STRATEGIC MARKETING AND RURAL MARKETING

Strategic marketing management

Introduction

Strategic marketing management implements your company's mission through focused processes to get the most out of your existing marketing plan. It entails identifying your target customers. This type of management may help discover other marketing opportunities. Strong and strategic marketing plans may be built from this style of management. Most importantly, it helps your company transform plans into reality.

Characteristic of strategic marketing management

Identify Target Customers

Strategic marketing management is fundamentally designed around your target customer. Identifying your target customers will generate more profits and helps to establish a loyal customer following. Strategic managers will study your vertical and horizontal markets to generate ideal customer profiles. The profiles can then be used to tailor marketing programs. These customized marketing ideas may deliver more compelling core messages that, in turn, increase your company's revenues.

Uncover Strategic Marketing Opportunities

Employing strategic marketing management may generate additional opportunities. Strategic managers may organize your marketing team to seek out business challenges in your industry. By matching your company's strengths and resources to the newly discovered challenges, managers can create new revenue opportunities. This system of management may identify solutions to problems that your competitors are not aware of. These insights can be used by strategic marketing managers to develop competitive advantages.

Build Strategic Marketing Plans

Strategic marketing management also involves building plans that leverage insights on your markets, customers and competitive advantages. Strategic marketing management helps your team to develop a marketing plan that concentrates on maximizing results by focusing on your company's competitive advantages and amplifying them. Some plans may even call for products to be redesigned to further cater to your target customers. Strategic management installs goals designed around your team's market research.

Marketing Plan Implementation

At the core of strategic marketing management is effective plan implementation. Executing strategic marketing initiatives involves giving useful and frequent feedback to your team to keep them progressing towards goals. Moreover, it constantly adjusts the current marketing mix to maximize profitability.

Corporate strategic planning process

A corporate Strategic planning is an outline of the methods and resources required to achieve organizational goals within a specific target market(s).

"Describes the direction [an organization] will pursue within its chosen environment and guides the allocation of resources and effort" - Peter Bennett, Dictionary of Marketing Terms, AMA 1988.Strategic planning requires a general marketing orientation rather than a narrow functional orientation.

All functional areas must include marketing and must be coordinated to reach organizational goals. It is a hierarchal process, from companywide to marketing specific. (Marketing concept, implemented from top down.)

Companywide, SBU specificA firm can be broken down into several strategic business units. Each SBU is a division, product line, or other profit center within the parent company.

An SBU has its own strategic plan and can be considered a separate business entity competing with other SBU's for corporate resources.

For example PepsiCo Companies SBUs include:

KFC Taco Bell Pizza Hut Mountain Dew Lipton Tea Brands Frito Lay

IE The College of Business and Economics is an SBU of the University of Delaware.

A strategic plan gives:

Direction and better enables the company to understand mkt. function dimensions Makes sure that each division has clear integrated goals Different functional areas are encouraged to coordinate Assesses SW & OT Assesses alternative actions It is a basis for allocating company resources A procedure to assess company performance

The strategic planning process may include the following, although this differs from one organization to another:

Develop a SWOT analysis Develop Mission Statement that evolves from the SWOT analysis Develop Corporate Objectives that are consistent with the organization's mission

statement. Develop corporate strategy to achieve the organization's objectives. [if the organization is

made up of more than one SBU, then follow loop again for each SBU, then proceed] Marketing (and other functional objectives) must be designed to achieve the corporate

objectives Marketing Strategy, designed to achieve the marketing objectives.

The strategic market planning process is based on the establishment of organizational goals and it must stay within the broader limits of the organization’s mission, that is developed taking into consideration the environmental opportunities and threats and the companies resources and distinct competencies.

A firm can then assess its opportunities and develop a corporate strategy. Marketing objectives must be designed so that they can be accomplished through efficient use of the firms resources.

Corporate strategy is concerned with issues such as diversification, competition, differentiation, interrelationships between business units and environmental issues. It attempts to match the resources of the organization with the opportunities and risks of the environment (SWOT). Corporate strategy is also concerned with defining the scope and roles of the SBU's of the firm so that they are coordinated to reach the ends desired.

