share.

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 4

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE
Present Problem with The Statesman
• Problems with the Product(the news paper as such)
• The first point we found is that normally every
newspaper has target markets or every newspapers try to
emulate a day in which they target a particular group mostly by
attachments like we have Times of India which tries to identify
itself as a newspaper for the upper middle class & people who
will like to read the news in depth .Hindu normally takes care
of the people who do a lots of investigative reporting similarly
Indian Express . But in the case of The Statesman we found
that theer is no such specific target segment & it seems to be a
newspaper for everyone which in reality means newspaper for
no one

• The second big problem with the newspaper is the old

style journalism which normally relied heavily on reports from
standard news agencies like PTI, Reuters etc but the new form
of readers do not like it since this same news one must have
looked at several times in TV channels or some in the website ,
since there is no other value add to this news so people dont
like to read it, most newspapers have got there own journalists
at different locations who give a different , more detailed &
exclusive view

• Statesman was supposedly the only newspaper which has

the lowest amount of supplements which are targetted to
particular market segments like huge gossip supplements,
career supplements, educational knowhow etc

• Once upon a time Statesman was known for its high print
quality but soon technology advanced but Statesman failed to
improve there press & this resulted in others overtaking it , now
statesman print & font is not liked by most

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 5

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• Problems with the Positioning

• Statesman is not given as a place in the general
customers mind , if one has to find jobs one will go to the times
accent. If anyone has to look for local advertisement one will
look at the telegraph or vernacular dailies

• moreover the biggest recall like great articles being

published which gets quoted by other newspapers is completely
missing, this never gives a good impression of recall , so there
is a major loss of mindshare

• Statesman had just 1 press in Kolkata & used to serve the

whole of eastern india ,though now they have setup press at
different locations but so far they have failed to have editorial
teams for each edition this has resulted in the Kolkata edition
being just replicated in Siliguri thus missing the local flavour
which could have resulted in major market share gain

• Statesman though had launched there online version a

long time ago but so far they have failed to capitalise on it , if
anyone gives a search on a news in google statesman website is
not available in the first few pages , this has resulted in a lots of
loss in onsite mindshare as well as advertisement revenue ,
neither has statesman got any online replicas of print version

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 6

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

• Problems with promotion

• All newspapers have got a very big advertisement budget

both for direct advertisement as well as subtle advertisement
but statesman has been a no player in this , there is almost no
billboard ads & statesman is never known for organising events
which involve the target customers like we had durga puja
contests from the times of india

• Once reading the statesman was considered as

intellectual but as the cultural proposition changed intellectual
was not taken as a big draw so the brand value or the brand
association needed to be changed but that was never done

• Problems of pricing
• The current price of statesman is very high as compared
to other peers but that has never been a reason to show it to be
one for the high segments

• Statesman has failed to make a dynamic pricing which is

the forte of other newspapers & also takes care of the target
customers like for the people looking for jobs if the price is
kept artificially high for the day one is publishing the career
supplement then it helps

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INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

Core competencies
Statesman has got a number of core competencies which we had identified
• Authentic English –The Statesman has one of the best English which
was inherited from its pre independence origins , infact still now if
anyone wants to read English (not the one which in India we call
Hinglish) people ask to read the statesman

• It has been around since 1875 so there is a brand linkage , “ my

grandfather read it- my father read it – so should I” type of links can
be made

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 8

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

Product Betterment
The key for any marketing plan is to first improve the product the first P
• There has to be supplements which are focused on news or ads a
group of people can use
• lots of people will like to have sections where they can be
given tips for traveling & locations they can visit given the high
tourism instinct of the people of East India this will be a highly
desired section.
• Then most people will be looking for a section where they can
find jobs after the shift of majority of people from stable jobs to
changing jobs for better opportunity
• For daily entertainment , films page 3there needs to be a section

• Concentration on value added service along with core competencies

• Better online product

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 9

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

New Marketing strategy

• The first thing that needs to be done is to find the segment which can
be easily tapped , two segments will require quick news & may not be
bothered with much depth. They are the quick readers like office
goers who can spare a small time so giving them relevant news in
short reading time is all that important so to target them we need to
first put up promotions in places like railway stations & setup
exclusive agents to sell only statesman

• Improving print quality to catch the attention of these people is highly

required , people traveling will normally like to have large fonts
which is easily readable , the newspaper is easily foldable , can go to
target pages where he can find news he is interested in

• Another category which can be easily brought to the statesman is the

students category here the major marketing focus will be to first make
the newspaper relevant for them by adding new sections for career
guidance & making direct consultations with career consultants the
biggest marketing strategy will be to take the consultants to select
colleges & offer consultancy to the students free of cost then inviting
students to ask there questions in those columns soon many students
will find the solutions of the problems they may have in there mind
reflected in the newspaper with solutions

• Another major strategy is to sponsor college & school events this is

for the publicity of the brand

• Creating a new brand image that of being focused but having

wholesome family news , moreover its very important that the brand
reflects one of modern but high class English , since a lots of people
like to learn good English the focus will be to create a brand image
that people who read Statesman will be able to develop a high quality
English

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 1

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

• Online presence is highly needed the first step will be to improve the
website into one where one can read a lots of advertisement especially
on the focused categories.

• Major investments on websearch & getting it linked to popular search

engines like Google etc

Budget
Since exact financial position of the statesman is not made public so we
have taken the approx numbers

Major marketing costs

Bill board advertisements at select locations---Rs 15 Lakhs
Sponsorship of college events ----Rs 10 Lakhs
Recruitment & commissions of agents-----------Rs 10 Lakhs
Online ads Rs 20 Lakhs

Product improvement cost

New Press Rs 20 Lakhs
New sections Rs 20 Lakhs / mnth
New set of journalists & consultants Rs 20 Lakhs/ Mnth
New web page creation Rs 20 Lakhs

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 1

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN TRADE

Results expected
Circulations should improve by atleast 500% from current 180000 to 1
million because of the additions of office goers atleast 400000( 10% local
train passengers) & students & there home 400000(50% of college goers &
there families)
Moreover once circulation improves more advertisers will put up there ads
which is expected to improve the advertisement rates

Marketing Plan for the Statesman 1