Marketing for a Newspaper Company: The TIMES - Case Study Example

As we know marketing strategies and planning are vital for any business, but for a newspaper it holds a very unique perspective. Initially it was understood that only tangible goods require marketing, services are just sold on their level of quality, but in the twentieth century it was soon replaced by the growing phenomenon of marketing in information and services industry. Marketing for a newspaper company can be very different, unique and challenging. Therefore when this topic called for a newspaper to be chosen for this research paper, the newspaper that was selected by me was the TIMES. When the selection of a newspaper was underway, the main reason for choosing the TIMES was its long history, its world wide recognition and increasing customer base. From being only a UK based newspaper on its inception, the TIMES has evolved from a period when marketing was unheard to a period when marketing reigns supreme. During all this time, the TIMES has maintained its reputation and has always been a step ahead of its competition. When we see the overall marketing strategy of the TIMES, we see a dynamic force at nature. Over the years, the TIMES has evolved its marketing into many dimensions. When observed closely, the marketing strategy of the TIMES has been focused on the following basic dimensions: To create a brand name that stands for speedy and accurate news. To create a name recognition into emerging markets of information. To have a recognition as a global newspaper. To integrate the internet aspect into its business. To capture the market of the new generation, while trying to maintain the traditional values that made TIMES a household name. The TIMES has in the recent time implemented a strategy that calls for a brand development. Firstly, the paper made it clear through activities like adding its paper on the internet, and launching it in many countries, that it doesn't want to restrain itself to only one particular country. The used the same quality values of their English version, i.e. accurate and reliable news, but they were careful to decentralize their marketing activities specific for each region. They used different names, specifically like New York Times, Times of India etc that showed them devoted to one region. Also the news was selected according to the demographics of the readers. The TIMES also generated a strategy for a global brand name. With the advent of the internet, this task became easy as now it displayed newspapers for many regions but under the specific brand name of the TIMES. In this way each paper maintained individuality as well as common global values. The TIMES has also embarked upon a marketing strategy to make its customers feel more attached with the newspaper. Today TIMES does not stand for only news, but for much more. It has interesting aspects for all the household, like cooking recipes and clothes designs for the women, gadgets and sports paper for the young, comics for the children, business news for the job-related people, and not only local news but world wide as well. The marketing of TIMES has used it as a catch for the paper to be declared as one for the entire household. One of the major challenges for the marketing strategy developers for the TIMES has been to change the perception of the youth about the newspaper. The TIMES has always been seen by the youth as the newspaper for the more serious and elderly people. Even though it contains many interesting aspects for the youth, but the general perception remains the same. For this the TIMES has to create a new image for itself. The newspaper has been employing towards this goal through many aspects. Firstly, by driving more items and captions for the youth, like sports page, jobs page, gadgets page etc. Second, by using the internet to give a whole new look to the paper, making it more animated and interactive for the youth. Lastly, the marketing strategy most into play these days is to make the paper more accessible and glamorous to the readers. Many interactive sections have been added. Like instant polls, comments sections, editorials, that make the reader feel more involved. Also the commercials have also been selected for the newspaper keeping the dynamics of the readers in consideration. Also the new offers to provide news on e-mails or cell phones to its subscribers is very helpful to increase the number of readers many fold. But between all these major changes, the applaudable fact is that the TIMES is still maintaining its day one value: in the end, when the real news is needed quickly and accurately, the TIMES will be there for its readers. An assessment of the importance and the use of information in the marketing strategy of the TIMES: The TIMES need information not only to sell it and to tell it to their readers, but also to keep ahead in the business. In the service industry, customer mood is the key to make him/her satisfied by the service at all times. A newspaper company must have a good recognition of the likes and dislikes of its customers to be able to serve them more efficiently. Even in newspaper business, it is essential to have the information regarding what kind of things particular customers enjoy. For instance, do more readers enjoy sports or movie news Things like that really shape the newspaper. The TIMES can also use this information as a marketing strategy like if it prints lots of articles about business it should know they their sales would be high where among areas where business man are living or in their offices so they can read about how other business are doing. And by this the times can give their clients the idea on how they can advertise about their own business in the newspaper. Demographics such as location, culture, moods, history etc can really shape the behavior of a customer, thus TIMES need such information in case of