BRAC is one of the largest non-government organization in the world. Over time they found ways to overcome the challenges a developing nation face and prepared solutions to fight against poverty. After providing services in areas of education, health care, social and economic empowerment, finance BRAC brought something back in 2007 to entertain and to expand the general knowledge of children in Bangladesh. Satrang, a monthly magazine is only devoted to encourage children to find entertainment in reading and to provide their age appropriate knowledgeable material in that. But the main limitation of the magazine is it’s unavailability outside the divisional cities. Recently BRAC planned to spread the magazine throughout the country through aggressive strategies which will include promotional strategies, pricing strategies and distribution strategies to reach every child out there. If all these plans can be led to actions then this will be possible to take the magazine into the reach of thousands of children in Bangladesh.
Introduction
Started out operation in 1972, and over the course of evolution, BRAC has established themselves as a pioneer in recognizing and tackling the many different realities of poverty in Bangladesh. Established by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, BRAC is present in all 64 districts of Bangladesh with an approach to provide services in areas of education, health care, social and economic empowerment, finance, enterprise development, human rights and legal aid, agriculture and food security, as well as environmental sustainability and disaster preparedness.
BRAC is the world’s largest non-governmental development organization. It has organized the isolated low income group people under one roof and studied their needs to find practical ways to increase their access to available resources to support their entrepreneurship and empower them to become agents of change. There are many social enterprises of BRAC which are integrated with various developments programs that increase the productivity of the members‟ assets and labor and generate surplus for the organization. It allows becoming self-reliant to those who are supported by BRAC and BRAC itself.
With the experience and expertise of working in a developing nation like Bangladesh and working from its root level BRAC is now providing development interventions and technical assistance to 9 other developing nations across the world.
History
BRAC is a development organization dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the poor to bring change in their own lives. Known formerly as the Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee and then as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, BRAC was initiated in 1972 by Sir Fazle Hasan Abed at Sulla in the district of Sylhet as a small-scale relief and rehabilitation project to help returning war refugees after the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. At the end of 1972, when the first phase of relief work was over, BRAC turned towards long-term development needs and re-organized itself to focus on the empowerment of the poor and landless, particularly women and children.
By 1974, BRAC had started providing microcredit and in 1979 BRAC entered the health field. BRAC‟s campaign cut down child and infant mortality from 285 per thousand to per thousand. In 1978 handicraft retail chain Aarong was established. In 1986 BRAC started its Rural Development Program that incorporated four major activities –
institution building including functional education and training, credit operation, income and employment generation and support service programs. In 1991 the Women‟s Health Development program commenced. In 1998, BRAC‟s Dairy and Food project was commissioned and in 2002 BRAC first went international with relief and rehabilitation program in Afghanistan. BRAC now has operations in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Southern Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Haiti and Afghanistan.
Service Offering
The main priority of BRAC is to identify those who are worst affected by poverty, organize them, unleash their human potential and help them to fight and walk out of poverty.
Microfinance: Microfinance is proved to be an effective way against poverty. To continue its battle against poverty BRAC initiated its microfinance operations in 1974. Now BRAC provides access to financial services to the poor who are unable to obtain credit from mainstream banks due to lack of assets in all over 64 districts.
Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP): BRAC works closely with the group of population in Bangladesh who struggles to meet the minimal livelihood requirements and who is forced to spend all the income on food related expenses. BRAC, with its “Targeting the Ultra Poor (TUP)” program works with them to strengthen their livelihood process, to build their assets and to engage them with income generating activities to create a pathway out of extreme poverty.
Education: To provide the nation its backbone BRAC started its education program in 1985 with 22 one room primary schools. BRAC developed pre-primary and primary schools to reach children who are from extreme poor family or from ethnic minorities or have special needs. Free educational materials are given to students with suitable teaching techniques, focusing on student participation, less homework and longer holidays to increase enrollment in schools.
Health: From the very beginning BRAC is giving importance to provide healthcare to poor people. Their main focus is to improve maternal, neonatal and child health and to reduce communicable diseases and common health problems. The key areas of this program are essential health care, tuberculosis and malaria control, maternal and child health, health facilities and limb and brace centers.
