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Dr. PC Sabharwal & Pushyamitra Joshi Go Rural India campaign is now a common slogan used by most of the financial, banking and retail sector companies. Every company wants its presence in rural and semi-urban markets to penetrate in these markets. Hidden market potential of Rural India is now visible and viable due to: Increase in the disposable income level of rural consumers Better road connectivity Advent of various rural development schemes by Government Saturation in urban market Basic infrastructure development Increase in literacy level of rural people
Over the years Rural India has seen an impressive growth. Substantial improvement in purchasing power, increasing brand consciousness, changing consumption pattern and rapid spread of communication network in rural areas has presented a growing potential for the corporate sector. Its better to target the rural market as it is growing by the day. Rural India is emerging as a large market for a number of goods and services financial services, health care, education and telecommunicationthe list seems to be endless. Today rural markets are as critical as urban markets for marketers A strategy to explore the hidden potential of rural markets needs to be worked out by the companies to meet the demands of the rural consumers. Most of the companies are still using the same urban marketing and operational approach while penetrating in the rural markets which does not help to satisfy the rural consumer and thus loss in capturing the rural markets. Companies do not see any difference in both the markets. Generally marketing mix strategies is based on the product, price, place and promotion but in rural marketing it is replaced by Acceptability, Affordability, Awareness and Availability. The major strategies for entering the rural markets may be: 1. Basic product & pricing 2. Less quantity packing 3. Educating rural people
5. Easy accessibility
Its difficult to enter and become successful instantly in the rural market as compared to urban market because the people in urban areas have their own perceptions and they are used to do the same thing over and over again. Although the Rural Market does offer vast untapped potential, it should be recognized that it is not that easy to operate in the rural market because of several such problems. Rural Marketing is a time consuming affair and requires considerable investments in terms of evolving appropriate strategies to tackle the problems. So if you want to make them aware of your product you first need to break their perceptions and build trust for your product. Then only you can make use of the huge potential for growth that it offers. Two cases each from retail and banking sector are discussed; which help to understand the problem and mistake generally done by marketers while penetrating rural market.
Go rural is the need of the hour but it is better to go for the real potential of the rural market. To explore the real potential of rural market it is necessary to understand the need and requirements of the rural consumers. Before actually getting into rural market it is very important to explore the need and requirements of rural consumers along with acceptability of the product, affordability in terms of pricing of the product, proper awareness about the offerings and make sure the availability of the right product and services through right channel in the rural market for companies.