Lokmat targets faster growth with AIM and RACE

Renames the group's advertising and circulation departments to bring greater focus and vigour among team members

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | May 14, 2012

To drive its growth agenda in a more meaningful manner in Maharashtra and Goa, Lokmat Media has renamed its advertisement & circulation departments as AIM and RACE.

AIM stands for Aiding Impact Monetisation. The advertisement department does chase every rupee in the client's wallet, but at a deeper level, it has to monetise the impact delivered as response to advertising released in the columns of Lokmat, Lokmat Samachar and Lokmat Times. AIM also sets the agenda for 'Aimers' (team members of the ad department) to provide innovative and skilful selling of solution to clients.

RACE stands for Reader Acquisition & Content Engagement. Traditional circulation strategy, the Group has realised, will not work any further. Therefore, the circulation department's new mantra is to consolidate and widen the target net.

Backed by a restructuring of its editorial team, Lokmat now promises to deliver more engaging content. The circulation department, therefore, has to realign its focus to reader acquisition and content engagement.

Jwalant Swaroop, COO - Publishing, Lokmat Media Ltd, said, “From a pure distribution focus, the circulation department now moves to follow a reader-centric approach to acquire and retain readers who are important for our future growth.”

“It is important to enhance focus in our business. The two most important and critical departments for top line growth are advertisement and circulation.  Therefore, renaming of the two departments will bring focus to the core competence and also align every team member with the larger vision. The two teams now have a new vigour to drive the growth agenda,” added Swaroop.

The timing of the announcement has been most appropriate as the economic slowdown is pushing media owners into reengineering their businesses.

Lokmat Media publishes three newspapers, with 19 editions and 58 sub-editions in three languages in Maharashtra and Goa. Lokmat, the flagship brand, has a leading position in terms of its average daily circulation and readership in Maharashtra.

Combined with Goa, Lokmat Marathi has a circulation of 15.6 lakh copies as per ABC, January-December 2011 and an Average g Issue Readership of 75.6 lakh as per IRS 2011, Q4.

Its Hindi newspaper, Lokmat Samachar, with five editions has a circulation of 1.3 lakh as per ABC, January-December 2011 and an AIR of 5.8 lakh as per IRS 2011, Q4.

Lokmat Times, the English newspaper from Aurangabad and Nagpur, has a circulation of 14,537 copies as per ABC, January-December 2011 and an AIR of 46,000.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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