Agriculture and Food Security: BRAC works alongside the government to achieve Bangladesh self-sufficiency in food production and reduce hunger and malnutrition. They provide support to local farmers across the country, through agricultural research and development, quality seed production, distribution and using agricultural technology.
International: BRAC‟s combat is against poverty. So beside Bangladesh BRAC is spreading its anti-poverty programs to different corners of the world. Now BRAC has operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Southern Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Summary of the Project
Starting from 2007 “Satrang”, a children and juvenile magazine is working to present a joyous reading material in front of the children of our country. Enriched with the writing and artwork of famous writers, poets and artists Satrang always focuses on quality. It is their main concentration to give children something which is appropriate for their age to pass their leisure time joyfully while learning new things. But though Satrang has stepped in its 6th year it is not yet available to all children around our country. It can be found only in some book stores and libraries of some divisional cities. For that not many people know the name Satrang. To reach all the children and pass them this enriched magazine Satrang is going for aggressive marketing promotion. If a structured marketing plan method is followed to promote the magazine then it is possible to reach the goal of reaching all the children, covering whole Bangladesh.
Main Body
Satrang is a children and juvenile magazine of national level in our country. Printed by BRAC Printers the magazine is centrally published from BRAC Communications. The main focus of this magazine is to encourage children to read books and to expand their knowledge about different factors all around the world. The magazine has been published
regularly for over last 5 years. Started from New Year of Bangla 1413 (English 2007) Satrang has stepped into its 6th year this April. During this period Satrang has been used in schools run by BRAC and is available in BRAC libraries.
The Editor of Chief of Satrang is Sir Fazle Hasan Abed. The Advising Editor is Mr. Asif Saleh. The other members of the Advising Committee are Mr. Faruq Chowdhury, Selina Hossain, Ranjit Bishwas, Munir Hasan and Rasheda K. Chowdhury.
Project Assessment:
Assessment Survey:
Assessment survey is essential if we want a successful marketing plan of a product. Survey provides the guidance of which path to take to get to the next step. Without survey we cannot know which steps will be necessary for a successful promotion of a certain product or service.
Demand Survey:
First step of the assessment survey is the demand analysis. That means estimating the demand for children magazine throughout the country. One of the strongest advantages of Satrang is that BRAC already has a huge network of
employees covering every corner of Bangladesh. They have offices in 46 areas and nearly 680 branches in the country. For that reason it will not be a hard task to collect all the required information. If the employees are made clear about the main theme of the magazine and what exactly is needed to promote it, they can work as representatives of the magazine and do the initial research work.
These employees can take a few copies to each of these schools and see how the students are reacting and what their feedback about the magazine is. They will submit the study results and according to it copies of magazines can be sent to each of the town. With a pre-formed questionnaire which will be distributed among the students the
representatives can collect the necessary data.
- Number of schools in the town
- Number of students in the town
- Students’ feedback
- Number of selling points that can be reached
- Other means children have to pass their spare time
The representatives can contact with the bookstores in their own area which have agreed to sell Satrang and send the copies to them. The numbers of the magazines sent to the stores will be according to the result of the research.
Cost Survey:
A complete cost appraisal is necessary as a part of business plan. All the costs like employee salary, manufacturing and marketing plan cost are to be included. Market cost includes all the advertisement expenses of the magazine, distribution cost and honorarium cost for the writers. For this survey BRAC has to make detailed documents which include all the information, like the revenues has been made by selling all the magazines, all the costing per season and profits which can be made if they can increase the sales.
Features of the Magazine:
Satrang is a leading children and juvenile magazine in Bangladesh. It was first published in the new year of Bangla 1413 (English 2007). Since then it has been published monthly and regularly in our country.
a) Means of Children Entertainment: In our country there aren‟t many children magazines which contain different kinds of articles and interesting topics appropriate of the child age. To fill the emptiness of children entertainment, to help them develop their general knowledge, to improve their own skills Satrang is working for the last 5 years. In this magazine children can read about different facts around the world, can read the writings of different well-known writers, poets and can send their own writings and paintings.
