Elaborative Marketing Strategy of DB Corp – India’s Largest Newspaper Group

Updated on: Aug 6, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of DB Corp - Featured Image

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In our previous blog, we did a comprehensive study on the SWOT Analysis of India’s largest car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki. Here we will understand the marketing strategy of DB Corp.

DB Crop i.e. Dainik Bhaskar Group is India’s largest newspaper group. The group has published 66 editions in 4 languages and the editions are read by 4.4 Crore readers across 12 states.

Dainik Bhaskar Group’s marketing efforts are another factor that has helped the company grow into the behemoth it is today. Marketing is evolving as the world moves online, and if you want to stay up to date, check out our Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 taught by Karan Shah, the CEO and Founder of IIDE.

Do you want to learn how DB Group became so successful in the media industry? In this blog, we will learn about the marketing strategy of DB Corp and decode the answer. Before we begin, let us learn more about Dainik Bhaskar, the company, its founding, products, financial status and competitors.

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About DB Corp

The Dainik Bhaskar Group is India’s largest newspaper publisher, with five publications and 66 editions the group has a readership of 4.4 crores. Divya Bhaskar, Dainik Divya Marathi, Saurashtra Samachar, DB Post and DB Star are the major newspapers published by the DB Corp.

The group is well-known in the radio industry. The group’s radio brand, 94.3 MY FM, is India’s largest radio network, having stations in 30 locations across seven states. DB Digital, the group’s digital branch, offers three portals and three apps in Hindi, Gujarati, and Marathi. Dainik Bhaskar is now the third most widely circulated newspaper in the world.

In 2019, Dainik Bhaskar launched this promotion, giving individuals the chance to win items worth Rs 21 Crores. The campaign was pushed with an integrated media campaign, and to top it off, DB appointed Salman Khan as the campaign’s brand ambassador. The campaign drew a large number of participants, increasing the brand’s readership.

 

Quick Stats on DB Corp
MD Sudhir Agarwal
CMO Mr.Girish Agarwaal
Area Served Pan India operations
Industry Publications
Market Share/ Revenue 2,236 crores INR
Vision To be the largest and most admired language media brand enabling socio-economic change.
Tagline N/A

 

Marketing Strategy of DB Corp

Now let us learn about the marketing strategy of DB Corp and their analysis and campaigns.

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

DB Corp targets the underprivileged and socially unserved segments in urban, semi-urban, and rural India. They are sharpening their focus on the middle-income, lower-middle, and upper-middle segments of society. As a result of increased financial inclusion, a large number of households are transferring from the low-income to middle-income categories. They are focusing on capturing a larger share of this aspiring segment.

The majority of newspapers published by the DB Corp are grouped as

  • Dainik Bhaskar ( Hindi daily), 
  • D B Post ( English daily), 
  • Saurashtra Samachar, 
  • Dainik Divya Marathi ( Marathi daily), 
  • Divya Bhaskar ( Gujarati daily), and 
  • D B Star

The Group also publishes 3 magazines;  

  • Bal Bhaskar (Hindi magazine for kids), 
  • Aha! Zindagi (a Hindi family magazine which comes monthly ), and 
  • Young Bhaskar (an English magazine for kids) for different tastes of people.

Based on the unique content, through expansion on engaging platforms and the ability to leverage the Bhaskar Group’s editorial network, the company has given Greater emphasis on Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi – {3 of the top 5 regional languages}, and occupies 65% of Language space of India.

By 2025, the number of smartphone screens connected by the internet will be doubled to 750 million, this will result in a huge increase in demand for content across short and interactive formats, including news. 

Thus, the demand for regional digital content will rise much higher by 2025. Hence, Dainik Bhaskar has remained focused on its strategy and targets on delivering the best journalism packaged in a world-class reader experience on its Digital Apps.


Marketing Campaigns

DB Corp – Dainik Bhaskar, India’s largest print media company and home to many flagship newspapers – Dainik Bhaskar, Divya Bhaskar, Divya Marathi and Saurashtra Samachar, as well as the leading radio network – MY FM (of Tier-II and Tier-III), has launched a Brand Marketing Campaign for Digital Business App on 9th March 2022.

This campaign aims to boost its brand awareness and increase downloads of its Dainik Bhaskar (Hindi) and Divya Bhaskar (Gujarati) mobile apps.

At the event of the launch of this campaign, Sudhir Agarwal, the Managing Director of Dainik Bhaskar said  “Sach, Kareeb se Dikhta Hai” as the tagline of the campaign which highlights the core offerings of DB Corp- Dainik Bhaskar – as High Quality and Trusted Journalism with a large focus on the local and in-depth news”.

Mr Pankaj Tripathi, an acclaimed Filmy actor who is universally popular across the country, and especially in the core target markets of Dainik Bhaskar, with a very strong connection with both our brand values ‘Local’ and ‘Trust’ is the brand ambassador of this campaign. Dainik Bhaskar owns and operates the Hindi and Gujarati News Apps (Ranked First) in India with the fastest growth and highest engagement and retention across the News category in the last 2 years – with this campaign, the company is planning to amplify its growth even further.