SWOT analysis formulation in strategic marketing

A scan of the internal and external environment is an important part of the strategic planning process. Environmental factors internal to the firm usually can be classified as strengths (S) or weaknesses (W), and those external to the firm can be classified as opportunities (O) or threats (T). Such an analysis of the strategic environment is referred to as a SWOT analysis.

The SWOT analysis provides information that is helpful in matching the firm's resources and capabilities to the competitive environment in which it operates. As such, it is instrumental in strategy formulation and selection. The following diagram shows how a SWOT analysis fits into an environmental scan:

SWOT Analysis Framework

Environmental Scan          / \           

Internal Analysis       External Analysis/ \                  / \

Strengths   Weaknesses       Opportunities   Threats|

SWOT Matrix

Strengths

A firm's strengths are its resources and capabilities that can be used as a basis for developing a competitive advantage. Examples of such strengths include:

patents strong brand names good reputation among customers cost advantages from proprietary know-how exclusive access to high grade natural resources favorable access to distribution networks

Weaknesses

The absence of certain strengths may be viewed as a weakness. For example, each of the following may be considered weaknesses:

lack of patent protection a weak brand name poor reputation among customers high cost structure lack of access to the best natural resources lack of access to key distribution channels

In some cases, a weakness may be the flip side of a strength. Take the case in which a firm has a large amount of manufacturing capacity. While this capacity may be considered a strength that competitors do not share, it also may be a considered a weakness if the large investment in manufacturing capacity prevents the firm from reacting quickly to changes in the strategic environment.

Opportunities

The external environmental analysis may reveal certain new opportunities for profit and growth. Some examples of such opportunities include:

an unfulfilled customer need arrival of new technologies loosening of regulations removal of international trade barriers

Threats

Changes in the external environmental also may present threats to the firm. Some examples of such threats include:

shifts in consumer tastes away from the firm's products emergence of substitute products new regulations increased trade barriers

Differentiation strategy:

differentiation as one of the generic strategies involves pursuing a competitive advantage by attempting to create an unique bundle of product or services that will be highly valued by the customers, creating something that is perceived industry wide as being unique. customers are unique in more than one ways.

Obtaining sustainable competitive advantage

Today’s business environment is very competitive. It’s now a lot easier and cheaper to start-up a business, particularly with technology enabling business to be conducted online and internationally to win customers in foreign markets.

The explosion of online retailing is an example of this, and all this competition and activity makes it difficult to stand out from the crowd.

The challenge is to resist being another “me too” business. The way to avoid this is by developing a sustainable competitive advantage that differentiates you from your competitors.

A sustainable competitive advantage is the key to business success. It is the force that enables a business to have greater focus, more sales, better profit margins, and higher customer and staff retention than its competitors.

It is the major driver of long-term business value and is what purchasers will place the most value on when looking to buy a business. Without a sustainable competitive advantage you risk being another “me too” business that muddles along achieving less than satisfactory results.

 At its most basic level there are three key types of sustainable competitive advantage:

Cost advantage: the business competes on price. Value advantage: the business provides a differentiated offering that is perceived to be of

superior value. Focus advantage – the business focuses on a specific market niche, with a tailored

offering designed specifically for that segment of the market.

Most small businesses don’t have the market share and buying power to effectively compete on price and are not big enough to be all things to all customers in a market.

Therefore, to successfully compete, small businesses need to develop a sustainable competitive advantage that is based on providing superior value to a specific niche.

There is another advantage that is often referred to and that is first mover advantage. First mover advantage is where the first entrant in a new market obtains an advantage over other competitors that enter the market later.

However, while being a first mover may provide an initial advantage, in my opinion, it is not sustainable unless it’s supported by one of the three types of advantages listed above. Google and

Facebook are good examples of this. Neither of these companies were the first movers, yet both now dominate their respective markets.

Here are my five steps to developing a sustainable competitive advantage:

1. Understand the market and its segments. Look for those niches that aren’t well serviced by competitors and can be profitably targeted and sold to.

2. Develop an understanding of what customers really want and establish a value proposition that grabs their attention.

3. Work out the key things that you need to do really well to support and deliver the value proposition, eg. service levels, quality, branding, pricing, etc.

