Niche Info Online Business

Publishers at marketing meeting say newspapers have to be aggressive innovators to fend off competition.

By Marcelo Duran
Associate Editor

ORLANDO, Fla. — It’s not easy reinventing a newspaper when the newspaper itself is the one spreading the bad news.

But that’s just one of the obstacles Brian Tierney faces as he attempts to revitalize The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News.

“If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about newspapers, it’s that there isn’t an industry out there that doesn’t kick itself in the rear end more frequently and more dramatically than this business,” said Tierney, chief executive officer and publisher of Philadelphia Media Holdings.

Tierney, along with Michael Reed, president and chief executive officer of GateHouse Media Inc. and William Dean Singleton, vice chairman and chief executive officer of Media News Group, were the keynote speakers at this year’s NAA Marketing Conference.

Their message: Newspapers need to be aggressive innovators to fend off stiff competition in their quest to achieve local news dominance and ad dollars.

Tierney, the former advertising executive who implemented a number of new initiatives at the Philadelphia papers, said that newspapers are doing a disservice to themselves by focusing too much on the negative business and not enough on the positive.



Burying the lede

Case in point: When The Inquirer reported its first circulation gains in a number of years, the story was buried on page 3 of the business section.

“You will never see Brian Williams begin his broadcast by rending his garments and saying that a third of the people who used to watch me aren’t even watching me anymore,” Tierney said.

What newspapers are dealing with is more competition and it’s important to maintain their local audience.

“Let’s talk about the assets that we have,” said Tierney. “There are all kinds of challenges out there but I really see as an outsider the strengths of the industry and we need to understand them, focus on them and invest in those and get over it.”

A key part of Tierney’s strategy is to attract women aged 35 years and up.

To that end, Philadelphia Media Holdings launched several programs geared toward wooing that demographic, programs involving targeted advertising and promotions (see sidebar).

He also stressed papers should launch low-cost experiments and explore e-commerce initiatives.

But more importantly, he said, newspapers need to promote the value they provide their communities.

“We’re proud to put on the front of our Sunday paper (that the paper) contains $722, or $638, worth of coupons inside,” he said. “The journalists don’t exactly love that but I’ll take them anyway I can; If that’s what it take to get our consumers to come out with a little bit of kibble like a deer in the woods.”



Moving ahead

Singleton stated that while the United States is poised to enter a recession, now is the time for newspapers to move forward with the right strategies.

The key focus for newspapers is to protect and serve the core printed product and to expand the online business and develop new niche products, he said.

“Right now we are facing a secular and cyclical downturn and it’s important not to get the two mixed up,” said Singleton. “We’ve been going through secular change for several years. Our core has been smaller, advertisers have been shrinking while our online has been growing.”
Real estate and job listings may never come back to printed newspapers, but newspapers can still attract these revenues in their electronic editions, Singleton said.

He said he expects online revenues to contribute 20 percent of MNG’s sales by 2012 while sales from print advertising generate 65 percent. The remainder, he said, will come from niche and specialty products. According to a memo he issued in late 2007, Singleton said MNG currently gets 89 percent of its revenues from display advertising while online contributes about 7 percent.

Reed, meantime, said the industry has to continue to invest in and train its sales force.

“We have gotten increasingly complex compared to 20, 30, 40 years ago when we just put our daily newspaper on the street,” Reed said. “That’s not the case anymore. We have a plethora of niche products, weeklies, monthlies, special sections, and our daily and online products.”

Newspaper sales reps must know the product mixes, the community and the competition and be willing to change. Singleton stressed feet on the streets, while Reed said his company’s strengths lie in knowing the community and integrating the newspaper within that market.

As a result, GateHouse, which largely owns newspapers in small and mid-sized markets, has been able to avoid some of the classified revenues meltdown and cyclical downturn that’s affected its larger counterparts, Reed said.

As for feet on the street, “You can’t sell what we have to offer if you don’t have people to sell it,” Singleton said.

“We need to sell to the advertisers and more importantly, the customers we don’t have, and find out what problems we need to solve, what solutions we need to provide for them.”

Still, Tierney said, the severe cost pressures newspapers are now facing won’t end anytime soon. Trimming staff, he said, is a consequence of the current business environment.

“Quite frankly, there’s a sense of entitlement and lamentation about the past and the core of our employees (is) not stepping up to the game the way we need them to,” he said.

“We are changing that mindset. We have been able to redo our contracts with union leaders to get that and they’ve been helping getting people up and out who do not want to step up to the game.”

Yet even as newspapers are forced to resize their operations, publishers still must be open to new ideas and take chances when appropriate, Tierney said.

“The key is to experiment, to make a lot of small bets. Don’t bet the house on any one thing, but why not try something with a small investment but high potential down the road,” he said.

by Brian Brus

The Journal Record April 1, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY – Kimberly Smith is expecting a bigger Christmas this year than last. Even though the holiday is still more than eight months away, she's already planning new ornaments to decorate Christmas trees. Baby birth announcements, anniversary dates, company logos, beloved pets, favorite football coaches and team mascots – the possibilities are constrained only by marketing avenues, said the owner of Oklahoma City-based Picture This Ornaments.

"It's harder to limit what I want to do than actually doing it," she said recently. "For example, I'm getting ready to talk with a firefighters union about a union logo and a firefighter design plus fire trucks. … Firefighters wives as a market are huge into this.

"Sometimes it's a matter of finding the right fan bases. Like the Bob Stoops ornament," she said, referring to the bauble with University of Oklahoma football coach's signed image. "That was so customer-driven. It's been one of our number-one sellers. It just cracks me up."

Smith produces glass bubbles decorated with whatever design the client wants. She has an in-house graphics team to help create custom art when none is immediately available, and her company can mass produce large orders or as few as 18 at a time. Manufacturing is handled in Oklahoma so she can oversee quality control.

"When I ran a gift shop, pricing was my focus. Because you don't always have the big bucks to get something special and unique," she said.

Many of her ornaments don't even end up on Christmas trees, Smith said; they're given as gifts throughout the year and often remain boxed as display knickknacks.

"When I started scratching the potential of the collegiate and state centennial licenses, I realized this could be a huge business," she said. "The popularity of the OU and OSU ornaments really surprised me. … We want to expand regionally, so we're looking at the Kansas market next with all the Kansas schools, and Texas of course."

She doesn't want to grow too quickly and without direction.

"If you get too many legs too fast, you're not expanding smart. So I want to go regionally first so I can work with my sales reps personally," Smith said. "I want to go deep before I go wide. I think that's what sabotages a lot of businesses. I have to fulfill each market before I move on."

The pet market, too, has vast potential with little risk of dilution. For example, Smith will be marketing breed-specific, "Best in Show" ornaments to dog lovers this year in a major pet supplies catalog; she's working with the Westminster Kennel Club's photographer for materials to use. Niche sports and hobbies have the same sort of valuable niche access, she said.

