Term Paper

OF
Marketing
Management

Topic : Ajit
Newspaper
Submitted To:
Submitted By:
Mr. Parveen Singh Kalsi
Gagandeep Singh
(Faculty dept. of management)
R315-A23

MBA- 1st Sem.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I feel immense pleasure to give the credit of my term paper

not only to one individual as this work is integrated effort of
all those who concerned with it. I want to owe my thanks to
all those individuals who guided me to move on the track.
This report entitled MARKETING PLAN for ‘AJIT’
NEWSPAPER

I sincerely express my gratitude and lot of thanks to Mr.

Parveen Singh Kalsi for helping me in completing my Term
paper and give me a ideas for doing my job and making it a
great success.

I would like to express my deep sense of gratitude to

staff of LOVELY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS who introduced
me to the subject and under whose guidance I am able to
complete my project

PREFACE

As MBA degree require equal attention practical as well

as theoretical aspect of the business, various problems
are to be dealt with in these courses, that is why
research programs are there to give deep as well as
through knowledge of the subjects.

I have attempted to live up these requisites while

preparing this term paper. It is a part of professional
courses. With the help of term paper we can able to
understand the deep knowledge about the specific topics
assign to us.

During my project work I observed some the aspects of

making a market plan. and gathered all the necessary
information regarding it.
 It is hoped that this report meets the given expectations
and various requirements of the research

AN INTRODUCTION TO
‘AJIT’ NEWSPAPER
The most favourite newspaper of the punjabi’s ‘AJIT’ is
the world’s largest newspaper that is printed in Punjabi
language. The newspaper is called as ‘PUNJAB DI
AWAAZ’.

Now I am going to discuss the brief history of the ‘AJIT’

newspaper. It was first printed at Lahore, in Urdu
language in 1941. then it was only of 4 pages and was
printed only weekly. After that it started printed daily in
1942 and was conducted by the civil supply minister of
that time S. Baldev Singh. The first chief editor of the
AJIT newspaper was the MLA of that time S. Lal Singh
Kamla Akali.

After the independence, It was started printed at

Jalandhar and S.Sadhu Singh Hamdard was its chief
editor.In 1955 it was started printed in Punjabi language
as ‘AJIT PATRIKA’. After that it was again changed to
Punjabi ‘AJIT’ in 1957. This newspaper had a great
success. After that Most of the punjabi’s started reading
this newspaper regularly.

After the huge success in Punjabi newspaper the AJIT

group comes in to action again with the launch of the
Hindi newspaper called ‘AJIT SAMACHAR’ in 1996. So in
this way they started giving competition to their
competitors in the segment of Hindi newspaper.

They took their first step in the world of internet in July,

2002 by launching their website of Punjabi news
www.ajitjalandhar.com. From this website the readers
can read their news in Punjabi language very easily and
effectively.

Because of these efforts by the AJIT group the AJIT

newspaper becomes the No.1 selling Punjabi newspaper
in the world.
An introduction to a Marketing Plan
of a Newspaper
More than in most other businesses, the need for good
planning in the newspaper business is essential.

Newspapers are subject to major economic cycles. They

have a high level of variable costs. They benefit from short-
term initiatives. The newspaper industry is highly
competitive, and threats are changing all the time. They are
uniquely dependent on inter-related revenue streams
provided by sales and advertising. And newspaper
companies are fast moving.

"Good planning is the route to accelerated growth," says this

report, which offers a examination of the main techniques
that newspaper companies use in their planning processes.
"It is the means by which market difficulties and internal
blockages can be anticipated. It is the way to forecast
resource requirements such as staffing technology and
newsprint. It is also the best way to encourage teams of
managers to work together."

Making an Effective Marketing Plan

How well your advertisements and promotions draw
customers will ultimately determine how effective your
marketing strategy is. It becomes your responsibility to
cultivate your designated market, if you decide to market
your invention yourself. One of the ways to do this is
through advertising and promotions. Remember the aim
of the advertising and promotional strategy is to create
awareness of your product, to arouse customers' needs
and expectations to the point of consumption and to
create a loyal stream of satisfied customers who continue
to patronize your business.
A marketing plan aims to help organise the strategy for a
company, its products or services. Planning is essential in all
organisations and company plans should be documented.

