Marketing Strategies in Rural India – Lessons for Asian Nations

Abstract

A vast majority of India lives in villages. With the change in the size of demand of products, based on the geographical factors, the corporate circle of India has been compelled to give their attention to the markets in the rural India. The markets which were hitherto, ignored and untapped by the corporate world, gained prominence because of the simple reason of its vast potentiality and the run away success of certain consumer goods which were targeted to the consumers in the urban markets for several decades. Much confusion has been associated, in fact with the word rural as there is no accepted definition for the term and the perceptions of many do for significantly. For some, rural means the places with less than one lakh population. National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) considered income as a basis to establish the rural segment. It has taken the groups with income levels of less than Rs. 11,000 per annum as representatives of rural segments. To some, it is smaller towns and areas having population of less than 10,000 persons. Likewise, the definitions of rural markets vary from company to company. This confusion leads to distorted understanding of the problems of rural marketing, poor diagnosis and more often than not poor prescription. The paper contributes the different perspectives and ideas containing various marketing strategies for the corporates planning to enter into the rural markets.