Dainik Bhaskar enters Bihar with edition in under-penetrated Patna

On 19 January, DB Corp Limited (DBCL) announced the launch of a Dainik Bhaskar edition from Patna, marking the group’s foray into Bihar. With the launch, DB Corp Ltd now publishes eight newspapers with 67 editions in 14 Indian States.

Campaign India caught up with Pradeep Dwivedi, chief corporate sales and marketing officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group, to find out more on the timing of the launch, opportunity that the market provides, promotion strategy, USP and more. Dwivedi explains the reason for the launch: a clear opportunity basis literacy and readership penetration, and a growing economy.

The group has been planning the launch since 2010. What caused the delay?

We wanted to be fully sure that production-driven strong GDP growth should also convert into consumption-driven GDP growth, and should continue to reach to a respectable revenue size market.

What will be the promotional strategy to make your mark? What will be Dainik Bhaskar’s USP?

Every launch from our group is preceded by a twin-survey model and a strong market promotion campaign. We do door-to-door surveys and check with every household about what they like and dislike in their current newspaper; their changing requirements and expectations from the newspaper.

We reach them again after 45 days and share with them the prototype of newspaper. This is prepared exactly according to the majority of the feedback received during the first round of survey. The aim of the survey is to reach maximum houses, through pre-booking of copies, on the very first day of the launch. And to ensure that we are ahead by 15 to 20 per cent in terms of circulation vs the current number one player.

In Patna, we were additionally benefitted as readership penetration was only around 42 per cent, which was very low when compared to Jaipur, Indore, Kochi or a city where penetration was around 65 to 75 per cent. We shall be concentrating in reaching the affluent class of readers, by providing them hyper localised, differential content , totally unbiased, at right price and exactly as per their survey feedback.

What would be the ratio of local vs national advertising in Patna?

Patna offers a fair balance of advertising to local customers as well as national corporate customers trying to reach out to a diverse and progressive TG. We are already receiving overwhelming interest from advertisers to leverage the readership offered by Dainik Bhaskar. These are from traditional print-heavy categories like automobile, consumer durables, FMCG, education, real estate and healthcare.

What is the cover price, and circulation of the newspaper?

We have started at same cover price as other competitors at Rs. 2.50, with 1,70,000 copies per day for Patna city.

Is Dainik Bhaskar planning any more launches in the region?

We will wait to stabilise in Patna over the next 1.5 to 2 years and then think about our next expansion strategy.