Evaluation of the Effective Marketing Strategy in Revitalizing Religious Newspapers in Nigeria: Study of Enugu Catholic Diocesan Flame Newspaper

To survive in this era of competitive marketing, practitioners need to reassess, or if need be, reconstruct the whole concept of its marketing strategies and allow effective communication as it progressively move from a sellers’ market to a buyers’ market. In the words of the economists, It is either he works creatively hard to keep his clients or have them kick him out. Being able to identify the consumer and his needs is the starting points towards success in any business. The Flame Newspaper has been facing a lot of problems and challenges in the church print media category. The paper has not achieved much success in the church print media niche market due to some existing unsatisfied needs of consumers. However, this study therefore seeks to find out effective marketing strategies in revitalizing religious papers, (a study of Flame newspaper) so as to attract brand awareness, quality, affordability and profitability by gaining more customers in the ecclesiastical regions of Onitsha and Owerri. A qualitative method was used in order to evaluate and find out more about The Flame and ways to revitalize it. The process of information collection was carried out through phone in-depth interviews conducted with some selected parishioners as well as the newspaper's management. Data generated were presented in prose-like manner for analysis.Findings indicate that Flame newspaper has to engage in an integrated marketing communication program targeting its segment market; this has been its major setbacks from its inception in 1992. Therefore, lack of a proper internal organization and positive external presentation of the paper and its product was found to have reduced the paper's popularity, value, and sustainable ranking among other church papers in the region. The results of the data generated also showed the need to provide good customer services and better welfare packages for the staff.In order to treat these problems accordingly and achieve sales growth, awareness, consistency and quality, the following recommendations were made: The paper should engage in consistent promotional efforts that will focus on the consumers and their needs through innovative product and services that can satisfy their unique goal or motives. In other to target effectively their male and female urban and rural segments: There has to be a budgeting policy. It must engage both traditional and internet marketing tools to achieve their mission statements, business philosophy and vision. Keywords: Evaluation. Effective. Marketing Strategies.  Revitalizing. Religious Newspapers

Communication and Audience in the Age of New Media: Exploring Psychosocial Interfaces for Effectiveness

In all communication situations, the audience remains the cardinal component of the communicating process. For efficiency, the communicator must seek to embrace the psychological and sociological embodiments of the audience. This is to engender completeness of the communication process, leading to an intended feedback. Fortunately and conversely, the emergence and intrusion of new media, has ultimately altered structures of the conventional media audiences. In the new media age, there are changing faces of communication audiences. This research was investigated to access, the size, location, exposure, perception of print media contents as well as their feedbacks within the psychological and sociological frames of these changing audiences in this emerging new media age. Based on the above realism, this research uses explanatory mixed method to study the reading audiences of Nigerian print media in Enugu State, which was researched as the population of study. Following the specific articulated research objectives, hypothetical statement was framed as a way of testing statistical significance of collected research data, and tested with chi-square statistical tool. Evidence from research data indicates that with the intrusion of communication technology that is advancing, the number of reading audiences in the age of the new media is increasing geometrically. This is premised on the fact that most readers do not buy newspapers, but read the online editions. The researchers concluded that mass communication audiences have been altered in terms of their sizes, location, access and exposure patterns as well as perception, as communication contents are being migrated to the new media environment. Accordingly, the researchers recommended, among other things that as the new media have created an immediate feedback mechanism for the changing media audience, all conventionally mass media structures are strongly enjoined to migrate fully into the new media environment, so as to take care of emerging and diversifying audiences. Keywords: Communication, Audience, Age, New Media, Psychosocial, Effectiveness

Press Coverage of Islamic Banking Controversy in Nigeria: A Job Not Well Done

This study primarily set out to assess newspapers published in Nigeria from 1st January to December 31st, 2011 to determine their nature and pattern of coverage of the proposed introduction of Islamic Banking in Nigeria and the controversy it generated. The content analytical research method was adopted and code sheet was used to collect the needed data for the study. Although the population was all the newspapers published within the study period, three newspapers- New Nigerian, Vanguard, and The Guardian, were selected purposively. From these dailies, 108 editions were drawn as the sample size. The data were collected, presented, analyzed, among other things. The study revealed that the Nigerian print media paid scant attention to issues emanating from the introduction of Islamic banking. It is therefore recommended that more specialized tabloids in the area of business reporting should be encouraged, so that such issues as Islamic banking would be given priority attention. Key words: Islamic banking, Press coverage, Controversy, Religio