A marketing plan is not a unique document within an

organisation. Production would have a Production Plan,
Human Resources a Human Resources plan and so on.

However, all good plans must support the overall corporate

objectives of the organisation, the corporate objectives
maybe to be global leader in the next five years, all
individual plans must support this.

A common method used to help plan a marketing plan is an

acronym called AOSTC. It simply stands for

1. Analysis – Of environment.
2. Objectives – Setting yourself SMART objectives.
3. Strategies – For segmentation and growth, targeting and
positioning.
4. Tactics – Used i.e. marketing mix
5. Control. – How you will monitor that you are achieving
objectives.

CURRENT MARKET :-

As we all know in India a lot of newspaper are publishing

in different languages. Altough ‘AJIT’ daily newspaper is
having share in overall market share, but still more than
20 lakh readers daily read newspaper and ‘AJIT’, a
newspaper from AJIT group is having a large no. of
readers daily. , it is still a leader in punjabi newspaper in
the market. And have the pruod of becoming the No.1
selling Punjabi newspaper in the world.
 MARKET DEMOGRAPHICS

Market demographics means the demographic factors

which influence the market of Ajit newspaper which are
as follows:

Age-The is Ajit newspaper having the readers of every

age because it is printed in Punjabi as well as in Hindi
language, both of the languages are the mostly used by
the Indians as Hindi is our national language and
Punjabi is also very popular language

Occupation- In this factor, we can talk about the

occupation of the readers of Ajit newspaper which are
professionals, students, and even every little and older
member of an Indian family.

Generation-The existing generation is having great

interest in knowing what is happening in the state and
country and how the markets are performing. so this
demographic factor is influencing the marketing
strategies of Ajit newspaper.
your marketing plan should include strategies typical of
any marketing plan. The plan should especially include
what marketers dub as the four P's of Marketing:

• PRODUCT
• PRICE
• PLACE
• PROMOTION

Review your plan. Make certain it contains the strategies

listed below and on the next page and then determine
how these strategies will be applied by you. Include a
brief explanation for each strategy.

Identifying Competition:

• By market research data

• By demand for product
• By your nearest direct and indirect competitors
• By the strengths and weaknesses of competitors
• By an assessment of how competitors businesses
are doing
• By a description of the unique features of your
product
• By the similarities and dissimilarities between your
product and competitor's
• By a pricing strategy for and comparison of yours
and the competition's

Identify the five nearest direct competitors and the

indirect competitors. Start a file on each identifying their
 weaknesses and strengths. Keep files on their
advertising and promotional materials and their pricing
strategies. Review these files periodically determining
when and how often they advertise, sponsor promotions
and offer sales.

Ajit group becomes successful in identifying their

competitors and become able to be no.1 selling Punjabi
newspaper in the world. And they also become
successful in their Hindi language segment ‘Ajit
Samachar’. They are giving hard competition to their
competitors like ‘Punjab kesari’ , ‘Denik Bhaskar’ etc.

Develop A Marketing Budget

Operating an effective marketing plan requires money, so

you will have to allocate funds from your operating
budget to cover advertising, promotional and all other
costs associated with marketing. Develop a marketing
budget based on the cost for the media you will use, and
the cost for collecting research data and monitoring shifts
in the marketplace. Ajit group has make a good use of
their marketing budget that is why they became
successful in every new segment like ‘Ajit Samachar’,
‘Ranjit Weekly’ .
 COMPARATIVE PROFILE

The most commonly a person always compare price of

the newspaper to the other newspaper. The Ajit
newspaper is the no.1 selling Punjabi newspaper
because of their lower prices in comparison with their
competitors the price of the Ajit newspaper is only Rs.2
in their regular weekdays, while the Sunday edition is of
Rs.3 only. While other newspapers like The Economic
Times and The Financial Express price their Saturday
and Sunday editions at Rs.7 to Rs.10,. Other Business
newspapers like Mint and Business Standard don't
Publish on Sundays. If your product is sold at the lowest
price regarding all your competitors, you are practicing
competitive pricing. Sometimes, competitive pricing is
essential. For instance, when the products are basically
the same, this strategy will usually succeed.
- Like, ‘Ajit newspaper’ is having competition with the
‘Jag Bani’ which is an another Punjabi news paper who is
giving competition to the Ajit newspaper. So the Ajit
group used the competitive pricing strategy to give hard
competition to his competitor. They sell their newspaper
to their customer at comparatively lowest price to
increase their sales and they became very much
successful in their strategy and become the ‘world’s
No.1 selling Punjabi newspaper’.