The three-year-old company hired sales representatives for the first time last year, she said. Smith has no doubt that she's ready to move to the next level in production, marketing and sales, and she said her first inclination is to look into a Small Business Administration loan or angel investor with limited leverage.

Then she reconsidered: "You know what? I'm open to almost any growth strategy. … Sometimes when you're in business, it's smart to admit that you don't know what you don't know. So instead of thinking that I know what I want, I'm open to letting someone who's done this before come to me with a better idea," Smith said.

"With a little bit of wisdom and experience, what you think you want changes. I would rather keep my options open rather than say there's only one way I absolutely want to do it."

Nike, P&G, J&J Have Adopted to the New Digital

RealityBy Richard Rawlinson and Christopher Vollme

In the evolving digital environment, the central issue is that the skills and capabilities required to succeed as a marketer have changed significantly. While every marketing executive recognizes the pervasive pull of the internet, most allocate only 5% to 10% of their ad budgets to digital media. And unfortunately, many marketers -- by their own admission -- have not adapted to the new reality. Fewer than one in four of the participants in Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 -- Booz Allen Hamilton's cross-industry study completed with the Association of National Advertisers -- consider their organizations "digitally savvy." The principal impediments are lack of senior organizational support, lack of experience in new media and the dearth of digital talent.

Leading marketers such as Nike, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble are indeed recognizing that digital and interactive are no longer niche capabilities; they are a requisite skill set for all marketers. In response, there's a lot consumer marketers have to do: prioritize internal training in digital marketing; hire technologically savvy talent; cultivate a progressive culture that embraces -- and uses -- new technology and media; institutionalize flexibility in responding to customer needs; and create and formalize processes for integrating consumer insight into products.

The problem for many companies is that this is a journey without maps. Most marketers will have to stretch beyond their comfort zones to figure out the answers.

People are the first place to start. The new marketing uses data to select and integrate a wider range of tools more precisely to smaller groups of consumers. It places a premium on the ability to access, integrate, analyze and apply data. That means recruiting people with data-analysis skills.

Companies will still need generalists, of course, perhaps more than ever. Most marketing departments need fewer vertical people trained within a discipline and more flexible operators. It's better to have someone who knows how to integrate customer-relationship management with digital or retail communications.

Marketers must also cultivate and train their existing ranks. Reverse-mentoring and rotational programs can help. Companies such as J&J are using externship programs to enable selected executives to spend time directly with their advertising and media partners and thereby accelerate the development of digital-marketing capabilities.

Beyond experiments with new marketing techniques and tactics, most marketing departments remain structured around organizational legacies, chiefly the output of TV and print advertising. What they need is to integrate analysis, thinking and planning across all communications and media technologies. In practice, that means media must become strategic, rooted early in the fundamental architecture of brand planning.

To build and invest in new ways of communicating, more communication will be needed, internally across finance, IT, marketing and the sales organization and externally with communications agencies and retailers.

The second big change is in incentives. Successful companies will align key incentives around overall brand or business objectives. The incentives can also reflect the development of marketing analytics.

People, process and organization: These must change. Marketers know their world has been altered. What they need more quickly is the corresponding action around both human capital and the marketing processes and organizational structures within which they work. The companies that get those answers right will find future success.

With Baby Boomers moving closer to retirement, entrepreneurs and community groups are looking to serve niches within that huge demographic group.

One such niche is retirement communities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

Nationwide, dozens of groups have tried to build retirement communities for gays, but only three have opened thus far, according to Gerard Koskovich, who tracks the subject for the Lesbian and Gay Aging Issues Network.

Aging experts, entrepreneurs and nonprofits say the need is there, but the challenge is more complex than build it and fill it. They have to raise money; find an affordable, attractive, gay-friendly locale; and motivate people who, like all seniors, might want or need anything from Pilates classes to nursing care.

In the past decade, at least 40 ideas for gay senior housing have come up, but many stalled in the planning. So far, an upscale project in Santa Fe, N.M., that opened in 2006 has had difficulty filling. An affordable complex that opened in 2007 in Hollywood has had more success.

Despite that national track record for gay senior housing, three Bay Area projects are moving closer to reality after years of planning.

Each of the three - Barbary Lane in Oakland, Openhouse in San Francisco and Fountaingrove Lodge in Santa Rosa - has a different business model. Nevertheless, each is premised on the concept that many gays want to spend their retirement years in places where they're comfortable being themselves.

Accustomed to being out of the closet, they don't want to go back into it for fear of rejection or discrimination at a retirement center. They go along with Barbary Lane's motto, "Closets are for clothes, not seniors."

Because of anti-discrimination laws, none of the projects is exclusively gay. Straight people may move in, too, but the projects bill themselves as gay-friendly.

San Francisco's Openhouse

Openhouse expects to take a big step forward Tuesday afternoon when the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is tentatively scheduled to approve its land-use plan.

"This represents three years of getting the project through the city process," said Moli Steinert, executive director of the nonprofit organization.

Openhouse will be part of a larger rental project being developed by AF Evans on the site of the former UC Berkeley Extension campus at 55 Laguna St. Evans is preserving three buildings there and converting them to housing.

New construction will include Openhouse's eight-story building with up to 88 independent living studio and one-bedroom apartments for gays and lesbians 55 and older, Steinert said.

Although earlier plans had called for only some of the apartments to be affordable, now all of them will be affordable because the Mayor's Office of Housing is financing the long-term ground lease. "The city made an extraordinary move," Steinert said. Other financing is expected to come from low-interest bonds.

Exact income figures for affordability are undecided, but Steinert said they will be no more than 50 percent of the area's median income.

Evans also will build 328 apartments for people of all ages, whether straight or gay. Most of the units will be market rate, but 20 percent will be set aside as affordable. A community center, small park and public garden are planned, too.

Work is tentatively scheduled to start this fall. Openhouse's building, foreseen in the second phase of work, might start in late 2009 with the hoped-for opening in 2011.

Besides the apartments, Openhouse wants to provide services like meal and day health programs for its residents and neighboring seniors.

To serve residents who need in-home health help, Openhouse is working with the Institute on Aging, which has case-management services.

For the benefit of other gay seniors who need the in-home services, Openhouse is cooperating with the city's Department of Aging and Adult Services to teach service workers "LGBT best practices," Steinert said.

Finally, Openhouse has started a community outreach program for isolated seniors. It began in Bernal Heights, where gay people of all ages were invited to a meeting and asked to be aware of gay senior neighbors who might need help, such as referral to the Bernal Heights Senior Center.

The outreach program will move to the Castro district and Noe Valley, which have many gay residents. "People are fired up," Steinert said.