b) Writers: Although it‟s a children and juvenile magazine it‟s been able to win the heart of readers of all ages. That is because of the regular publication of the writing of famous writers of our country. Munir Hasan, Ranjit Bishwas, Selina Hossain, Dijen Swarma, Arunkumar Bishwas are some of the talented writers of our countries who enrich the magazine every month by their own articles, stories and poems.
c) Regularity: Satrang is published every 1st date of Bangla month. The magazine is of 32 pages and is printed on 70 gram offset paper. Four colors are used to print the whole magazine and for the cover page they use 157 gram art paper. In every month nearly 1,20,000 copies are printed.
d) Availability: Satrang is available in BRAC pre-primary schools, BRAC formal and community schools, adolescent and Gonokendro libraries, some newspaper sales points and book stores around the country. There are 361 development organizations in private sector that use Satrang in their own education program.
e) Contents: The magazine has put a very positive image in the children and parents‟ mind with its articles on history, memoirs of historic characters, games, stories, poems, rhymes, cartoons, animal kingdom, environment, riddles and many others. The magazine also encourages the children to send their writings, poems and paintings which are also printed in the magazine.
Target market:
Identifying market segment and targeting the potential customers is the most important thing in business. A well-defined target market is the first element of a marketing plan strategy.
a) Children: As Satrang is a children magazine our main target segment is the children of all ages. We‟ll be focusing on the children of the schools both in Dhaka and outside of it. Both primary and secondary school students will be our main focus.
b) Parents: A limited group of parents can be focused who will purchase the magazine for their children and tell other parents to buy it too. In most of the cases this if one family find the magazine good for their children they will say the other parents they meet at schools, offices or other social gathering to try it for other children. This word-of -mouth spreads very quickly than any other means of promotions.
c) Teachers: Teachers of both primary and secondary schools is a very important customer segment for Satrang. That is because teachers can suggest the students to read the magazine to increase general knowledge or to improve reading and writing.
d) Central and School Libraries: Central and school libraries can be targeted too as the market segment for Satrang. There are many students who come to libraries to have some extra reading beside text book. If the copies of Satrang are available in those places then students will know about the magazine and will be eager to buy
it later.
Competition:
There are a very few children magazines available in Bangladesh. Let‟s have a look on the active competitors.
a) Toitomboor: Toitomboor holds a strong ground of publishing children magazine from 1992. It also contains writings of famous writers and poets and of children themselves. Besides publishing magazine it has involved itself in children‟s publication and products, child health, childhood blindness, child rights, child development, environment, promotion of book reading, children‟s events and competitions, children with disability, children‟s education.
b) Newspaper: Most of the daily newspapers now contain a children‟s section. The colorful section of these newspapers also contains nearly same type of contents like children paintings and writings, comic serial, different interesting incidents around the world and writing of well known writers. Where Satrang comes out monthly, the children section of newspaper comes out weekly.
c) Children’s Book: There are many children books which are also our competitors in the market. There are different writers in our country who regularly write for children and publish story books. Those books are also very popular among children for their pass time.
Competitive Advantage: In spite having the active threats from the competitors Satrang still have its own competitive advantage to sustain and grow in the segment. The competitive advantages are as follows;
1. The main competitive advantage of Satrang is its low cost with equal or more articles or stories and portions in the magazine. No other magazines can provide this kind of enriched content at such a low price.
2. Another competitive advantage is the already existing own wide network throughout the country.
3. Nearly 361 NGOs use Satrang in their education program. No other magazines have this kind of acceptance.
4. Satrang is regularly published. So the newest addition is always available at the right time of a month and that builds the trust between the magazine and customers.
5. Enriched by the writing of renowned writers Satrang provides quality which is important to customers.
Analysis:
SWOT analysis of Satrang:
Strength:
- Provides quality content at low price
- Has writing of famous children writer in list
- Printed in regular basis
- Nearly 361 NGOs use Satrang in their education program
Weakness:
- Weak marketing plan and policy
- Lack’s the liveliness of a children magazine
Opportunities:
- Large potential customer group
- BRAC has own strong network all over Bangladesh
Threats:
- Other children magazine’s covers more area in their publication
- Children of now-a-days prefer TV programs as their means of pass time
Strategies:
Promotional Strategy:
A successful production means nothing if the product cannot reach the target market. Satrang is a children and juvenile monthly magazine. Children and students of schools from all over the country is the main target sector. But to reach the readers of all ages it is necessary to make them aware about Satrang and its features extended promotional activities are needed.
