How will you feel if the e-mail company you subscribe to, not only reminds you of your wife's birthday but also makes an attractive offer on gifting a microwave? Of course, the offer will be made with prior permission of the registered user. If Nitin Gupta, president of Rediff.com is to be believed, the Rs six crore portal is on the verge of making such offers to its e-mail subscribers.

This will be made possible with the help of the Marketing Centre currently being developed by the company. Says Gupta: "We are setting up a full-fledged marketing centre with complete data-mining capabilities." The basic idea is to deliver the huge aggregate of Rediff consumers to corporates. "Our consumer base could buy goods and services of other corporates," says Gupta.

In September 2000, Rediff's registered e-mail user base was 2.1 million. "The focus is now on growing the customer base," he adds. The Marketing Centre is being developed and managed by TOPS (Targeting Of Portals Services), a division within Rediff.

According to Gupta, the marketing centre will have two aspects: online and offline. The online business is already underway whereby the company is consolidating, storing and segmenting its database. For its offline operations, Rediff is open to getting into joint-ventures or acquiring direct marketing outfits. The direct marketing company will do sales offline and also look at other areas such as tele-marketing, direct sales etc.

Gupta admits that the Marketing Centre will ultimately become the main source of revenue for the company. "It is a serious e-commerce effort and the companies will pay us for reaching our consumer base." Rediff, however, is not in the business of selling mailing lists, says Gupta. "But we can provide highly customised databases to our clients to sell their products and services online, " says Gupta. The idea is not to bombard the customers with offers but use discrete permission marketing.

Gupta believes that the Marketing Centre will work because Net as a medium is unique in many ways. One, it has a global reach. Two, it is the only mass medium with a distinction of being extremely targeted. Three, besides advertising communications, it allows business transactions. Lastly, it is measurable. So the idea behind the new center is to maximise the use of the Net reaching the message and conducting business.

Meanwhile, in the last few months, Rediffs existing online shopping area called Marketplace, has seen a number of big brands set up shop. Among them are Nike, Panasonic and Titan which have come in the last six months. The Marketplace was earlier dominated by small suppliers and retailers.

The Marketplace also offers an opportunity to international companies that wish to test the Indian waters. 'Companies that do not want to risk investments in warehousing, distribution system etc could use the Marketplace to showcase and sell their products," says Nitin Gupta.

Ultimately, in order to be successful, the Marketplace and the Marketing Centre will need to work together to conduct business, he adds.