2. Definition:
“Rural Marketing can be defined as a function that
manages all activities involved in
assessing, stimulating, and converting the
purchasing power of rural consumers into an
effective demand for specific products and services
and moving these products and services to the
people in rural areas to create satisfaction and a
better standard of living and thereby achieving
organizational goals.”
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3. Development of Rural Marketing:
Part I (Before 1960): Rural marketing referred to selling of rural
products in rural and urban areas and agricultural inputs in rural
markets. It was treated as synonymous to „agricultural marketing‟.
Part II (1960 to 1990): In this era, green revolution resulted from
scientific farming and transferred many of the poor villages into
prosperous business centers. Two separate areas of activities had
emerged- during this period „marketing of agricultural inputs‟ and
the conventional “Agricultural Marketing”.
Part III (After Mid 1990s): The products which were not given
attention so far during the two earlier phases were that of marketing
of household consumables and durables to the rural markets .
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4. Phase Origin Function Major Source Destination
Products Market Market
I Since Agricultural Agricultural Rural Urban
independence marketing produce
II Mid-Sixties Marketing Agricultural Urban Rural
of inputs
agricultural
inputs
III Mid-Nineties Rural Consumables Urban/ Rural Rural
marketing and durables
for
consumption
and production
IV 21st Century
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5. Scope For Rural Marketing In India:
•Change in rural markets
•Media exposure
•Decision making units
•Growing urbanization
•Infrastructural facilities
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6. Rural Marketing: Success Stories
•Over the past few years schemes like ITC's echaupal, HLL's project
Shakti, shampoo sachets launched by Chick, BSNL's rural
schemes have made a mark in rural India. Many retail hubs like Kisan
Sansar (Tata), Haryali Kisan Bazar (DMC), Reliance Fresh, Naya Yug
Baazar, etc has been able to make a dent in the village economy.
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7. Cont…
•The most successful story is that of HUL, the Indian
subsidy of Uniliver. The trigger point for HUL came
when a local firm Nirma, through its new product
formulation, pricing and distribution challenged
HUL's detergent business.
•According to figures released by market researcher AC
Nielsen, demand for personal care products grew faster in rural areas
than urban areas during the period April-September 2009.
•Several FMCG companies such as Godrej Consumer
Products, Dabur, Marico have increased their marketing efforts in rural
India and small towns in order to establish a local distribution networks
and increase visibility.
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8. Value Added Rural Marketing:
HOW TO ADD VALUE THROUGH RURAL MARKETING
Identify Study Study Segment Provide Build special Communic
unique demographic product rural functional brands for ate unique
characteristic patterns ownership customers benefits rural proposition
s of rural patterns customers
customer
Are the Ensure
clusters Are increase in
large relevant customer
enough? needs value
being met?
No No No Yes
Yes No No Yes
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9. Occupation Pattern:
Distribution of Households by Occupation of the
Head, 1999-2000
Head’s Occupation Distribution of households (%)
Urban Rural All
Housewife 0.84 1.01 0.96
Cultivator 3.45 40.86 29.99
Wage earner 20.93 35.28 31.12
Salary earner 40.72 11.28 19.84
Professional 3.59 0.73 1.56
Artisan 6.90 3.41 4.42
Petty Shopkeeper 16.05 4.97 8.19
Businessman 3.68 0.46 1.40
Other 3.85 1.98 2.52
Total 100.00 100.00 100.00
9 Source: NCAER 2002
11. Green revolution :
Adoption of new agronomic practices, selective
mechanization, multiple cropping, inclusion of cash crops and
development of allied activities like dairy, fisheries and other commercial
activities have helped in increasing disposable income of rural
consumers. There is a shift from rain dependence to irrigation.
Farmers are getting high return for their cash and food crops. In the
whole process, the dependence on seasonality has reduced. By
observing this scenario, India‟s one of the biggest giant Hindustan
Lever Ltd. has entered into rural market for more penetration
through the operation „Bharat‟. Since December 1999, HLL has
reached out to 35,000 villages, 22 million households and spent Rs. 20
crore.
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12. Emerging Role of Bio-Tech. in Indian Agriculture
Sector :
Bio-technology has vital role to play in so far as enhancement of
agriculture yield is concerned. For instance the yield of wheat in USA
per hectare is almost three times more than that of India and the yield
of sugar cane is two and half times more if compared with the Indian
yield of sugar cane per hectare.
We have to make use of the applications of the bio-technology in an
agriculture sector both in terms of generating quality seeds and cropping
the same in compliance with the theories of biotechnology. It will provide
more discretionary income in the hands of the rural farmers.
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13. Rural communication :
Road networking besides enhancing the mobility of rural consumers has
increased their exposure to products and services.
Two giants namely LG and Samsung have already made their
strategies for entering into rural India. As per survey conducted by
Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB) 77 percent of the villages are
covered by TV network.
Seeing these types of opportunities and interests of the ruralites, Tata
cellular has already entered into rural India by making its first entry into
Andhra Pradesh. Tata cellular has created India‟s largest cellular
„corridor‟ to provide connectivity to non-metro and rural centres.
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14. Development programmes:
The five-year plans have witnessed massiveinvestments in rural areas in
terms of number of development programmes implemented by the central
and state Government. These programmes have generated incomes to
ruralites and helped them to change their life-styles. Some of
these programmes are:
• Intensive Agricultural Area Programme (IAAP)
• High Yielding Varieties Programme (HYVP- Green Revolution)
• Drought Prone Areas Programme (DPAP)
• Small Farmers Development Agency (SFDA)
• Operation Flood I, II and III (White Revolution)
• Fisheries Development (Blue Revolution)
• Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
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• Jawahar Rojgar Yojna (JRY).
15. Problems in rural marketing:
• Warehousing
• Village structure in India
• Rural markets and sales management
• Inadequate banking and credit facilities
• Market segmentation in rural markets
• Branding
• Packaging
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16. Conclusion:
• The rural market of India is fascinating and challenging at the same
time. It offers large scope on account of its sheer size and it is growing
steadily.
• It is an attractive market from this angle also that the urban market
is highly competitive, the rural market is relatively quiet. In fact, for
certain products, it is a totally virgin market.
• Economic reforms in India have brought about major changes in the
whole market environment.
• Successful rural marketing calls for a review of the rural marketing
environment, developing proper understanding of the nature and
profile of rural consumers, designing the right products to appeal to
them, and adopting suitable media as well as appropriate strategies
for communication and distribution.
• It is generally believed that markets are created, not found. This is
especially true in case of the rural market of India. It is a market for
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the