1. Schools: Getting well-known in schools of both in and outside Dhaka. For a children magazine schools are the easiest way to capture the largest number ofcustomers. If the teachers are convinced then they will suggest the magazine to the students.
2. Competition: Satrang can arrange different kinds of competitions among children in and outside of Dhaka. These competitions can be like story writing, spelling bee or painting competition. The winners‟ writing and
painting can be printed on the magazine.
3. Events on Special Day- Creating events and bringing out special issues on Independence day, Victory day, Mother‟s day, Father‟s day, Environment day, Mother Language day or on World cup cricket or World cup football.
4. National Events: Satrang can participate in various kinds of national events like language competitions on Language day, writing competition, math Olympiads etc. They can also give stalls in book fairs so people of all age can be attracted.
5. Facebook and Wikipedia: Satrang can open account in Facebook and Wikipedia. All the useful information like publishing time, next issue or news of events arranged by Satrang will be available there.
6. Quiz Show- Arranging quiz show in schools where the contents will be from the magazines of the past several issues and prizes will be given to the winners.
7. Sponsoring Events- Satrang can sponsor different cultural events of the schools. There are a lot schools outside Dhaka those cannot afford to arrange cultural events of their own schools. Satrang can sponsor them. By this kind of sponsoring students will know about Satrang and will be interested in buying the magazine.
8. Wall Magazines- Beside the magazine we can publish wall magazine which will highlight the most interesting topics of the magazine. Students will see them in their school corridors and their notice board and will know about the features of the magazines.
9. Selling Agencies: Satrang can give commissions to the big selling agencies. Outside Dhaka nearly all newspaper and magazines are taken by the selling agencies of that particular town. Hawkers buy these papers and magazines to
distribute them to the customers. If the agencies are commissioned then they can persuade the hawkers to sell the magazine to the target customers.
10. Annual Issue: An annual issue can be published with more pages. We can encourage the students by saying that if they keep sending their writing or their painting, in the annual issue the writing can be re-printed.
11. Social Work: Satrang can encourage students to involve in various social works like tree plantation, distributing cloths or foods to poor people. These students will be encouraged their pictures and their deeds are printed on the
magazine.
12. Slogan: A slogan of 1-2 lines can be adopted. Therefore, whenever the children hear or read the lines they will remember the magazine.
13. Placement: Satrang can persuade the bookstores to place the magazines at front side of the store. So that it can easily catch the eyes of the children.
14. Parents: Satrang can focus on a limited group of parents in a particular area. These parents will buy the magazines for their children and tell the other parents to buy it.
15. Libraries and Reading zone- There are many schools in Dhaka which have reading zone or library. Satrang can give some complementary copies to those schools. By that students can learn about the magazine.
Actions Taken
By following a structured method to promote, Satrang can be taken to the next level by which the sales can be increased. In a meeting held by the members of Advising Committee of Satrang it was decided to divide the promotional strategies into three levels.
Short Term Promotion: For the short term promotion the committee decided to go for the schools and to make the magazine well known to the students. For that they have picked out 10 well known schools where they can send some copies of Satrang, so the teachers can suggest the students to buy it for reading.
These schools are;
1. Kids Tutorial, Dhaka
2. Viqarunninsa Noon School, Dhaka
3. Monipur School, Dhaka
4. Kanon, Dhaka
5. Proyash, Dhaka
6. Fulki, Chittagong
7. Shibram School, Dinajpur
8. Sun Beam School, Dhaka
9. South Bridge School, Dhaka
10. Sir John Williamson School, Dhaka
Of these schools, 300 copies have already been sent to Sunbeam School, South Bridge School and Sir John Williamson School. Besides that Facebook, Wikipedia and Wall Magazines are also enlisted as short term promotion.