In the process, Openhouse can see where gay seniors are clustered into "naturally occurring retirement communities," she said.

Oakland's Barbary Lane

The Bay Area gay retirement community that's closest to welcoming its first residents is Barbary Lane, an independent living center in the historic Lake Merritt Hotel at 1800 Madison St., Oakland.

Barbary Lane Senior Communities at Lake Merritt, a for-profit company, is transforming the 81-year-old Art Deco gem into 46 studio and one-bedroom apartments for people ages 55 and older.

After introducing Barbary Lane to the public in June, the developer had hoped to welcome the first residents in November.

That projection proved overly optimistic. The developer had planned to keep the original kitchens, but it convened a focus group that said people want updated kitchens.

Going along with that recommendation added four months to the construction schedule and $1 million to the budget, said Dave Latina, president of Barbary Management Group, the developer and operator. Renegotiating the construction loan took four months, delaying work on the kitchens until last fall.

The developer had already planned to replace the six-story building's elevator to meet accessibility standards, but that work took three months longer than projected because the state required extensive upgrading for the elevator shaft, he said.

Latina expects the state to approve the elevator work in early April, allowing the nine people who have reserved apartments to move in to them in May and June. He expects two or three move-ins each month after that. He added that the number of people who have reserved apartments meets industry standards.

Because of the delays, the developer isn't actively marketing the project, "but we're still getting calls," Latina said. "We see people coming to us."

Barbary Lane is named after 28 Barbary Lane, home of the fictional central character Mrs. Madrigal in author Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City," a popular Chronicle series that started in 1976. The series was followed by six "Tales of the City" books and updated in Maupin's newest book, "Michael Tolliver Lives."

Barbary Lane residents will have two meals a day in the hotel's restaurant, which overlooks the lake. Among other basic services will be weekly housekeeping, utilities, social activities and transportation.

Santa Rosa's Fountaingrove

Fountaingrove Lodge is not as far along as the other two projects. This continuing care retirement community is planned by Aegis Senior Communities, a for-profit company that develops and operates dozens of retirement facilities in the West. Fountaingrove Lodge will be its first for gays.

Aegis has submitted its development plans to the city of Santa Rosa, but no date has been set for them to go to the Planning Commission. Aegis hopes to start construction within the next year or so. The project will have 148 cottages, apartments and flats for independent living.

As residents' needs change, they can have health services in their homes or in an on-site assisted living center. Fountaingrove also will provide Alzheimer's and dementia care. Therefore, residents won't have to leave friends and familiar surroundings if they require more care.

New residents pay entrance fees that could range from $350,000 to $1 million, depending on the type of residence, The Chronicle reported in October 2006. Up to 100 percent of the fee is returned to the resident or his estate when he dies or moves out.

Residents also pay a monthly fee, which, in conjunction with the entrance fee, covers rent, most meals, housekeeping, utilities, upkeep and maintenance of buildings and grounds, transportation, and use of services and amenities. It's expected to range from $2,700 to $4,900, plus $700 for a second person, The Chronicle reported.

Barbary Lane's Latina said that even though relatively few gay retirement projects have opened thus far, he believes the demand is there. Despite the delays at his project, "we have not seen people's interest decline."

One of the problems nationally is that unlike Openhouse, which is deemed affordable, most of the projects are geared to middle- and upper-income gays, but there's a demand for more-affordable models. "You can never build enough" of them, Latina said. He added that his company hopes to build five more Barbary Lane communities in California and to make some of the units affordable to lower-income gays.

The Market Common, nestled in the core of the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, will debut this week with the hopes of becoming one of the beach's commercial hubs.

Though many shoppers have been abuzz with excitement about the new stores the complex will offer, The Market Common's location on land invisible to major highways could be a challenge as the development launches.

The location makes for a prime urban village because of the amount of open land available for redevelopment. Because the base has been closed for more than a decade, however, many Grand Strand residents have grown accustomed to zooming past the site, which is tucked between Kings Highway and U.S. 17 Bypass.

"A major challenge for The Market Common is to capture the attention of potential customers as today it lacks visibility and familiarity," said Brad Dean, president of the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce. "People do not see the progress unfolding unless they happen to be driving through that area. Even though redevelopment has been under way for several years, many residents remain unaware of what has transpired on the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base."

The base has been closed for 15 years, but is being resurrected as a shopping hub that incorporates a live/work atmosphere where apartments and townhouses are mixed with shops. The concept was the only successful idea in a string of redevelopment plans that cropped up since the base closed.

Advertising and the buzz about the shopping complex's debut will help The Market Common overcome any hurdle the location might create, developers said.

"We will be advertising in enough places to direct people down there to use that road," project manager Buddy Styers said. "Farrow Parkway has become a real thoroughfare for people wanting to go from the beachfront to the [U.S. 17] bypass."

TUCKED AWAY

Unlike Broadway at the Beach, which is positioned to catch traffic off U.S. 17 Bypass, or the Hard Rock Park, where towering roller coasters peek out at U.S. 501, The Market Common is more off the beaten path, Dean said.

It has been difficult to make the 250,000 Horry County residents aware of this project, Styers said.

"The whole community should know by now since it's been going on since 1995," he said. "We have got billboards all over town ...and I've probably given 30 presentations to civic clubs. ... I don't know how you get to everybody."

It's important people know that an urban village "is not an exit off of a highway," said Clayton McCaffery, vice president of leasing for McCaffery Interests, which is developing The Market Common.

"We would have never done this project on Highway 17 or Bypass," he said. "There is no room for creativeness that allows for a downtown, urban village development."

Not every resident along the Grand Strand knows about The Market Common, but people are talking about it.

Carolina Forest resident James Strangler said he's been hearing radio commercials about The Market Common.

Strangler's talked with a few of his buddies about The Market Common, but they mostly discuss whether they can afford to shop and live there - not where it's located.

Myrtle Beach residents Rick and Pat Ward drive by the site often. "We may check it out once it's open," Rick Ward said. "It's going to be interesting to see what all is going to be out there."

Spreading the word

Signs are going up around town promoting The Market Common.

A billboard directs drivers on Kings Highway to turn onto Farrow Parkway, which leads to the development.

In addition to billboards, ads will appear in newspapers and magazines and on radio and TV. The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce also stops there on tours it gives to travel writers.

A long wait

Philip Pecora, owner of Toffino's Italian Bakery & Deli, moved his restaurant to the former base a year after it closed because he knew something good like The Market Common would come - it just didn't come as fast as Pecora thought it would.

For the 13 years Toffino's has called the former base home, the eatery has struggled as redevelopment officials tried to find the perfect project to revitalize the area. Ideas for a theme park and other large developments failed.

