Rural Marketing in India

The various methods that we use to communicate with the people and either convince them of the quality or the product or lure them with an amazing offer. Marketing in India is quite vast and most often it is the urban markets that are targeted by the companies for marketing of their products. For quite some time now rural marketing in India has been popping up on the radars of marketers across the board.

Rural market in India has been untapped sector in the last few years of marketing blitzkrieg for a variety of products both domestic and imported in the country. The rural market accounts for nearly 50% of the gross domestic product (GDP), is home to nearly 8lakh 40 thousand people in India. Tremendous growth and increase in incomes levels has made consumption of manufactured goods increase. Tapping such a large market is a dream for marketers who are looking for new avenues to market their product. Rural marketing in India has just begun earnestly in the last few years, with budget spends increasing each year. In the last 5 years the consumption level of the rural consumers has gone up to nearly 20% due to increase in disposable income on the basis of agricultural productivity. 

The habit of buying and spending on consumer goods has just begun in the rural markets, yet marketing to such a big population is not easy. Rural marketing in India is like a new born child that will have to be nurtured till it matures. Middle income and high income households are expected to increase to nearly 56 lakhs from 46 lakhs today. Rural markets are growing at 5 times the speed than the urban markets. Brands and premium products are making a beeline for this newly minted market, making good quality products available to the rural population whose hunger for all things urban is on the rise. There are companies that are setting up their factories and bases in rural India in search of land and other benefits at cheaper rates, in turn creating more jobs for the population and bringing in an influx of population from the urban areas instead of a migration from villages to the cities.

Rural marketing in India follows the same tenets of marketing; however the methods used for communication are completely different from those used in the urban markets. The recent technology of internet marketing is a boon when it comes to marketing to B town and C town cities, reaching far flung areas has become easy with the rampant use of mobiles. Speaking of mobiles the telephony system has made another avenue for marketing available and that is communication through the mobile. Mobile marketing and internet marketing are the main sources used to market to the rural areas. Rural Marketing using mobiles and the World Wide Web to market products and services and fulfilling the increasing demand for consumer products is now very easy and has become simpler now.