Current Scenario of Rural Marketing

Rural Weds Marketing

Owing to its herculean consumer base rural marketing has emerged as a big apple in the eyes of marketers. In current times everything is being marketed from the Prime Minister’s image to roadside sugarcane juice poster where Tiger Shroff has replaced Salman Khan these days. Though brands like Maruti, Britania have been able to penetrate the rural chakravyuh but still its a very fragmented and unorganized market, which if nurtured well can become a booming branch of our growing economy.

Think of Rural, and the scenery of farmers hard-working on their farmlands, people bathing around the surface of hand-pumps and wells, herds of cows and buffaloes grazing on fields, above and all you would observe them carrying their culture in their attire, behavior, and language, that is deeply rooted in them. So one needs to keep the rural scenery in their mind when approaching the rural landscape.

Herculean Consumer Base

With 70% mark even today rural India forms the core of Indian population. This number makes the this market a fat chance for entrepreneurs to become a Columbus of rural marketing. It’s a huge consumer base out their, which makes it a deep well with huge capacity of water for marketing bucket out their. To flourish in this market, marketers need to customized marketing as per the their sentiments, cultural values, economics, etc. In short, one has to figure out the rural psychographics.

A lot to play with consumers want

One basic characteristic every consumer holds is there tendency to investigate different option under the same segment of product. So, their homogeneous wants and needs require heterogeneous product segments. The major aspect that can favor marketers while setting their footholds into the fields of rural marketing is that there is a big scope to infuse new behavior in these consumers mind. Due to their upbringing and cultural background they are very much restricted in their choices of the products thus it makes them a big empty rural basket where marketers can fill in their products and let their brands excel.

Changing Breed of Rural

Though Rural India is still the best reflection of Indian core culture, but it has also moved on with its own pace, with respect to changing world around them. In this modern era, rural market is more accommodating and accepting in terms of trying something new.

There has been a transformation in the process of farming, this crowd is now invading urban shores, all this has indirectly resulted in their changing wants. Now you would observe more two wheeler automobiles instead of cycles as rural India accounts for 38 percent of it. Household snacks and tea were once the celebrated themes for welcoming of guests, which is now replaced with chips and soft drinks, as rural India buys 46 percent of the sold soft drinks. Even women are not left behind, they have added variety to their beauty kit as per the changing times and mentality.On the basis of 2008 survey from New Delhi based agency MART, they are accounted for 11 percent of the lipstick consumption. These facts and figures themselves blows the trumpet of rural marketing.

The reason of Boost in Rural Market

Stability is the word that major brands observe in this market area. During the 2009 economy slow down, they were less affected than the urban people, which highlighted the strong foundation of rural economy to the marketers outside. This decade can be dedicated to eruption of more dynamic branding which had resulted in overly dependence of urban population towards the modern age credit banking system, that has led them to hand to mouth condition and fragile, while on the other hand rural generation look more consolidated than ever before.

The Great Maruti Rural Invasion

India’s numero uno automobile brand Maruti had their business saturated to a certain level in the urban market. For their dynamic growth, they invade the rural territory in search of success. The result was, they came back being glorious.

With so many competitors in every segment, still, Maruti has emerged out as the winner, the reason being their strong foothold in the rural market. In 2009 Maruti came with two campaigns called “Ghar Ghar Mein Maruti” and “Mera spana meri Maruti”. These campaigns were mainly concentrated on village people who had a strong economic foundation rather than people with low per capita income. Maruti influenced the panchayat heads called Sarpanch in the rural market by taking them for factory visits and understanding their choices. 3000 local villagers were nominated as their resident sales executive for brand activation at the core of the villages. There were sales fairs organized by Maruti in the name of Grameen Mahotsav, which help fragmented villages gathered at one centralized platform for better branding and strengthening of the brand. Maruti even organized programs like video on wheels, where villagers were taken on a ride inside the AC truck and were made to see the brands latest TVC’s, Corporate films, etc.

This kind of aggressive campaigning established Maruti as staple automobile in the rural market.

Long way to go, much more to accomplish

There is no doubt rural marketing is a prosperous offering to the marketers. As it encompasses both low and middle class earning an audience. But surely it’s not as simple as it seems since rural is very much fragmented space which and demands change with changing district. There is no proper distribution channel in place thus unorganized networking poses a tough challenge for marketers to overcome. With little consumer research companies commit the inanity of overestimating the product usage or rural demand. There needs to be proper channeling between the rural distributor and retailer in terms of maintaining the stock and reach inside the rural. So rural is one of the desired golden fish, but one needs to handle it with care and precision.