Pecora said he's paid the price. "Put it like this, if I had to do it over, I wouldn't have done it," the 48-year-old father of three said. Pecora said his business was a niche, so he didn't rely on foot traffic. "Most of my customers came looking for us," he said.

But once construction started on the base, Pecora ran into a slew of problems such as having to shut down several times because of water and electrical outages.

Now that The Market Common has arrived, and more houses are in the works, Pecora plans to expand.

Officials envision this area - once a collection of old military buildings with little traffic - becoming one of a half-dozen major, commercial hubs in Myrtle Beach.

Raising the bar

It's unclear how much business The Market Common will take away from other area shopping centers. There are three major malls on the Grand Strand as well as outlet centers and other shopping/entertainment complexes that are all competing for shoppers.

"In the short term, other retail establishments might feel the impact of these additional offerings, especially considering the economy," Dean said. But in the long term, he said, "The Market Common will help raise the bar on retail growth."

Coastal Carolina University research economist Don Schunk said The Market Common will lure customers from the other shopping complexes, but it won't hit any one of them too hard.

"It sort of has to take business away from other places," he said. "I don't expect a very dramatic drop-off in business at any one of those places."

Officials with the nearest mall, Coastal Grand, aren't concerned about the competition. Marketing director Deb Bramlett said shoppers might stop at both Coastal Grand mall and The Market Common in one trip because they're so close.

"Competition makes us all ... strive to be better," Bramlett said.

The addition helps elevate the Grand Strand shopping environment, Dean said.

"I don't think we can announce that this puts us at the level of an Atlanta or a Charlotte, even though we're growing quickly and gaining notoriety," he said. "As we grow more diverse, we are better positioned to compete with other major markets in the region."Contact DARRELL HUGHES at 626-0364

Contact JESSICA FOSTER at 626-0351.

Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) Administrator Oscar Garin is focusing a research and development (R&D) effort on the preservation of inositol on coconut sap amid numerous studies proving the significant presence of this cancer-preventing substance in the sap.

First, PCA is contracting Ateneo de Manila University or the Food and Nutrition Research Institute to document inositol content on coconut sap.

Following this, the government agency will develop products that can ensure preservation of a significant amount of inositol on the sap which may be possible through the production of fresh coconut sap juice.

"Admin Garin is enthusiastic about developing technologies and methodologies that can preserve inositol," said a PCA official in an interview.

Inositol, a dietary phytochemical present in cereals, soy, legumes, and fiber-rich foods, has long been known to suppress hormone-refractory prostate cancer growth.

And its presence on coconut sap will maximize marketing of coconut sap and is expected to likewise boost the market of a related product, coconut sap sugar, a sweetener good for diabetics which is already sought after as a health product in the United States.

Moreover, the Philippines may strike a deal to supply coconut sap to Canada and Japan while an international trader engaged in organic food distribution, Tree Crops, is also looking at sourcing coconut sap from the Philippines instead of from Indonesia.

PCA is further boosting marketing prospects of coconut products by accrediting producers and traders of coconut sap and coconut sap sugar.

PCA is also coordinating with the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Products Standards (BAFPS) to come up with a quality standard for coconut sap in order to protect product quality and likewise protect their producers.

An expansion of coconut sap production in General Santos; Aroman, South Cotabato, and Zamboanga is already on-going. Each of these three production centers should yield three metric tons of coconut sap per month.

While only 375 trees are productive sources of the sap and only from Aroman at present, PCA believes volume can readily be stepped up once markets will have been established in Japan and Canada.

While aiming to give livelihood to farmers originally under the Asian Development Bank-funded International Coconut Genetic Resource Center (Cogent), PCA is also ensuring that farmers will get their fair share of profit in this envisioned sustainable entrepreneurial project.

The export market for the country’s coconut sugar has started expanding since the completion last year of scientific studies showing that coconut sugar is a low glycemic index (GI) food. GI is a numerical system of measuring the effect of a carbohydrate on the circulating blood sugar.

While the Low GI is at 55, coconut sap sugar’s GI is far lower at only at 35.

A PCA investment model shows that a P329,000 per hectare investment on coconut sap sugar gives an internal rate of return of 28 percent over a 3.21-year payback period.

A one-hectare land is assumed to have 100 coconut trees. This will have total toddy (coconut sap) yield per hectare per month of 7,500 liters and a total sugar production of 1,250 kilos at a sugar-toddy ratio of one kilo of sugar for every six liters of toddy.

PCA is linking investors to farmers who are planting hybrid coconut under which the farmers belonging to a cooperative will eventually own the facilities while investors also get their money back.

Coconut sap sugar is foreseen to create numerous livelihood opportunities in rural areas as the process involves a simple farm level technology, but it is labor-intensive due to the coconut sap harvesting activity.

The entire Mindanao is seen as a big potential source of coconut sap sugar since it is where most hybrid coconuts have been planted. Hybrid coconut, which yields three to five MT per hectare compared to the Laguna variety which only gives about one MT enables high recovery rate for the granulated sugar.

A coconut sap or "tuba" contains 12 to 18 percent sugar.

PCA first came up with coconut sap sugar from a poverty reduction project in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental through Cogent. Farmers from Misamis Oriental were the first ones to produce the low GI food that is being exported to the US through a marketing effort of a Filipino doctor promoting the food’s health benefits. But PCA hopes to expand its production all over Mindanao .

Indonesia and Thailand also produce a certain type of coconut sap sugar but has not marketed the product well as much as the Philippines does market it as a doctor-recommended health food.

By Jane Phare

A wealthy New Zealand businessman topped the list of Lufthansa's biggest private jet spenders last year.

The businessman, who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on more than 30 private jet flights, is part of a growing number of rich, successful New Zealanders who don't want to queue in crowded airport terminals to fly short destinations.


New Zealanders are now ranked the biggest users of the German airline's private jet service from the Asia-Pacific region, an area that includes India, China, Japan and Australia, making the German company's head office take notice of what was thought to be an insignificant market. Wealthy Kiwis travelling to Europe for the America's Cup and World Cup Rugby helped to boost business. In Europe and the Russian Federation, they are the fifth-biggest customers, holding their own with countries like Germany, France, Italy and the United States.

Anton Musin, Lufthansa's sales and marketing manager based in Auckland, says Kiwi affability and informality have been an enormous advantage as he has built up the New Zealand client base.

The "who's who" of wealthy, successful people in New Zealand is small enough to make networking, once there's a foot in the door, reasonably straight forward. In Europe, he says, he would be unlikely to be at the same party as potential clients, or spot them at a restaurant or cafe.

Tap someone on the shoulder and offer a business card in Auckland and it will be accepted with good grace. Try that in Europe and the reception might not be so friendly. And once well-heeled Kiwis have tried the private jet travel option, and liked the product, they open their contact books and offer another half dozen names of potential users.