wanting choose what to give its customers that they will most appreciate. Also this becomes more complicated and important when we are dealing with a global scenario. The Times can also gather information by public survey about their newspaper this strategy can be used to build good customer relation and use it for its increases sale as a marketing strategy. The Times as we know is a global news paper it not only needs information about the current events form England but from all over the world about news politics education and all the current affairs. The Times use this as their marketing strategy because readers in England and all over the world would like to know about the current affairs in the different countries about their news politics education and all the other events. Using this strategy the times provides a large number of varieties in articles for readers of all age group and interests in all the different countries. An analysis of how the global context has been incorporated into their marketing planning: Global is not just a term in the business world. Today it has become a necessity for success and development. No more companies can remain successful if they just keep seated in one place. Expansion is second to survival. In the newspaper industry, global expansion came relatively easy as newspaper were already dealing with world affairs. But for the marketing strategists, it was very difficult, as most sold newspapers in any region are those that have been there for a long time. It is not easy for a newspaper to just start off in a new place. To get information from all over the world TIMES has its sources that give it quick updates, so information gathering was not the problem. However, initiating a global image was not easy. The TIMES marketing strategy coped up with that by first establishing newspaper agencies in different countries. To get the people relate to them, most of them were named in some variation of the region or country's name. Examples such as Times New York, Times of India started off well. Also extensive research was done regarding what features of the newspaper applied to the people of each region. The TIMES an England based newspaper gets information about the current happening form its sources about the latest sales on different stores and the dates of all sporting events and all the details about politics and all the other news all over England .Without its sources bringing the TIMES the information it would lose its build reputation and its reader would move to its competitors. Therefore current information is very necessary for the TIMES to keep its readers satisfied up to date about the current events and subscribed to it. Information means in all forms helps the TIMES in its marketing it can be used to gather information on what types of stories or articles other papers are running and their sales can be compared to the TIMES with its current articles they are providing. Soon after this TIMES started its web news page, in a further attempt to generalize a global product. In this case the marketing strategy as to keep its readers in some general and common ground as well as not to afford to lose their individuality. Thus the TIMES now currently employ two kinds of papers, one e-paper that is mostly global, and on the other hand small local papers all over the world with the thought of having both the options open until the process of globalization is complete, in which case there might be only one paper of TIMES in the whole world, sufficient for all. The local papers of TIMES employ similar strategies, i.e. they focus on the news and other issues, but with a little bit of individuality striking them out just for that region. Also the TIMES has made its operations decentralized in different regions, meaning that local newspapers carry on without any fear of pressure fro any region. Each local paper employs its own marketing strategy, with regards to its specific region and customers. A reflection on how the newspaper has embraced e-business strategies in their marketing: TIMES also embraced e-business in a large manner. It was soon seen by the paper that the e-business can have two major advantages for them, firstly, that it can carry their paper further to those parts of the world where they have but not yet reached. This gives them an opportunity to explore the possibility of new markets around the globe with almost no cost. This gives them opportunity to test their paper in new countries and regions, and to observe through e-collaboration, what changes are needed before launching an official paper there. The internet provides a global version of TIMES as well as local versions, all integrated into a singular paper that can be accessed by all. Also e[paper was a necessity as most of the people in today's fast world do not like to wait for tomorrow to read the latest news. They want to read it as soon as it happens. In this manner internet was the only way in which even the television news can almost be beaten in terms of speed. In addition to embracing the e-business strategies of employing a global standard and using the web world to keep the most updated as explained above, the TIMES has also embraced the e-business marketing strategy of using the internet to present its product i.e. the newspaper in a very flashy, communicational, and easy and cheap manner. Now many readers instead of buying the newspaper simply prefer to read it on the web. It is not that this is reducing the profits of the TIMES. On the other hand, now the paper makes more through advertising and subscriptions on the internet, having its customer base increased by manifold. After analyzing the marketing strategy of TIMES and exploring concepts such as customer demographics, customer preference importance, selling concepts, branding, e-selling and image development, recognition of changing global marketing scenario, image development, integration with other structures to get global recognition, and penetration in new arenas, let us now apply some marketing management tools. We shall do so by conducting a SWOT and PEST analysis of TIMES. SWOT Analysis of TIMES Strengths: 1. Strong background and rich history as a successful newspaper. 