STRATEGIC ADVANTAGES OF AJIT

NEWSPAPER OVER OTHER
NEWSPAPERS

‘AJIT DAILY NEWSPAPER’ which is used in daily routine

by the customers is having following strategic
advantages:

-Competitive pricing strategy:

If your product is sold at the lowest price regarding all

your competitors, you are practicing competitive pricing.
Sometimes, competitive pricing is essential. For
instance, when the products are basically the same, this
strategy will usually succeed.

- Like, ‘Ajit newspaper’ is having competition with the

‘Jag Bani’ which is an another Punjabi news paper who is
giving competition to the Ajit newspaper. So the Ajit
group used the competitive pricing strategy to give hard
competition to his competitor. They sell their newspaper
to their customer at comparatively lowest price to
increase their sales and they became very much
successful in their strategy and become the ‘world’s
No.1 selling Punjabi newspaper’.

-Remember that the success of competitive pricing

strategy depends on achieving high volume and low
costs. If your prices are lower than your costs, you are
going straight to bankruptcy! To avoid such a mistake,
you have to take notice of the break even ratio that you
will find below. So Ajit newspaper group make
themselves able to cut their cost by achieving high
volumes. In this way they managed to make good use of
‘Competitive Pricing Strategy’

-Cost-plus-profit Strategy:

It means that you add the profit you need to your cost.
It is also called cost-orientated strategy. The authority
may have access to the costing data and should like to
check if the profit added to the cost is not too high. That
means the company should check that he profit added
to the cost should not be very high.
-The ‘Ajit newspaper’ reduced their profit added to the
cost and they managed their cost of production very well
for this they read the cost reducing techniques used by
the other competitors in the market like ‘Jaj Bani’ and
‘Punjab kesari’. After this they make themselves able to
manage their cost in comparison to their competitors. so
they used this strategy of Cost-Plus-Profit very well to
make themselves the market leader in the industry of
the Punjabi newspaper and became No.1 in selling
Punjabi newspaper all over the world.

Value Strategy: It means that you base your prices on

the value you deliver to customers. For example, when a
new technology has a very large success, you can
charge high prices to the customer. This practice is also
called skimming. It is easy when you are in the
introductory phase of the product life cycle.

Ajit newspaper group uses this strategy very efficiently

in their different segment called ‘Ajit Weekly’.

Ajit Weekly was conceptualized with a view to

disseminate quality reporting to the Punjabis across the
globe. Their success in bringing the Punjabis at home in
the world has enabled them to publish the Ajit Weekly in
the major metros of North America.

They have started thier mission of providing quality

reporting to Europe by bringing out “RANJIT WEEKLY
(Euro Edition)” from thier base in the UK. They will
always endeavor to provide the up to date news, views,
information.
Here is a glimpse of people behind the mission called
 Ajit Weekly: Bringing Punjabis At Home In
The World.

So they used this strategy very well by launching a new

segment for the Punjabi’s living all over the world and
they charged little more for the service they have
provided to their customer and increased their profit and
also they set their brand image by doing this.

3 C’S i.e CUSTOMER, COMPETITORS AND COST

THAT AFFECTS THE STRATEGIC ADVANTAGES:

1. CUTOMERS: The customers are those who pay the

price for a product or service. They are therefore, focal
point. It is extremely short-sighted to select a strategy
without first identifying those people whom the strategy
supposed to affect. Of course, the identification of such
market components is not a new step in market planning.