4. Understand what your strengths and core competencies are and how you can use these in innovative ways to provide value to your chosen market.

5. Design your business model to support and deliver the value proposition.

At the end of this process you will have a very clearly defined statement of:

Who you will be selling to, ie. customers and market segments. Why they will buy from you and not your competitors (the value proposition). What are the key things that you need to excel at to be able to consistently deliver your

value proposition.

Strategy for declining market

• Three sets of factors help determine the strategic attractiveness of declining product markets:

– Conditions of demand,– Exit barriers, and

Factors affecting the intensity of future competitive rivalry

• Conditions of demand– Technological advances produce substitutes often with higher quality or lower

cost.– Demographic shifts.– Change in needs, tastes, or lifestyles.– Cost of inputs or complementary products.

• Exit barriers– The higher the exit barriers, the less hospitable a product-market will be.

• Intensity of future competitive rivalry– Size and bargaining power of the customers who continue to buy the product,– Customers’ ability to switch to substitute products or to alternative suppliers, and– Any potential diseconomies of scale involved in capturing an increased share of

the remaining volume.

• Divestment or liquidation– The firm that divests early runs the risk that its forecast of the industry’s future

may be wrong.– Quick divestment may not be possible if the firm faces high exit barriers.– By planning early for departure, the firm may be able to reduce some of those

barriers before the liquidation is necessary.

Strategy for hostile market

As the popular saying goes, "behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining". This is indeed very true for organizations operating in difficult market conditions. Hence, opportunities should be identified and capitalized upon.

Reliability is an important virtue for consumers, when disposable incomes are stretched. Consumers are willing to invest their limited disposable income, on organizations who pride themselves in providing products and services in a very reliable manner. Hence, tried and tested solutions are favoured over untried and untested ones.

A second strategy that could be adopted in hostile markets, is to focus efforts on large high nett worth customers. Large customers have the ability to provide sales volumes, which are critical to drive down costs. Further, these large sales volumes are provided by a small base of customers, which makes it operationally efficient to service them. Large customers should be safeguarded at all costs and relationship building is an excellent strategy to follow in this situation.

In hostile markets, price based competition will be practised, although it may not be the most effective in the long term. Initially, large price differentials may exist, but with time, these differentials minimize. Basically, then price turns into a commodity and consumers will take price away from their minds. This is where astute organizations come in and dominate markets, based on corporate and brand loyalty and goodwill created in the past. When all things are equal, specially price, consumers keep their trust on corporates and brands that are clearly superior to the rest.

Another strategy that can be adopted in hostile markets is to cover the premium, medium and lower price ends of the markets. i.e. cover a broad spectrum of prices. This will ensure that no market segments or micro-segments (niches) are left unexploited, for competitors to capitalize on. Basically, you will need a product mix that can appeal to the different price segments of the market.

Product & Service Strategy

Developing and marketing successful products and services

A good product can bring profitability to a young company, accelerate earnings at a mature company or even put a new company at the center of a brand new industry. From our experience, success stories are driven by three factors:

Selecting the Right Market: Choosing an attractive market is the foundation of a successful product. A good selection can lead to uncontested dominance in a rapidly growing and profitable market. But, a poor selection can throw a company into the middle of competitive warfare and create financial losses. Read how our Market Assessment services can give your selection process better results, or review a case study.

Designing the Right Product or Service: Designing a product or service with attractive features is not the right mindset. Product and service design must be strategic: distinguishing between what customers say they want vs what they will pay for; providing what the company can justify on an economic or strategic basis; and factoring in competitive offerings and strategies. Read how our Product & Service Design services can make your products more strategic, or review a case study.

Executing the Right Marketing Strategy: Contrary to the adage "this product will sell itself," products do require sales assistance:

Pricing: Pricing is more than striking a compromise between "pricing yourself out of the market" and "leaving money on the table." Pricing must be strategic and address many other factors such as revenue predictability (e.g., one-time fee vs on-going payments) or product line interactions (e.g., loss leader pricing). Read how our Pricing Optimization services can make your pricing policies strategic, or review a case study.