But Kiwi affability aside, his clients are no less demanding. Musin knows he needs to be available on his mobile 24/7 for booking flights, sometimes with less than a day's notice. That will include preferences for catering and champagne on the flight, and limousine transfer.

Lufthansa targeted the private jet niche market two years ago, initially operating the service in partnership with American company NetJets, using its fleet of 200 aircraft. The service has been so successful that Lufthansa this year invested in its own fleet of luxury aircraft, seating between six and 12 passengers.

Prices vary depending on the aircraft size and the distance travelled, divided into four zones covering more than 1000 destinations. A flight in the seven-seater jet between London and Dublin is $11,446 one way; between London and Cannes is $20,000. The same trip in a 12-seater jet costs $40,000.

Auckland socialite Gilda Kirkpatrick and her husband James used the jet service last year when they went to Europe for the America's Cup in Valencia and the Millennium Yacht Race in Palma, Majorca. "It's definitely the way to travel," she said. "It's easier and quicker. You can share with two or three couples."

Avoiding crowds and queues at airports was an advantage, she said, and you arrived quickly at a European destination rather than taking most of the day and feeling exhausted. A growing list of New Zealanders own their own jets, or use private jets to get around.

They include newspaper magnate Barry Colman, who owns a Cessna 501 Citation jet; New Zealand's richest man Graeme Hart; movie director Peter Jackson; and businessmen Trevor Farmer and Craig Heatley.

Thanks to 7,000 entries from around the world, a small, sweet apple variety has a new name: Frostbite.

Apple naming, generally, is left to the experts.

Honeycrisp, SnowSweet, Zestar -- all thought up by a couple of University of Minnesota horticulture scientists. But this time, with this apple, the public had a say. During a contest this fall, people suggested about 7,000 names for the apple formerly known as MN447. "It was a little like letting your friends at work choose the name of your child," Prof. Jim Luby said.

After months of narrowing down the "huge pile" to 60, to 10, to one, the small, cold-hardy breed bears a name suggested independently by eight Minnesotans: Frostbite. One winner, Eden Prairie resident Lisa Rolf, entered 12 names and took all of them seriously: "It's like writing a one-word novel," she said. "You have to capture the character and the drama of the apple-breeding process itself." In addition to submitting names, the stay-at-home mom and part-time poet submitted slogans. Frostbite's: "If you want to reach for one of these apples, you better protect your extremities."

The name is new, but the apple is not. Frostbite has been a part of the U's breeding program since the 1920s and is best known for its superstar grandson, the Honeycrisp. Never meant for the grocery store, the apple is small, often cracks at its top and has an odd flavor. Like Hawaiian Punch, perhaps, or "raw sugarcane on steroids," David Bedford, the U's apple breeder, has said. In fact, the breed performs "terribly" in taste tests: One or two testers in 20 might give it high marks. But apple breeding now focuses on those one or two. It's their version of niche marketing. And Frostbite's good for cider.

Although the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum offered samples during the contest, Bonnie Winzenberg didn't try it. She had requested her single entry form from her home in Brainerd. But she knew the apple "wasn't real red and fresh and bright," she said. "It had a look that was almost like, gosh, if it's winter and somebody's got frostbite, it might look like that."

Nurseries will begin grafting Frostbite trees this summer, selling them in 2009 and planting them by 2010, Luby said. Their fruit won't make it to the farmer's market until 2014.

This e-book would not have even gotten a second glance from me if it had not been recommended by a friend. It was, and I bought (and read), Niche Marketing on Crack, by Andrew Hansen.

The title of the book is very unfortunate, and the 'Miami drug dealer' photo on the cover and website aren't much better, but the author presented a compelling argument in his sales copy. That, plus the recommendation, pushed me to swipe the credit card.

The book is actually a hype free read that promotes a very focussed application of respectable Internet marketing techniques. You could learn about them all by scouring forums and websites then cobbling together all of the information into your own system. But, Andrew presents a step-by-step action plan that doesn't gloss over any of the important details - which saves a lot of trial and error. (How much is your time worth?)

The basic idea is to create small niche topic websites that catch people who are looking to buy a product rather than searching for information. Hansen describes how to identify profitable topics and affiliate products. Next, he shows readers how to quickly build an easy to manage, search engine friendly niche website and promote it for quick and long term traffic.

Hansen uses an overall blend of blogs and social bookmarking sites combined with article marketing to get these new sites listed in search engines and get the traffic flowing.

Niche Marketing On Crack is a good book for newbies who want a detailed outline of what to do to create and promote a niche website and also for more experienced marketers looking to refine their work process.

I have been working online for more than 10 years now, and actively building an online business of my own for over 14 months. One of my strategies is to create sites like those described in Niche Marketing On Crack. I eventually settled on a site building system much like the one outlined in the e-book. I could have saved a year of trial and error with these instructions.

I also tested the promotion strategy on a pre-exisiting site with low traffic. I saw immediate results gaining inbound links to the site and generated the first traffic and Adsense revenue from this activity less than 48 hours later.

I recommend Niche Marketing On Crack for anyone interested in developing niche websites to promote affiliate products and generate revenue from Adsense and other PPC systems.

For more information visit: Niche Marketing On Crack, by Andrew Hansen

Andrew Seltz
The Go-To Guy!
www.AndrewSeltz.com

Are you mesmerized by the prospect of making money over the internet? Tantalized at the thought of sitting at home and working in your PJ's? Sitting in front of your computer monitor and earning cash while only exerting the effort of clicking your mouse? Before you jump blindly into this arena, make certain you are aware of which side of the equation you find yourself.

Take another look at the title of this piece. Make no mistake that internet marketing is a business. Just like a dry cleaner who provides a service, or the grocer who sells a product, the internet marketer does the same. And in all cases, success is generally a function of the effort put forth. In other words; work more, make more money, work less, make less money.

A lot of people are drawn to the world of internet marketing by the promise of quick, easy cash. Maybe you've heard stories of people making thousands of dollars each month  through the internet. Or those that who only spend a few hours each month doing little more than surfing the web to generate a monthly cash flow.  But before you can consider any of that, you must first determine if you are a vendor or a consumer.

There are many individuals who make a substantial amount of money online. The idea of making thousands of dollars each month is not far-fetched. Even tens of thousands is possible. Those are the stats of some successful, full-time internet marketers. You can also find people who do this on a part-time basis to make extra income to supplement their lifestyle. Imagine what you would do with an extra $300 each month. That's how much I made in my first successful venture. The simple fact of the matter is that these people are approaching internet marketing as a vendor. They intend to provide a product or service to others at a price to earn a profit.

A true vendor in the realm of internet marketing has a routine. Out of that routine they have certain expectations. They are looking for a return on their investment of time and capital. A full-time marketer may spend $1000 a month for advertising knowing that it will return $4000 in sales. This person has a system to reach customers who represent income.