Ajit daily newspaper uses this strategy very well by

targeting the customers of Punjab who usually read only
Punjabi language. So they launched a Punjabi news paper
called ‘AJIT’ ‘AWAAZ PUNJAB DI’ for the Punjabi
customers. They also launched a new segment for the
punjabi’s living out side the country i.e abroad by
launching ‘AJIT WEEKLY’ in north America. So they
always take care of the Punjabi customers and launch all
their products or services according to their
preffrences.Then they also consider the Hindi language
and launched a new segment for the Hindi readers ‘ Ajit
Samachar’. So in this way they are taking care of every
aspect of their customers.

2. COMPETITORS: The importance of pricing in relation

to competition, makes it mandatory for the market
planner to know exactly what competitors are charging.
It is not that easy to get such competitive pricing
information as it is usually a closely guarded secret.
Though it is easier to get price lists of competitors, the

challenging task is that of actual pricing policy. Most

sellers establish excellent rapport with a few customers.
These customers find it useful to provide selected
manufacturers with information about the prices quoted
by the competitors. It is also easy to get information by
comparative shopping. This information involves the
observation of prices actually charged by the
competitors.

‘Ajit newspaper’ is having competition with the ‘Jag Bani’

which is an another Punjabi news paper who is giving
competition to the Ajit newspaper. So the Ajit group
used the competitive pricing to give hard competition to
his competitor. They sell their newspaper to their
customer at comparatively lowest price to increase their
sales and they became very much successful in their
strategy and become the ‘world’s No.1 selling Punjabi
newspaper’

3.cost: The cost to be incurred may be fixed or variable.

Fixed cost are those that do not vary in the with the
changes in the sale. These are depreciations, rent,
interest and other general and administrative expenses.
Although these costs do not vary in total, they do
decline per unit as the sales expand.

-Ajit group has expended their sales very much that

they became able to manage their cost of production.
They increase their sales by launching a newspaper in
Hindi language ‘AJIT SAMACHAR’ .they also increase
their sales by launching a new segment in north America
called ‘AJIT WEEKLY’. In this way they increased their
sales and reduced their cot per unit.

MARKET STRATAGIES

DEFINATION- It is a process of dividing the market

according to similarities that exist among the various
subgroups within the market. The similarities may be
common characteristics or common needs and desires.
Market segmentation comes about as a result of the
observation that all potential users of a product are not
alike, and that the same general appeal will not interest all
prospects. Therefore, it becomes essential to develop
different marketing tactics based on the differences among
potential users in order to effectively cover the entire market
for a particular product.

For knowing the market stratagies of business line we

should know the STP profile of business line.

S-Segmentation

T-Targeting

P-Positioning

Bases for Segmentation in Consumer Markets-

Consumer markets can be segmented on the following

customer characteristics.

Geographic Segmentation

• Region: by continent, country, state, or even

neighborhood
 • Size of metropolitan area: segmented according to size
of population
• Population density: often classified as urban, suburban,
or rural
• Climate: according to weather patterns common to
certain geographic regions

Ajit daily newspaper uses this strategy very well by

targeting the customers of Punjab who usually read only
Punjabi language. So they launched a Punjabi news paper
called ‘AJIT’ ‘AWAAZ PUNJAB DI’ for the Punjabi
customers.

They also launched a new segment for the punjabi’s living

out side the country i.e abroad by launching ‘AJIT
WEEKLY’ in north America. So they always take care of
the Punjabi customers and launch all their products or
services according to their preffrences.Then they also
consider the Hindi language and launched a new segment
for the Hindi readers ‘ Ajit Samachar’. So in this way they
are taking care of every geographical aspect of their
customers.

Demographic Segmentation- Some demographic

segmentation variables include:

Age: The is Ajit newspaper having the readers of every

age because it is printed in Punjabi as well as in Hindi
language, both of the languages are the mostly used by
the Indians as Hindi is our national language and
Punjabi is also very popular language

Occupation- In this factor, we can talk about the

occupation of the readers of Ajit newspaper which are
professionals, students, and even every little and older
member of an Indian family.

Generation-The existing generation is having great

interest in knowing what is happening in the state and
country and how the markets are performing. so this
demographic factor is influencing the marketing
strategies of Ajit newspaper.

