Companies work marketing models before entering any market. They approach different models to reach the target market. They work in a organised way which gives the step-by-step process to implement.
Depending upon the market the model may get slight change but the steps may remain same. The process help the companies to analyze the real market and launch their business. There should be a clarity in this so as to reach the success in the rural market.
Table of Content
Rural Marketing Model
The step-by-step process is research, segmentation, lifestyle analysis, profile study, defining needs, developing specific profile, target market, market mix, implementation and control. So, if these steps are followed like a model then the company can attain the success in the market.
- Research
- Segmentation
- Lifestyle Analysis
- Profile Study
- Defining Needs
- Target Market
- Marketing Mix
- Implementation
- Control
Research
A Research should be conducted before launching the business. The research may be primary or secondary one. If it is primary then it sounds good, as there will be more clarity about the business and opportunities. This is about studying the market before entering.
Segmentation
The most important factor is the segmentation, as the rural market consists a of different groups and socioeconomic class. They have different lifestyles, cultures, economy and demography backgrounds.
So the company should think of this and make the segmentation in a perfect manner. Depending upon the product and business the company should keep some parameters to make the segmentation. The parameters should be selected in such a way that its effects the demand of the product.
Lifestyle Analysis
The people will be from different cultures and demographic background. So they will be having different lifestyles and needs. Depending upon their way of thinking and lifestyle the company need to understand to think of their product.
The lifestyle of the consumer makes an impact on the demand of the product. So by the analysis the company can draw their strategies to market the product.
Profile Study
The Company should develop a profiler for the rural consumers. The profile helps the company while designing the marketing mix. The profile should be in a proper manner which impacts the designing and marketing of the product. For developing such profiles local organizations can help out.
Defining Needs
The main theme of the company should look for the needs of the consumer. As from the above factors the marketer can be able to identify the needs which are suitable to their lifestyles. After that they should define the exact need of the customer. In general terms they should define the needs so as to work out on the target market.
Target Market
After so many steps of work flow process the company can easily identify that their product is going to match or not that is the way of matching in their marketing mix. With the rural market. So by doing all this the company can target a market from the segmented market. So by selecting a segment they can target the group with their strategies and marketing mix.
Marketing Mix
As we know that marketing mix of the company is the main component to reach the customers. As there is heterogeneous lifestyles and geographically diverted market so the company should design or modify the mix depending upon the customer needs.
There should be a proper work out of 4A’s of Marketing Mix. From the above steps the company can easily identify and can design their marketing mix to reach the market. So by doing this the company can attain the success.
Implementation
Most of the companies feel that implementation is the major problem in rural market., due the factors influences the market. So for Implementation the channel players are important. They reached the last mile of rural market. So for the implementation there should be a full focus from the organization point of view. The planning and working should be in parallel, by which the implementation cannot be a failure.
Control
Last but not least, the important factor to think for the model. As there is a huge competition in the market, it will grow in a speedy manner. So there will be a lot of things that companies should always get to update. The R&D should be strong for those areas. There should be systematic process for the up to date communications.
So that they cannot miss the feedback from the customers and work on those things. The timing for the analysis and action is very important here. The regional and local players can easily move in the market and modify their strategies.
So that is why companies need to be with their channel partners to work their strategies. If they can implement it and control the things than the company can reach the customers easily and can attain a success rate. So from the above steps if the company does a workout on each step and implement it perfectly than they can mark their success in the rural market.
Significance of Rural Markets
The rural markets are estimated to be growing fastly compared to the urban markets. The potentiality of rural markets is said to be like a ‘woken up sleeping giant’. These facts are substantiated in a study of market growth conducted by various researches.
In recent years, rural markets have acquired significance in countries like China and India, as the overall growth of the economy has resulted into substantial increase in the purchasing power of the rural communities.
On account of the green revolution in India, the rural areas are consuming a large quantity of industrial and urban manufactured products. In this context, a special marketing strategy, namely, rural marketing has taken shape.
Sometimes, rural marketing is confused with agricultural marketing – the later de marketing of produce of the rural areas to the urban consumers or industrial consumers, whereas rural marketing involves delivering manufactured or processed inputs or services to rural producers or consumers.
A number of factors have been recognized as responsible for the rural market boom to come into existence:
- Increase in population and hence increase in demand.
- A marked increase in the rural income due to agrarian prosperity.
- Standard of living is also increasing in rural areas.
- Large inflow of investment for rural development programmes from government and other sources.
- Increased contact of rural people with their urban counterparts due to development of transport and wide communication network.
- Increase in literacy and educational level and resultant inclination to sophisticated lives by the rural folks.
- Inflow of foreign remittances and foreign made goods into rural areas.
- Change in the land tenure systems causing a structural change in the ownership patterns and consequent changes in the buying behaviour.
- Rural markets are laggards in picking up new products. This will help the companies to phase their marketing efforts. This will also help to sell inventories of products out dated in urban markets.
Strategies for Rural Marketing
Dynamics of rural markets differ from other market types, and similarly rural marketing strategies are also significantly different from the marketing strategies aimed at an urban or industrial consumer. Rural markets and rural marketing involve a number of strategies, which include :
- Client and Location specific promotion involves a strategy designed to be suitable to the location and the client.