Promotion: Before a customer buys your product, they need to be convinced that your company's product or service provides significant benefits over two always-present options: the competition and the status quo. This often requires hard evidence. Read how our Product Benefits services can give you the evidence you need, or review a case study.

Distribution: Design of the right distribution channel strategy is critical - it not only provides a vehicle for getting the product or service to the customer but also influences how the product/service is promoted to potential customers. An endless list of potential channels and channel partners make this task very complicated. Read how our Distribution Strategy services can sort through the options and give your products the coverage and support they need, or review a case study.

Marketing Communication Strategy

Marketing communication helps to develop brand awareness, which means that consumers translate product information into perceptions about the product’s attributes and its position within the larger market. Businesses also use marketing communication to retain the product’s current customer base, and to cement relationships with customers and suppliers, notes "Reference for Business." Marketing communication strategy defines the business’s plan for product information dissemination and brand awareness development.

Components

Design an effective marketing communication strategy with one or more marketing communication components. Advertising allows a business to reach a large audience through mass market or target market appeals. Personal selling enables a company to communicate product benefits directly to the customer, as in a retail setting. Direct marketing permits a business to reach customers without a third party medium; examples include catalogs and direct mail. Sales promotion provides a customer with an incentive to buy the company’s product, such as a company that makes a charitable contribution with each sale. Public relations involves a company’s outflow of information to customers, suppliers and other groups affected by company operations.

Strategies

Businesses employ five general marketing communication strategies. Company owners often inspire customer trust by presenting the personal story that led to the business’s creation. A business clearly presents its products, along with projected customer benefits. The business illustrates why its product is superior to similar competitors’ products. A company utilizes customer testimonials to highlight a product’s value. A business often creates customer goodwill by developing an informational sheet on a customer-focused topic.

Benefits

A well-chosen marketing communication strategy utilizes one or more components to disseminate the company’s outgoing message. A market-appropriate strategy increases the company’s chances to accurately transmit the product’s benefits, and to have that message positively received by the customer. The business likely benefits from customer goodwill when the company story or customer testimonial strategies are used.

Marketing channel strategy

Creating an effective strategy for distributing your product is a critical step in finalizing your marketing plan. Where you sell your product affects your sales volumes, pricing strategies, distribution costs and brand. Using a step-by-step plan that follows several basic principles of marketing creates an effective distribution channel plan that meets all of your business goals.

Target Customer

Get a copy of your marketing plan and/or gather research or reports that provide you with the following information: customer profile, list of competitors, pricing rationale, branding strategy and distribution budget. Write a short overview of your customer, including objective demographics and subjective assumptions about their buying habits and preferences. Use this information to determine where your target customer is most likely to purchase your goods or services. Write a short overview of your competitors and where they sell their products. Write an assessment of how you think their distribution channels benefit them, based on their brand, price and customer base.

Pricing

Summarize your pricing strategy rationale and whether or not you can raise or lower your prices, if necessary, based on distribution channels that might benefit you. For example, distributing your product through brick-and-mortar retailers might cause you to raise prices based on your costs of shipping and retailer discount. Selling through wholesalers might allow you to lower your price based on reduced shipping costs and increased volume.

Branding Strategy

Where you sell your product can affect your image in the eyes of consumers. Review your brand strategy to determine if selling using certain distribution channels diminishes or enhances your brand. For example, selling personal care products in salons and boutiques sends a different message about your brand than selling them in a big box retailer.

Distribution Channel Pricing

Calculate the costs associated with each potential distribution channel, including shipping, commissions, in-store promotions, fulfillment of online or telemarketing sales and other expenses. Each distribution channel will affect your pricing and margins differently, so it is important to have accurate calculations to guide you.

Designing the pricing strategy

One of the four major elements of the marketing mix is price. Pricing is an important strategic issue because it is related to product positioning. Furthermore, pricing affects other marketing mix elements such as product features, channel decisions, and promotion.