There are many ways to generate income online. You'll find a wide range of people involved in various aspects of this business. There is the individual who dabbles in marketing, the professional who makes a living with a thriving business, and then everybody else in between. As I mentioned earlier, generally these people provide either a product or a service. They host websites where the consumers come to interact. They maintain mailing lists of customers and prospects. They analyze the effectiveness of advertising. They provide incentives to attract customers. Their primary goal online is to generate income.

Internet marketing can be rewarding work. It can be very profitable. But remember it is work. At times it can be hard work. It may take months before you see a profit, or years before you are truly successful. But there are ways to make the process a bit easier. Knowledge and education of the business is required. It is essential to have a plan and follow that plan. You need to know what you are expecting and how much work it takes for that outcome. If you are lucky, you'll find a mentor to guide you. You'll start small and work your way up. There are a number of resources available to the beginner, but always remember "caveat emptor," let the buyer beware. Due diligence certainly applies to this subject. We all know; "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Internet Marketing Advertising is everywhere online. You're living in the age of the internet, in which you're spending a great part of your life online. You are - shopping, buying, selling, banking, and doing a lot of business online. The internet has really become a popular medium for doing business.

The internet has widened the horizon of world business. In fact, Internet has squeezed the world into a global online marketplace. It connects sellers and buyers from Texas to Tokyo, from Boston to Bali. It helps business owners to market, promote and publicize their products or services using texts, interactive graphics, videos and audios, and that's what internet marketing advertising is.

This medium is all about marketing and advertising products or services over the Internet. It is also termed online marketing or e marketing. With ever increasing popularity of online business, the popularity and importance of internet advertising has also surged. In fact, advertising has become an important part of internet business strategies.

Internet marketing has a number of benefits and advantages over the traditional way of marketing. One of the top benefits of internet advertising is that it is considerably cheaper than traditional business marketing; low costs in distributing information and media to a global audience makes this marketing and advertising extremely popular.

Internet marketing is more interactive than traditional business marketing. The unique qualities of this medium is highly interactive in terms of instant response and in eliciting response. Indeed internet marketing and advertising offers a superb convergence of creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, audio, and video.

In simple terms, internet marketing advertising is a way of growing and promoting a business using the power of the internet. It involves all aspects of marketing that promotes a business through websites, blog sites, articles, press releases, online market researches, email marketing, and advertising banners etc. Internet advertising methods include search engine marketing, display advertising, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, interactive advertising, and blog marketing.

Internet marketing is really marketing and advertising through the World Wide Web. It is aimed to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. Some examples of internet marketing advertising are Google adwords, pop ads and e-mail ads.

Online video directories for brands are one of the finest examples of interactive marketing and advertising. Complementing television advertising, the online video directories allow the viewer to view the commercials of a number of brands.

Rich media, generally Adobe Flash, is highly used in the display portion of internet advertising. Making overt use of color, imagery, page layout, and other element, Rich media techniques really help to attract viewer's attention. Some of the common examples of rich media advertising formats include Banner ads, Interstitial ads, Floating ads, Expanding ads, Polite ads, Wallpaper ads, Trick banners, Pop-ups, Pop-unders, Video ads, Map ads, Mobile ads, and streaming video or streaming audio ads.

Banner ads offer internet marketing advertising using graphic images or animations displayed on a website. Initially, Banner ads were only rectangular GIF images 468 pixels wide by 60 pixels high, but now these marketing tools come in a number of standard sizes defined by the IAB.

Interstitial ads are the wonderful internet advertising tools that facilitate displaying page of ads before the requested content is displayed. Floating ads are the online ads that slides across or floats above content on viewer's screen. Other ads keep expanding or changing their sizes on screen.

Polite ads are the internet tools in which large ads are presented in small bits to prevent obscuring the displayed content. Wallpaper ads change the background of the page being viewed. Trick banners are the banner ads that look like dialog boxes with buttons. They simulate error messages or alerts.

Pop-ups are the stunning internet marketing advertising tools in which new windows open in front of the current ones, displaying advertisements, or WebPages. Similar to pop-ups, Pop-Unders operate loading new windows that are sent behind the current windows so that users don't see them until they close one or more active windows.

Video ads are the marketing ads in which actual moving video clips are displayed. However banner ads use static or animated images, they are similar to video ads. In fact, streaming videos or streaming audios have become very popular tools in marketing and advertising. They are more interactive than any other advertising tools.

Hence, if you own an online business, you must run an internet marketing campaign to promote your business products/services. You can have your advertising campaign designed and planned by any of many internet marketing advertising professionals and experts offering their services online.

Commuters will be able to get real-time bus arrival information at 20 more bus stops by May. This comes after a survey by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) found that over 90 per cent of commuters voted for more of such panels.

The additional panels will be installed from Monday at bus stops with a high volume of commuter traffic. Ten of the bus stops will be in the Central Business District and the rest around Singapore. Seven panels will be installed at bus stops outside the Bedok, Bishan, Clementi, Commonwealth, Kovan, Tanah Merah, and Toa Payoh MRT stations. The other three panels will be installed at the bus stops at Cencon Building, Parkway Parade and after Rifle Range road. Last July, the LTA rolled out a pilot project at 30 selected bus stops.

From this July, to help commuters making transfers between rail and buses, panels at the bus stops near Bugis and Chinatown MRT stations will also display the arrival times of rail services at those stations. Two panels with the same information will also be installed at both stations' entrances from July. The LTA is extending another well-received feature, the Key Bus Services Maps, which details bus routes and places of interests, to the Chinatown vicinity and to more areas on Orchard Road by the second half of this year. Eight out of 10 respondents in LTA's survey found the maps useful.

The E-consultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census of over 600 email marketers highlights the real cost of deliverability for the first time - marketers are wasting around 11% of their budget. This entry investigates what they can do about it. Deliverability problems are most commonly the failure of emails to be delivered to the inbox, and when received distortion of messages when received because of image blocking and more.

Charges of scare mongering have been levelled at the DMA, ESPs and deliverability firms such as Return Path, Goodmail and Habeas. These organisations stand to gain the most from investments in deliverability, but the research finally shows how much marketers may gain too. The E-consultancy/Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census shows some interesting findings.

• Deliverability is wasting many marketers' budgets: email marketers estimated they were losing 11% of their budget and agencies put this figure higher at 14%.
  
• A blind spot for many: 60% of online marketers say they don't need to improve deliverability, yet 80% cannot measure how much they are losing through poor deliverability. Without measurement techniques it is difficult to justify and quantify benefit or risk.
  
• Adding to a sizeable sum: the value of sales generated by direct marketing is running at £125billion, and of this total online sales via the internet is reaching £52billion (source: DMA Economic Impact Analysis 2006). Assuming email marketing contributes around 10% of the latter figure, the real monetary loss of poor delivery that this equates to is significant.
  