Midterm Promotion: Giving commissions to the selling agencies, focusing parents, placement of the magazine in the book stores, creating a slogan, giving complementary copies to the library and reading zones are enlisted as midterm promotions for Satrang.
Long Term Promotion: Long term promotions for the magazine requires arranging and sponsoring events, publishing special and annual issues and doing social works with the students. With all these campaigns Satrang can enter the market aggressively.
Pricing Strategy:
The price which is charged to the customers or clients has a direct effect on the success of business. All prices must cover costs and profits. The most effective way to lower prices is to lower costs.
For pricing Satrang simply all the costing of publishing the magazine are added with a little profit for them. With the focus remaining on the quality Satrang keeps the price as low as possible. The price is Taka 20 for each magazine, where our printing cost is Taka 12.42 per copy. Satrang can earn nearly Taka 2,000,000 by selling nearly 120,000 copies while the costing is nearly Taka 1500,000 after paying for printing, railway mail service and honorarium costing of writers and artists.
Distribution Strategy:
Satrang uses indirect selling distribution channel. Book stores and news paper selling points are the intermediaries in the channels. The main printing is done in Dhaka by BRAC Printers. So the magazines will be supplied from Dhaka to other parts of the country. There are 361 development organizations in private sector that use our magazine in their education program. We also have some individuals who are our regular subscriber.
In this third type of distribution channel BRAC does not have to use the agencies as the intermediaries. Here BRAC directly communicates with the targeted schools and convinces them to sell them to the students. Here the school representatives are the intermediaries.
Satrang uses railway mail service to reach the targeted stores and selling points. With this mail service the book stores and selling points in different parts of the country can be reached.
Proposed location
We do the printing of the magazine in Dhaka. That is because all the editing of the magazine are done in Dhaka and the printing materials are available here. First we must keep our focus narrow. So at first to market our magazine we must concentrate on the locations where we have an easy access. In that case we should divide the locations into three phases. If the feedback of one phase is as expected Satrang can move to the next phase to promote the magazine.
Phase 1: Satrang is not a very popular magazine. For that reason Satrang must put its focus narrow while it is in the primary phase. In this phase Satrang can concentrate to promote the magazine in the divisional cities. It can focus to sell the magazine to the school children and to get well known among the book stores.
Phase 2: In the divisional cities are covered the Satrang can move to this phase. In this phase the magazine must put its concentration to the zilla cities. The area and school representatives and the agencies can focus to sell the magazine to the targeted customers.
Phase 3: When the zilla cities are also covered then Satrang can focus to expand its promotion to the upo-zillas and towns. By promoting successfully in these areas Satrang can cover the whole Bangladesh.
Observation:
1. Their idea generation capacity is limited and old fashioned. Cannot think of an innovative solution to a problem.
2. Lack of enthusiasm to execute a plan right away.
3. Documents are not categorized in any specific order.
4. Being a new department it has a lot to improve.
5. Don‟t have clear idea about the competitors‟ position.
6. People are not motivated to upgrade their work style.
Recommendation:
1. Work force needs task based training and needs to introduce young people along with the current employees to speed up the work.
2. Proper documentation policy should be taken so ensure quicker information excess.
3. People should be introduced to ever changing technology to stay updated and improve their work skills to perform better as an employee.
Conclusion:
It has been a great pleasure and learning opportunity which is going to be a strong base of my career. Working in a practical field for the very first time apart from theoretical learning, coping with corporate culture, handling new and very sudden challenges have added a valuable experience in my career. Making plans for a magazine‟s whole marketing plan process, a managing plan for an event like BRAC Brand Award 2012 and working on other brand elements of BRAC has increased my confidence level and made me capable enough to face any work challenge.
Topic chosen for my internship study is on “Marketing Plan of Satrang”. While making this plan I found out from my research that there are not many magazines available in our country for children where they can find their age appropriate articles and stories. Also they have a very limited place to show their creativity. For this lack of materials which can actually give the children some joy of reading, they are getting more attracted to televisions and computers. This is hampering the way of getting general knowledge, improving their creativity and skills.
With some improvement in their already existing process if Satrang follows a structured marketing plan it can fulfill the gaps between children and joyful reading as well as can enrich the children magazine sector in Bangladesh.