While there is no single recipe to determine pricing, the following is a general sequence of steps that might be followed for developing the pricing of a new product:

1. Develop marketing strategy - perform marketing analysis, segmentation, targeting, and positioning.

2. Make marketing mix decisions - define the product, distribution, and promotional tactics.

3. Estimate the demand curve - understand how quantity demanded varies with price.4. Calculate cost - include fixed and variable costs associated with the product.5. Understand environmental factors - evaluate likely competitor actions, understand

legal constraints, etc.6. Set pricing objectives - for example, profit maximization, revenue maximization, or

price stabilization (status quo).7. Determine pricing - using information collected in the above steps, select a pricing

method, develop the pricing structure, and define discounts.

These steps are interrelated and are not necessarily performed in the above order. Nonetheless, the above list serves to present a starting framework.

MEANING AND DEFINITION OF RURAL MARKETING

Rural Marketing is defined as any marketing activity in which the one dominant participant is from a rural area. This implies that rural marketing consists of marketing of inputs (products or services) to the rural as well as marketing of outputs from the rural markets to other geographical areas.

Features Of Rural Marketing

1. Large and Scattered market:

The rural market of India is large and scattered in the sense that it consists of over 63 crore consumer from 5, 70,000 villages spread throughout the country.

2. Major income from agriculture: Nearly 60 % of the rural income is from agriculture. Hence rural prosperity is tied with agricultural prosperity.

3. Low standard of living:The consumer in the village area do have a low standard of living because of low literacy, low per capita income, social backwardness, low savings, etc.

4. Traditional Outlook:The rural consumer values old customs and tradition. They do not prefer changes.

5. Diverse socio-economic backwardness:Rural consumers have diverse socio-economic backwardness. This is different in different parts of the country.

6. Infrastructure Facilities:The Infrastructure Facilities like roads, warehouses, communication system, financial facilities are inadequate in rural areas. Hence physical distribution becomes costly due to inadequate Infrastructure Facilities.

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Significance of the Rural marketing

If you meet a sales executive today and ask which market he would prefer to serve, the immediate answer would be, “Rural Markets” as they are still unexploited. A number of factors have been recognized as responsible for the rural market boom. Some of them are:

1. Increase in population, and hence increase in demand. The rural population in 1971 was 43.80 crores, which increased to 50.20 crores in 1981, 60.21 crores in 1991 and 66.0 crores in 2001.

2. A marked increase in the rural income due to agrarian prosperity.

3. Large inflow of investment for rural development programmes from government and other sources.

4. Increased contact of rural people with their urban counterparts due to development of transport and a wide communication network.

5. Increase in literacy and educational level among rural folks, and the resultant inclination to lead sophisticated lives.

6. Inflow of foreign remittances and foreign made goods in rural areas.

7. Changes in the land tenure system causing a structural change in the ownership pattern and consequent changes in the buying behavior

Limitation in rural marketing

Transportation: Transportation is an important aspect in the process of movement of products from urban production centers to remote villages. The transportation infrastructure is extremely poor in rural India. Due to this reason, most of the villages are not accessible to the marketing man.

Communication: Marketing communication in rural markets suffers from a variety of constraints. The literacy rate among the rural consumers is very low. Print media, therefore, have limited scope in the rural context. Apart from low levels of literacy, the tradition-bound nature of rural people, their cultural barriers and their overall economic backwardness add to the difficulties of the communication task.

Availability of appropriate media: It has been estimated that all organized media in the country put together can reach only 30 per cent of the rural population of India. The print media covers only 18 per cent of the rural population. The radio network, in theory, covers 90 per cent. But, actual listenership is much less. Warehousing: A storage function is necessary because production and consumption cycles rarely match. Many agricultural commodities are produced seasonally, whereas demand for them is continuous.Classification of product and services in rural marketing

Product

Rural products of India are unique, innovative and have good utility and values. Large number of these rural products (like handicraft items, food products, embroidery, clothes & other products) sustains a significant segment of the population in the rural areas. Several attributes of rural products can be identified, for which, it has a demand in the market. Out of the lots, ‘ethnic origin’ and ‘indigenous design & appearance’ are two traits of rural products, attracting a premium in the market.

In the process, the people in rural areas suffer from both low prices as producers and high prices as consumers. In this conflict, rural products loss its equilibrium and the supply side becomes exponentially high. Because of this hazard, rural entrepreneurs face acute economic loss and rural markets become stagnant.