There are a number of proven methods to understand your deliverability rate - the first and most important step is to investigate your present sender reputation and the factors affecting it.

You also need to set your own benchmarks for open rates, click rates and conversions. It's a complex task. Deliverability strategies can lead to changes in data collection, targeting strategies, message design and campaign planning which is why we've built a team of deliverability specialists who help both our clients and those email marketers broadcasting their emails through other means. Your sender reputation is influenced by the feedback from recipients who have received your communications before. If they have complained to either their web mail hosts or a blacklisting firm, this will count against you.

Your complaint rates are affected by:

• Data Management: Is the way in which you capture, clean and suppress your email contacts encouraging low complaint rates?
  
• Campaign metrics: what are your average bounce, complaint and unsubscribe rates?
  

There are also other factors that affect deliverability:

• Technical set-up: is your sending server configured for bulk sending? Are appropriate accreditation and certification schemes in place? Is your IP address and domain strategy building you a positive reputation?
  
• Campaigns: how are the major spam companies handling your messages and how do the main email receivers display your designs?
  
• Monitoring: are you monitoring the major black lists and spam organisations to ensure any problems are picked up?
  

Conducting an audit helps you understand your deliverability situation, and build an action plan. One final thought. If you can achieve an uplift of 11% by preventing deliverability problems, it should be easy to estimate the maximum amount to spend. If you take your revenue from email marketing (e.g. £100k), and increase it by 11% (e.g. to £111k) you'll have incremental revenue.

Then, dependent on your business model, if you take the profit margin (e.g. 35%) from these incremental sales (e.g. £11k), you'll have a maximum figure to invest on deliverability (35% * £11k = £3,850). As long as your investment is less than this figure, then it is a good commercial decision.

The link between pharma major Wockhardt, Akbarally’s , one of the country’s earliest departmental stores and Monginis, a chain of bakeries, may not be obvious immediately . A quick background check establishes the common factor — they all are a part of the Khorakiwala family. Fakhruddin Khorakiwala, 90, who was a former sheriff of Mumbai, inherited Akbarally’s in the early 40s when it was still a pharmacy, and inspired by American pharma company Parke Davis, he decided he needed to backward integrate his business from retail to manufacturing .

As a result, he acquired Worli Chemical Works (which was later renamed Wockhardt) and eventually, in 1957, he expanded the pharmacy into a departmental store; acquiring the Monginis bakery at the same time. “There was an economic consideration to these decisions The business environment was very different then,” says Khorakiwala who continues to remain actively involved with Akbarally’s . “There was an opportunity to do something new with the businesses which catered primarily to the British.”

Every corporate with a history, it seems, has an offbeat ‘other’ business that’s far removed from it’s core operation. DCM Shriram Industries, for example , has long been in the business of making country liquor, while the Thapars are major exporters of gherkins. Tata Power makes fine bone china on the side, Vijay Mallya’s UB group also makes fertilisers, while fertiliser major GNFC is into IT.

The Mahindra group has always been famous for it’s hidden jewels — companies tucked away behind its larger automotive operations that come into the limelight only when they’re ready. Today , Anand Mahindra counts among his hidden jewels a defence systems project for making torpedoes and a five year old grape export operation, which is now one of India’s biggest. “We’ve exported over 500 containers of Mahindra branded grapes,” he says. “We may not be famous for it yet, but it’s not secret either.”

The Mahindras also have a hugely profitable steel trading operation that was started by Anand Mahindra’s grandfather after the world war. JC Mahindra spent much of his early career with Tata Steel, after which the government appointed him as the controller of iron and steel. Using the contacts he made, JC Mahindra later started a steel trading business, today known as Mahindra Intratrade. Grandson Anand realised the global reach of this line of business when he was at Harvard and a fellow student, from Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan, invited him and his wife Anuradha out to dinner.

“We were so glad to be taken out for a free meal that I didn’t even ask the reason for the invitation,” recalls Mahindra. “It later turned out that our new friend had read the Mahindra name in the Mitsubishi manual. We were one of Mitsubishi’s first partners in the steel trading business.”

It is not unusual, especially with business groups that were coming of age in the post-independence era, to have a slew of subsidiaries which may have nothing to do with the core business. Jayesh Desai, national director - transaction advisory services, Ernst & Young, says that a majority of these subsidiaries which are present in unrelated sectors were set up a long time ago, and their legacy continues till today: “Most of these businesses would have been established at a time when having a license was of more value than the actual value one could create out of the business.”

Clued-in folks may know that the Singhanias of Raymond make the KamaSutra brand of condoms, but few would be aware that the company also makes steel files. Harshal Jayavant , president-engineering business, Raymond, says that when the company was set up in 1949, it was only one of two organised local Indian companies in the segment, with a large portion of the country’s requirement being imported. “Today, JK Files is leading the consolidation that is happening globally in this industry, with a market share of over 30 %” he says.

But instances like this are more an exception than the norm. If it’s not a conglomerate, then the business generally remains a marginal one, where the possibility of continued investment is always uncertain. “In most cases, if it is not a related business, it does not have the ability to make a success on its own,” says Desai. In some cases, private equity funds have stepped in , and often, managed to make a success of it. A few years ago, cement-maker ACC sold its refractory business to ICICI Ventures. Around the same time, Ranbaxy divested its fine chemicals unit.

The logic is simple: if an enterprise is a marginal part of the group’s business, it will receive marginal resources and attention, whereas a venture fund would be fully focused on making a success of it. But this does not always happen as these businesses were initially set up based on emotion or non-business reasons, and not pure business logic, and as long as it is a cash generator, organisations would not really think of selling it.

Of course, not all companies are looking at cashing out. Wipro’s earnings from its consumer goods business may be a fraction of what the IT division brings in, but Azim Premji has made it clear that he would not let go of the business which the company started out with. While Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting may have been sidelined for a few years while Premji focused on the IT services division, the attention is now back on the consumer business. The FMCG company announced the acquisition of Singapore-based Unza Holdings, earlier last year, giving it an international presence as well as a larger brand portfolio, along with signalling that the company was not for sale, as has been often speculated.

Of course not all companies that were set up in the early days of the Indian economy have remained on the sidelines. Atul, the chemicals arm of the Lalbhai Group, has a wide product portfolio, with interests ranging from polymers to fragrance chemicals. Sunil Lalbhai, MD, Atul, says, “The companies under the umbrella of Lalbhai Group operate in varied businesses such as textiles, engineering and chemicals. These businesses naturally call for different and distinct vision and strategy though wshenever required we discuss particularly major initiatives.”