2. Already established in many countries of the world. 3. Have a good business understanding. 4. Have good reporters and sources to gather the news faster than almost all its major competitors. Weaknesses: 1. Difficulty in integrating newer methods of marketing with its overall marketing strategy. 2. Majority of readers are matured, have low penetration in the younger generation. 3. Culture of reading papers diminishing in Europe. 4. Majority newspaper readers are in Asia, where TIMES has low penetration. 5. Global image as a strictly English paper. Opportunities: 1. Major Asian reader market still left for penetration. 2. Global newspaper or internet newspaper is a relatively new concept that has still enormous potential for TIMES. 3. Use of internet as marketing tool. Threats: 1. New newspaper companies emerging, especially in China and Asia. 2. E-business in newspaper industry has led to new dimensions, and a chance for new companies to overcome old and established competitors. 3. Internet has led readers away from traditional newspaper reading, thus posing threat to established business of TIMES. PEST ANALYSIS The external environment is ever changing and highly volatile therefore an instrument such as the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, Technological) analysis is a highly effective and useful management tool which helps the organization in evaluating the macroeconomic factors in the economy which can affect the supply, demand and the cost structure of the company (Kotler, Keller, p105). It is also useful in the strategic planning process. These are the factors that make up the external environment but they are going to vary in different countries as TIME has become global product. Political factors are the extent to which the government intervenes in the decisions of TIME or how their policies can affect the company such as increase on the sales tax or corporate tax. The government can affect TIME if it places laws on the freedom of press and constrains them. Other than that the instability of the government and the corruption in the Asian markets can affect it too. The economic factors are related to the government policies like income, inflation, money supply, interest rate and so on (Kotler, Keller, p106). For a newspaper company there will be other factors too that would be considered individually which can effect the industry as a whole as well as the company like the rising price of paper, rising cost of printing, shortage of labor can drive up salaries, if the government increases the duty on imported machinery that would again increase cost. These factors will increase the production cost of the company and since TIME is a global newspaper so each country will have different policies and implications on TIME depending on their economic conditions. TIME will have to consider the social factors because it has a direct impact on the newspaper companies and tend to vary with the passage of time. Due to the rising tensions around the globe and the changing interest of the individuals the company has to cope with the change by providing people to read what they want. It depends on the taste and preferences of the people of the region and the country where it is operating. Moreover the lifestyles and the literacy rate can also hamper the growth of TIME if it is targeting nations in the Asian regions then it will have to consider the education level of those countries to evaluate the population that reads newspaper in those regions. Moreover it will have to see their spending patterns and the people's opinion regarding media. Technology is a factor which has helped TIME to grow lately and reach the masses all around the globe and one such blessing has been the usage of the internet. This is the era of information technology so in order to stay connected and speed up the communication process people prefer to go online and read rather than buying printed copies of newspapers. TIME should continue to invest in the research and development to make the maximum utilization of the communication tools. The technology legislations on the internet can affect TIME. It can research on the preferences of online readers and compete on technological basis, moreover look for the appropriate sponsors on the websites for their advertising. There are tremendous opportunities on the internet to explore and work on. Conclusion The TIMES has evolved many marketing strategies in its business, starting from a local paper of England to one of the most read papers in the world. it has employed information usage, global implications and e-business in its marketing plans and has benefited greatly. More can be expected from the paper in years to come. Works Cited Etzel, M. J., Walker, B. J., Walker, S., & Stanton, W. J. Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. 2000. Hodgens, Steve. "Branding campaign emphasises the multi-platform nature of the Post-Standard." INMA: Sharing Ideas, Inspiring change. 10 Aug 2009. International Newspaper Marketing Association. 15 Aug 2009 . Kotler, Philip; Keller, Kevin. Marketing Management. New York: Prentice Hall. 2008. Lane, Beth. "Newspaper Marketing Lesson Plan: Exploring the History and the Future of Print Newspapers." 31 May 2007. suite101.com. 15 Aug 2009 . Sethna, Nina. "Campaign emphasises the newspaper's importance as a news source." INMA: Sharing Ideas, Inspiring change. 24 Jul 2009. International Newspaper Marketing Association. 15 Aug 2009 . "The Newspaper Marketing Plan." Shaping the Future of the Newspaper. 10 Aug 2009. Wan-press.org. 15 Aug 2009 . Read More