Social Media Marketing

  • LinkedIn
    • Followers: 22k+
  • Facebook
    • Followers: 13M+
  • Instagram
    • Followers: 1.1M
  • Twitter
    • Followers: 2.1M+

DB Corp is active on social media like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. It has more followers on Facebook than on Twitter and, at last, on Instagram and LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn is more of a professional social media platform, excludes peer groups and focuses on professional groups of society who follow DB Corp through LinkedIn. 

Instagram is a social media platform that includes most young teenagers & peer groups. They are generally more interested in consuming news and curious to know what’s happening in the economy including politics, finance, entertainment etc. and more. The company consistently posts on its Instagram page and the posts are related to information news.

The company is relatively active on social media and shares posts frequently because today people are going digital and so are businesses. So, to compete in this competitive industry the brand needs to work more on its social media handles.

Hey, If you want your business to get success on social media platforms or have a curiosity about how marketing works on these channels, then you must check out the short-term SEM course offered by IIDE in which you will get everything you are looking for to understand marketing on social media.


SEO Strategies

Marketing Strategy of DB Corp - SEO

As per the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) ranking, it is stated that the number of keywords – which is below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good, and 10,000+ is amazing. As we can see that “https://www.dbcorpltd.com/” has 982 organic keywords and this is considered as good. This means the digital marketing of DB Corp is gaining a good number of insights. 

Also, the traffic per month is around 4000 which is also known as average. Hence, DB Corp still needs improvements in its SEO strategies while working hard enough to keep the brand soaring in the Google organic SERP results.


Influencer Marketing

DB Corp doesn’t possess any strong influencer marketing as it mostly approaches its key managerial personnel for promotion. 


E-Commerce Marketing

DB Corp has created a lot of websites and user-friendly applications for their users in order to have access to it even in online mode as sometimes many of the users are travelling. Some of them are listed below:

  • 11 Portals-

dainikbhaskar.com
fashion101.in
divyabhaskar.co.in
jeevanmantra.in
dailybhaskar.com
dbcric.com
divyamarathi.com
bollywoodbhaskar.com
food.bhaskar.com
gadgets.bhaskar.com
Moneybhaskar.com

  • 2 Apps-

Divya Bhaskar Mobile App
Dainik Bhaskar Mobile App


Mobile Apps

DB Corp has apps working on iOS as well as on android. The mobile Application of DB Corp is user-friendly and it has all the features a user can ask for! 

Marketing Strategy of DB Corp - Mobile AppsMarketing Strategy of DB Corp - DB Customer Connect


Content Marketing Strategy

DB Corp is actively present on Social Media, especially on Instagram. On Instagram, regularly launches new campaigns and posts stories, following the trends in the industry. From posting content related to Current affairs to awareness about its new services, it does each and every possible action to make its audience stick to it.

Others-

  • Radio Strategy introduced and launched in 2006, MY FM operates from 17 stations in 7 states.
  • Phase 3 Radio Auctions has acquired 13 new frequencies.
  • Consolidating their presence in line with a strategy to be a market leader in “Unmetro” geographies with a strong DB Corp presence.
  • Expected roll out in the second half of the Financial year 2017.
  • The biggest player in Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh.
  • With a new frequency, DB Corp aims to be the biggest player in Maharashtra, Chandigarh, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Haryana and further strengthen Gujarat along with Rajkot.
  • Brand Positioning for Listeners as well as Advertisers: The perception builder of staying differentiated “Jiyo Dil Se – Brand Positioning”, “Hosting Jiyo Dil Se Awards”.

Editorial Strategy –

  • D B Corp has started Innovative reader engagement initiatives like Thought Leadership Journalism- “No Negative Monday”
  • CONTENT STRATEGIES = Knowledge enhancement for readers + Product differentiation towards growth.
  • It has gained High-Quality Reviews & opinions from eminent authors, Content Jacket on Sunday Bhaskar way of Journalism centred at “Kendra Mein Pathak”.
  • The company has made Content associations with Harvard Business Review, TIME Magazine, New York Times, etc. for providing global world-class content.
  • New National Editorial Structure – Zidd Karo Duniya Badlo, City Bhaskar etc.

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Dollar General. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Dollar General.

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Conclusion – What’s unique in DB Corp marketing?

Dainik Bhaskar is a well-known media industry with a large global presence worldwide. It has a strong logistical foundation and it has a strong presence in all of the areas of its services, but it faces competition from a large growing number of newspaper companies in this field and competitive efforts from its rivals. 

The uniqueness of DB Corp is that they focus on all segments of society equally & they have steadily grown to reach over a million Indians. Though Equitas is on a growth path in its digital marketing and trying to be active on social media, it is still trying to engage and grow in the digital sector. 

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of DB Corp has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

1 Comment

  1. Major Kalshi

    Thanks for this information

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