The older, textile business, Arvind Mills, meanwhile has also expanded into being a ‘farm to fashion’ retailer, with rights to international brands like Nautica, Kipling, GANT and Polo in the country. Sanjay Lalbhai, CMD, Arvind Mills, adds that all the group companies, including others like Amol Dictalite and Anup Engineering are held together by a loose arrangement and that there is no governing body which regulates the companies.

In many instances, the newer businesses could be a small venture which is tagged on to an existing business, to simply avoid the hassle of setting up a new company. Till a few years ago, Tata Power also housed Tata Broadband, a company under which the group had first entered the broadband internet services market . Set up in 2001, Tata Broadband was primarily meant to provide services to other service providers like data centres, cable operators and cellular service providers among others.


In 2005, this company was sold to group company VSNL (now Tata Communications), which was a more a p p r o p r i a t e home for the company. Tata Power though, still houses Tata Ceramics, a small, largely export oriented unit, which makes crockery for brands like Wedgewood and Royal Doulton. The fine bone china from Tata Ceramics even makes it to the dining table at Rashtrapati Bhavan. The Tata Group has recently started retailing the Tata Ceramics brand through its Westside retail chain. Whether it grows big enough to finally be demerged like Tata Broadband remains to be seen.

Insiders point out that often there is some amount of step-motherly treatment when it comes to the attitude of the board members when it comes to the smaller company, but Raymond’s Jayavant has no such complaints. “Every quarter, the three business divisions — apparel, textiles and engineering — make detailed presentations to the finance committee, and often, we spent more time on engineering than the others,” he says. Given that engineering, a niche business, contributes about 15% of the group’s total revenue, he agrees that the textile business would take up more attention , but it doesn’t means that the senior management is not involved in the business unit.

Few diversifications by single business companies are done purely as a strategic business move. Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Corporation (GNFC) is among the few to enter a new sector on the basis of a carefully planned diversification effort . Jagdeep S Kochar, executive director, GNFC says that the IT division initially started out as a manufacturer of telecom equipment in 1988, when the sector was still at a nascent stage. The spread of globalisation rendered this almost obsolete over time and they realised that to remain competitive it was time for a revamp.

“It was around the same time that the Government of Gujarat was looking for a partner to boost IT in the state. GNFC had the advantage of being partly owned by the Gujarat Government, and was an obvious choice,” he says. Starting with GNFC Info Tower in Ahmedabad , which was the first IT Park in Gujarat, the unit has expanded to offer other services like digital signatures, e-procurement and remote infrastructure management. “GNFC invested in the business in the initial years, but we are now an independent unit and give money back to the parent company,” says Kochar. The company is planning to undertake a large-scale expansion programme later this year, and again, this would involve investments by GNFC.

Another unusual pairing is Mangalore Chemical Fertilizers, which today is a part of the UB Group. From the time UB acquired a 30% stake in the fertiliser company in 1990, it has gone from being a potentially sick company to being a reasonably succesful one. DCM Shriram Industries, not to be confused with DCM Shriram Consolidated has also set up an alcohol unit at its Daurala sugar plant, where it manufactures country liquor, for sale mainly in Uttar Pradesh along with other brands for other states.

Desai says that entering any new business would require full support from the main business, otherwise it is likely to struggle. In recent times, the majority of unrelated diversifications have happened into booming sectors like retail, telecom and real estate. And these are unlikely to remain marginal businesses as the sole reason for the company setting up a new subsidiary would be to cash in on the good times in the sector.

“In India, there will be a lot of diversification as the economy is still maturing and there is a level playing field for entrepreneurs ,” says Sanjay Lalbhai. Meanwhile, as long as the ‘other’ business continues to make money, organisations would naturally be content to hold on. Whether they would cash out when they get a really attractive offer is what remains to be seen.

The definition of spam has effectively changed from "unsolicited commercial email," an idea based on permission, to a perception-based definition — i.e., unwanted email — according to the "Spam Complainers Survey" by Q Interactive and MarketingSherpa, reports MarketingCharts.

The survey sought to determine consumers' perceptions of what spam is, why they report emails as spam and what they think happens when the "report spam" button is clicked. Below, some of the survey findings. Most consumers don't accurately comprehend the term "spam":

• Over half of survey participants — 56 percent — consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is "just not interesting to me."
• 50 percent of respondents consider "too frequent emails from companies I know" to be spam.
• 31 percent cite "emails that were once useful but aren't relevant anymore."
  

• "The email was not of interest to me" (41 percent).
• "I receive too much email from the sender" (25 percent).
• "I receive too much email from all senders" (20 percent).
  

A recent study finds people no longer perceive "spam" as just unsolicited email. They see spam as email they simply don't want.

This makes email marketing a tougher nut to crack. But having a consumer's trust on your side makes it a lot easier. Here are some tips for increasing the likelihood of getting your message read.

1. Make it easy to subscribe. If you have a brick-and-mortar shop, you might have users sign a guest book to keep them up-to-date on events and special deals. On a website, invite users to enter their emails for future discounts or promotions. Remind them you will not sell their information.
2. Use a transparent "From" name. A message from a trusted brand — The Apple Store, for example — is less suspicious than something from "admin[at]apple.com."
3. Don't waste the subject line. This increasingly separates opened messages from trashed ones. If you are a news site, use it for eye-catching headlines: "Google Avails Free Wi-Fi to US and Canada." Marketing a product? Use the subject line to share news about discounts: "Stay sunny for spring. Half off floral handbags this week."
4. Avoid abbreviations, slang and hyperbole. You don't want to sound like a Viagra vendor. Phrases like "Make money fast!" and "$$$" are also verboten. It may help to study your own spam to see what words or phrases convince you an email is spam in the first place.
5. Minimize imagery. An email whose graphics take too long to load is a time-waster. And some people opt not to display images in their email settings.
6. Label the imagery you have. This way, people reading your message in text format know what they're missing if it happens to be valuable.
7. Include a visible call-to-action above the fold. Make it clear what you want the reader to do. Sign a petition? Visit the website for more information? Buy now? If you are ambiguous, they will not take time to guess.
8. Personalize the message. This is crucial if the email begins with a greeting ("Dear [reader]" or "Hello [reader]"). Some marketers avoid using a greeting and signature completely. This isn't such a sin if it is appropriate to the message.
9. Give the reader a clear way to contact you. This is why email signatures are useful. If you omit one, give them open means of contact somewhere in the message.
10. Get in their address books. Remind them to add you to their whitelists or invite them to forward your messages to friends.
11. Nix attachments. Some people will not open an email with an attachment for fear of getting a computer virus.
12. Avoid purchased lists of emails. Chances are high that those people already get plenty of messages they don't want from marketers who bought their names. You are more likely to generate conversions from people who want to hear from you.
13. Make it easy to unsubscribe to your messages. No matter how hard you try, there will always be someone who wants out. Don't give them grief over it.