Marketing segmentation in rural marketing

Demographic factors:-Demographic factors are taken into detailed consideration for market segmentation of consumer goods and fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). In case of rural marketing i.e. to sell outside goods in rural areas, demography came into the picture. However the categories are much reduced. Some of the segmentations are as below.

Occupational segmentation(or)sociological segmentation:-This segmentation is based on economy vice categorization. This reflects the purchasing power of a farmer and therefore the purchase power of his family they are

Ø Artisans, farm laborersØ Small farmersØ Tenant farmersØ Medium level farmersØ Large farmersØ Very large farmers, zamindars

Thomson rural market index (TRMI) segmentationHindustan Thomson associates ltd developed a guide to market segmentation in 1972 and revised it in 1986. They collected data in 335 districts based on 26 variables finally they arrived on 10 selected variables having strong co-relation to rural market potential.

Ø Agricultural laborersØ Gross cropped areaØ Gross irrigated areaØ Area under non-food cropsØ pump sets.

Fertilizers consumptionØ TractorsØ Rural creditØ Rural depositsØ & village electrified.Based on these factors, the districts are classified as A,B,C,D&E. Which are in order of high potential market to low potential market.

LINQUESTThis method is software developed by initiative media on data along the following parameters

Ø DemographicØ AgricultureØ Income.Ø Literacy &Ø Civic amends.As per the product to be launched, the marketer would be interested in certain parameters like literacy levels, income levels, bank deposits, accessibility (rail, road, and schools etc). in the software the marketer can give weighted average to different factors for Eg:- To launch new audio cassette recorders, parameters could be villages above 1000 population and monthly income 2000 and distance from nearest towns within 30kms.

Product strategies in rural marketproduct strategies used by company’s in rural markets are given below

Sturdy products:- most of the rural consumers believe that heavier the item, higher the power and durability, they prefer tough and long lasting product.

EX:- bullet motor cycle continuous to be popular in villages; royal Enfield sells about 65% of two wheelers in semi urban and rural areas; ambassador cars continuous to be popular in rural areas.

Designing products:- The company’s can come out with new products or promote existing products to suit field conditions in rural areas.

EX:- L.G electronics came out with a unique product for rural market. It launched sampoorna Indias first T.V with a Devanagari script on screen display.

Small unit packing:- It has been used for money consumer products . Small units packing provide an opportunity for the consumers to try the product and help the company to reach consumers like daily wage earners.

EX:- Ponds has gain market share over the past few years, focusing on rural market ant it has introduced 20grams talcum powder.

Utility products:- The rural people are concerned with the utility of the items rather than appearance or show

EX:- Philips has introduced free power radio RL117 priced at 995/- for the first time in India. The radio requires no external battery’s or electricity for operation.

Pricing for rural market

Income variability: India’s wide income distribution implies that there exist multiple segments with very different levels of purchasing power. The challenges for consumer goods companies are to develop products that capture the entire spectrum of potential consumers.

Focus on volume not marginsAs we discussed the value equation in earlier part, the companies must concentrate on the lower segment which is quite sizeable in number. Therefore, the marketing strategies in rural India must be on large volumes over low margins and thus the overall profitability can be maintained.

Lower prices: Many companies tend to bring their existing products at a much higher price and follow marketing strategies that are not in sync with what is required to sell to the consumer at the bottom of the pyramid. Hence, they end up serving the high-end niche players. This is what happened to Kellogg’s in India, when they launched their breakfast cereals in the early 1990s. Only the high-end consumers with high disposable income were able to afford Kellogg’s cereals. Kellogg’s never succeeded in penetrating the Indian mass market because of its high price and the company is losing money.

Creating buying power: For any product to sell, consumers need to have disposable income. The consumers in tier 4 segment have desire to buy products, but they do not have the purchasing capacity, as majority of the products are priced higher. To meet their desires, companies need to take steps so that these customers could have access to credit and have higher earning capacity.

