“The pandemic has taught more lessons than probably as an organisation we learned in 95 years,” said B Srinivasan, MD, Vikatan Group while speaking at the third edition of Medianews4u Straight Talk.
Srinivasan further spoke about the impact COVID-19 made on the print medium and Vikatan as a brand, and the ways in which Vikatan Group has overcome the crisis.
“Today we are at a cost structure with less people and having more avenues of growth and revenue. If you would have asked whether this would have been possible at the beginning of 2020, I would have said No. Our industry was most affected by fake news, one such news was that Coronavirus will spread through newsprint. For over three months we were in deep trouble, even our newspaper vendors were sceptical about taking the magazines for a long time.”
In short, Vikatan Group wasn’t able to find customers even though the customers wanted to reach out to them. The publications from the Group were present in the digital format and the revenues were growing really well on the digital platforms.
“Advertising however has taken a backseat for us. We were extremely dependent on retail, FMCG, and Consumer goods and all those sectors were badly affected during the initial days of the pandemic. The advertising shift away from Print was a big blow to us. More importantly people were consuming beyond. We were at a crossroads and we kept asking what we do to stay relevant at a time like this. While assessing the situation we wanted to make sure that there was a vision for the group even during a crisis situation.”
Vikatan Group took the crisis period as an opportunity. It gave them more clarity and greater understanding about who their audiences were and what they were expecting from the group.
The entire team of Vikatan had to re-engage on what is the meaning of Vikatan in this changed world.
“After 95 years we were again in the startup mode. 80 percent of our customers were being serviced through retail agents and shops and 20 percent through direct sales. Today the proportion is 60:40 and by the end of March 2023 we are going 20:80 by directly selling to the readers. We were able to sell online subscriptions through an offline route and within the next few years we are going to have more digital subscribers through offline medium than online medium.”
Srinivasan further spoke about the video productions and Vikatan Group’s debut on the OTT Platform.
“We have produced videos in the past and in the last 6 months, our video production has increased from 250 videos per month to 750 videos per month. Most importantly, it is being produced by our journalists and we have decentralized our video production. Our monetization of video content on Facebook and YouTube has grown 3X,” he added.
Vikatan Group is not far behind podcast revolution, ‘Hello Vikatan’, their all-new podcast is launching soon.
Return on Experience is something Vikatan Group truly believes in. Srinivasan elaborated it with an example seminar conducted for Mahindra.
“We have been able to crack clients who haven’t advertised in Print or considered Vikatan as a medium. We have been able to connect with them, when normalcy is attained, we will be able to hold on to the tech clients as we grow our regular clientele.”
“If the content is good and the product is engaging then the language is not a barrier,” Srinivasan added.