Psychographic Segmentation- Psychographic

segmentation groups customers according to their
lifestyle. Activities, interests, and opinions (AIO) surveys
are one tool for measuring lifestyle. Some psychographic
variables include:

• Activities
• Interests
• Opinions
• Attitudes
• Values

Behavioralistic Segmentation-
Behavioral segmentation is based on actual customer
behavior toward products. Some behavioralistic variables
include:

• Benefits sought
• Usage rate
• Brand loyalty
• User status: potential, first-time, regular, etc.

Ajit newspaper group uses this segmentation very

efficiently in their different segment called ‘Ajit Weekly’.

Ajit Weekly was conceptualized with a view to disseminate

quality reporting to the Punjabis across the globe. Their
success in bringing the Punjabis at home in the world has
enabled them to publish the Ajit Weekly in the major metros
of North America.

They have started thier mission of providing quality

reporting to Europe by bringing out “RANJIT WEEKLY (Euro
Edition)” from thier base in the UK. They will always
endeavor to provide the up to date news, views, information
& entertainment.
TARGET MARKETING-

Target Marketing is a process of breaking a market into

segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on
one or a few key segments. Target marketing provides a
focus to all of your marketing activities. It involves group of
persons for whom a firm creates and maintains a product
mix that specifically fits the needs and preferences of that
group. A marketer may choose to target the entire market
with the generalized product, promotion, distribution, and
pricing strategy meant to appeal to everyone, or may go
after one segment of the market with a customized strategy
or several segments of the market with more than one
strategy.

Ajit daily newspaper uses this strategy very well by

targeting the customers of Punjab who usually read only
Punjabi language. So they launched a Punjabi news paper
called ‘AJIT’ ‘AWAAZ PUNJAB DI’ for the Punjabi
customers. They also launched a new segment for the
punjabi’s living out side the country i.e abroad by
launching ‘AJIT WEEKLY’ in north America. So they
always take care of the Punjabi customers and launch all
their products or services according to their
preffrences.Then they also consider the Hindi language
and launched a new segment for the Hindi readers ‘ Ajit
Samachar’. So in this way they are taking care of every
aspect of their customers.
POSITIONING-

Positioning refers to the customer's perceptions of the

place a product or brand occupies in a market segment.
In some markets, a position is achieved by associating
the benefits of a brand with the needs or life style of the
segments. More often, positioning involves the
differentiation of the company's offering from the
competition by making or implying a comparison in terms
of specific attributes.

The ajit newspaper positioned themselves very well in

the market ‘Ajit newspaper’ is having competition with
the ‘Jag Bani’ which is an another Punjabi news paper
who is giving competition to the Ajit newspaper. So the
Ajit group used the competitive pricing strategy to give
hard competition to his competitor. They sell their
newspaper to their customer at comparatively lowest
price to increase their sales and they became very much
successful in their strategy and become the ‘world’s
No.1 selling Punjabi newspaper’.

The ‘Ajit newspaper’ reduced their profit added to the

cost and they managed their cost of production very well
for this they read the cost reducing techniques used by
the other competitors in the market like ‘Jaj Bani’ and
‘Punjab kesari’. After this they make themselves able to
manage their cost in comparison to their competitors.
Ajit newspaper group uses this strategy very efficiently
in their different segment called ‘Ajit Weekly’.

Ajit Weekly was conceptualized with a view to

disseminate quality reporting to the Punjabis across the
globe. Their success in bringing the Punjabis at home in
the world has enabled them to publish the Ajit Weekly in
the major metros of North America.

They have started thier mission of providing quality

reporting to Europe by bringing out “RANJIT WEEKLY
(Euro Edition)” from thier base in the UK. They will
always endeavor to provide the up to date news, views,
information. so they become successful in positioning
themselves in a better way in the market.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. www.ajitjalandhar.com
2. Reference from the book marketing management by
C.N.Sontakki.
3. Reference from the book marketing management by
Kotller.
4. www.peerspectives.org
5. www.businessplans.org
6. www.ideasformarketing.com