Rural Marketing

 

Rural marketing is promotion of a company's products in the rural market by using strategies which differs from that of urban market, the rural market is more price sensitive, but it has preference for quality. Rural marketing can be defined in terms of the location (villages) and occupation (mainly farming).

Reasons for going Rural:

·       Increase in demand due to an increase income.

·       Saturation of Urban Markets (earning profits were thus difficult)

·       Tough competition in urban areas (thus firms have to increase promotional costs)

·       A marked increase in rural income (owing to agrarian prosperity)

·       Improved standard of living : owing to increase in literacy and education level and large inflow of investment from rural development programmes and other sources

·       Better Exposure through media and increased contact with the urban counterparts

Strategies for rural marketing:

·       Developing rural-specific products

·       Communicating and changing quality perception

·       Proper communication in Indian language

·       By promoting products with Indian models and actors

·       By giving Indian words for brands

·       Effective media communication

·       Adopting localised way of distributing

Rural Mix

Just as we have the 4 P’s constituting the marketing mix, 4 Distinct elements of rural marketing mix have been developed, which are referred to as 4 A’s. In the rural settings with places far flung and barely connected, getting the product to the consumer can be a challenge. Business houses have to be creative in addressing this situation. It has been seen that a rural consumer demands an end-to end service rather than the just demanding the product.

Elements -4A’s

4 P’s	4 A’s
Product	Affordability
Price	Awareness
Place	Availability
Promotion	Acceptability

Some examples of rural mix:

·       The ‘GoldPlus’ jewellery brand by Tata Group is an interesting example of the brand addressing the non-metro jewellery culture. In rural areas, gold jewellery is used as a store of value and given the adulteration in gold; the goodwill of the organisation is taking the brand places.

·       Samsung too rolled out its ‘Dream Home’ road-show visiting 48 towns in 100 days in an effort to increase its brand awareness.

·       Airtel and Samsung have tied up with IFFCO, Indian farmer’s cooperative of fertilisers, to sell their mobiles and services while other telecom giants and DTH providers are looking at PCOs as a channel of distribution.

·       Soft drinks companies are still using the traditional wholesale retail model but transportation modes are unique indeed. Goods are initially transported to small towns and later to various corners using transport like cycle, auto, hand-cart, camel-carts, etc.
(Co-authored with Abhidha Salhotra, B. Com. (Hons.) SRCC)