- Joint or co-operative promotion strategy involves participation between the marketing agencies and the client.
- ‘Bundling of inputs’ denote a marketing strategy, in which several related items are sold to the target client, including arrangements of credit, after-sale service, and so on.
- Management of demand involves continuous market research of buyer’s needs and problems at various levels so that continuous improvements and innovations can be undertaken for a sustainable market performance.
- Developmental marketing refers to taking up marketing programmes keeping the development objective in mind and using various managerial and other inputs of marketing to achieve these objectives.
- Media, both traditional as well as the modern media, is used as a marketing strategy.
- Unique Selling Propositions (USP) involve presenting a theme with the product to attract the client to buy that particular product.
For examples, some of famous Indian Farm equipment manufactures have coined catchy themes, which they display along with the products, to attract the target client, that is the farmers. English version of some of such themes would read like:- The heartbeats of rural India
- With new technique for a life time of company
- For the sake of progress and prosperity
- Extension Services denote, in short, a system of attending to the missing links and providing therequired know-how.
- Ethics in Business form, as usual, an important plank for rural markets and rural marketing.
- Partnership for sustainability involves laying and building a foundation for continuous and long lasting relationship.
- Selection of sales force: The salesman in rural markets should be selected from the educated unemployed villagers, trained well and appointed as salesmen. The town-to-villages shuttling salesmen are to be replaced by stationary salesman in villages.
The rural market offers a vast untapped potential; it should also be recognized that it is not that easy to operate in rural market because of several problems. Rural marketing is thus a time consuming affair and requires considerable investments in terms of evolving appropriate strategies with a view to tackle the problems. The problems are:
- Barter System
- Underdeveloped People and Underdeveloped Markets
- Lack of Proper Physical Communication Facilities
- Inadequate Media Coverage for Rural Communication
- Many Languages and Dialects
- Market Organization & Staff
- Other Influencing Factors in Rural Marketing
Barter System
In the developing country like India, even today the barter system i.e., exchange of goods for goods exists. This is a major obstacle in the way of development of rural marketing.
Underdeveloped People and Underdeveloped Markets
The agricultural technology has tried to develop the people and market in rural areas. Unfortunately, the impact of the technology is not felt uniformly through out the country. Some districts in Punjab, Hariyana or Western Uttar pradesh where rural consumer is somewhat comparable to his urban counterpart, there are large areas and groups of people who have remained beyond the technological breakthrough.
In addition, the farmers with small agricultural land holdings have also been unable to take advantage of the new technology.
Lack of Proper Physical Communication Facilities
Nearly 50 percent of the villages in the country do not have all weather roads. Physical communication to these villages is highly expensive. Even today, most villages in eastern part of the country are inaccessible during monsoon season.
Inadequate Media Coverage for Rural Communication
A large number of rural families in own radios and television sets there were also community radio and T.V sets. These have been used to diffuse agricultural technology to rural areas. However the coverage relating to marketing is inadequate.
Many Languages and Dialects
The number of languages and dialects vary from state to state region to region. This type of distribution of population warrants appropriate strategies to decide the extent of coverage of rural market.
Market Organization & Staff
The size of the market organization and staff is very important, to manage market system effective control. However the existing organizational setup particularly at district and block level needs to be strengthened in order make the services on various aspects available to the farmers timely and also easily accessible to them.
Other Influencing Factors in Rural Marketing
Natural calamities and Market conditions (demand, supply and price). Pests and diseases, Drought or too much rains, Primitive methods of cultivation, lack of proper storage facilities which exposes grain to rain and rats, Grading, Transport, Market Intelligence (up to date market prices to villagers), Long chain of middlemen (Large no. of intermediaries between cultivator and consumer, wholesalers and retailers, Fundamental practices (Market Dealers and Commission Agents get good part of sale of receipts).
Emerging Trends in Markets
Most of the dealers have direct touch with the local farmers; these farmers need awareness about pests, decease, fertilizers, seeds, technology and recent developments. For this information, farmers mostly depend on local dealers.
Online Rural Market
Rural people can use the two-way communication through on – line service for crop information, purchases of Agri-inputs, consumer durable and sale of rural produce online at reasonable price.
Farm information online marketing easily accessible in rural areas because of spread of telecommunication facilities all over India. Agricultural information can get through the Internet if each village has small information office.
Information through Local Agriculture Input Dealers
For development of rural farmers the government may consider effective channel and keep information at dealers, for farmer education hang notice board and also train the dealer recent changes and developments in agriculture.
National Chain Stores
Large number of stores set up in different rural areas throughout the country by the same organization for marketing its products. Thus national chain stores can serve large number of customers in rural area.
Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost benefit can be achieved through development of information technology at the doorsteps of villagers; most of the rural farmers need price information of agri-produce and inputs.
If the information is available farmers can take quick decision where to sell their produce, if the price matches with local market farmer no need to go near by the city and waste of money & time it means farmers can enrich their financial strength.