Promotion in rural marketing

According to one source, only ten percent of Indian villages are connected by Cable and satellite (C & S)- the rest watch only Doordarshan. Also, in India, the retailers are highly fragmented, highly dispersed. Companies have to think for innovative ways of reaching the rural consumer (haats, melas etc.), because media as we perceive it is not covering as much as 43% of rural India. When it comes to the rural market, two out of five Indians are unreached by any media- TV, Press, Radio and Cinema put together. So haats, mandis and melas are opportunities.

Innovative advertising programs: Consumer good companies cannot rely on conventional advertising techniques; particularly in India’s rural areas where only one in every three households owns a television set and more than

half of all villagers are illiterate. Instead, companies need to turn to more innovative methods of advertising to reach their potential customer base. In this kind of a scenario some companies are using consumer video vans, which carry infomercials to rural villages. A marketer invites people to the van to view the infomercial, which incorporates the new product into an aspect of daily life. These potential customers are subsequently given a demonstration of the product, for example, toothpaste and toothbrush, and then provided free samples. The van returns the following month to reinforce the sales pitch and to make sales.

Role of a leader (Mukhia)The local or a group leader plays a crucial role in the promotion of a product because these leaders act as an opinion builder or act as a role model for them. Here we want to quote an interesting example:A team of Hyundai car salesmen takes his van into a tiny town’s dusty primary school, and turns it into a temporary car dealership. While a group of village men dressed in turbans and loose kurta pajamas gathers around a big television set in the back of the van to watchHyundai advertisements, the chief sales rep talks with village headman, the Hyundai folks were here the previous night, giving a local community head an exclusive test drive and arranging this village visit.

Shaping aspirationsAs already mentioned, the consumers at the bottom of the pyramid are mostly uneducated and illiterate; the companies need to spend time and resources to educate the consumers.HLL, under its ‘Project Bharat’, visits villages where company sales representatives explain to the rural people the benefits of HLL’s products with the help of video shows.

People: (Role of Youth)It is a fact that unlike a few years ago, the rural youth today are playing a far more significant role in influencing the purchases of radios, television (black and white as well as colour). Penetration levels of consumer durables in the rural sector have risen dramatically in the last decade or so. It is observed that rural women are out of the closet completely…but unlike ten years ago (when she had probably an insignificant or no role to play) today, she is exercising her choice in select categories- the choice of brands may still be with the males of the household. But yes, in this context the youth have certainly begun to play a role in selecting a brand in certain product categories.

Branding for Rural product

The rural market is a fast growing one and has a huge population with a great level of disposable income to encase this; products have to be specifically developed to meet the creeds of rural market sometimes existing products might have to be modified to suit these markets too accordingly. Rural product development has a strong edifice on a great deal of research like feasibility, studies, rural aspiration and soon. This paves way for a great deal of infra structure and expertise in this area.

Rural brandingRural branding bears quit different from urban branding. The first step towards rural branding is to search and gain insight into the working of rural markets. Based on this communication campaigns products have to be developed with a lot of rural sensitivity.

Rural market researchRural market behave most differently from urban markets. While many marketers have tried to market their products in rural areas. Just a hand full of sum only has succeeded. A strong insight into rural consumer behavior and sensitivity to their values and beliefs is essential to upgrade the rural market research not just gathering data but analyzing them and linking the findings to promoting their products. Rural communication campaigns communication for rural markets calls for a different kind of outlook. There must be a strong ascent on helping the target relate to message. The entire communication and media strategy has to device a system based on research findings. These have to be developed in the regional languages and set in the local culture for easier acceptance and reach to the customers. Besides mass and outdoor media rural

Rural eventIn the rural context, one of the best ways to capture the attention of the audience is through event management. Since rural areas have limited venues for entertainment, conducting an event in rural areas can bring a good response..

Rural direct marketing campaignsDirect marketing is one of the most powerful ways to meet the targets and build product awareness as well as promotion. The success of any direct marketing campaigns depends on the field workers and their sensitivity and emotional connectivity to rural markets.

Data base creation and managementMarketing branding and promotional activities in rural context can be highly effective and thereafter have to create a database of prospects. This data is essential for marketers to reach their target accurately and helps marketing plan and communication strategies.