Rural Marketing in India could be a challenging process because of the regional and ethnic diversity. Since rural marketing aims to address the needs and wants of the rural areas in India, developing and promoting a rural marketing strategy could be demanding.
Rural marketing is known to carry out business activities that bridge the gap between rural areas and urban areas in the country. Rural marketing includes a series of activities but broadly speaking, these activities fall into two precise sections:
1. The sale of agriculture or rural products in the urban areas; and
2. The sale of urban developed products in rural areas.
As is evident, the ethics of rural marketing differs drastically from regular marketing. Hence, it is important to adopt a different set of advertising concepts, ethics, and processes for rural consumers.
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Rural Advertising Approach in India
Before one sets out to plan the marketing strategy of a brand in the rural areas, one needs to carry out detailed research. The research should include the following strategies:
- The demand for a product – The feasibility of a product depends on the consumption pattern and the need of the people. This is why, before a rural brand launch, the company should indulge in extensive surveys in the area. Generally, rural people wish to buy longer-lasting products at low costs.
- The price of a product – Usually, the rural people are more inclined towards lower prices. That is to say, they pay more heed to the price tag than the quality of a brand. Therefore, the manufacturer of a brand should be extra careful in managing the production costs of the brand. In this way, the brand will be more accessible to rural consumers. This approach helps in geo-targeting the consumer base of a brand.
- The brand awareness strategy – To spread maximum awareness among the target audience, a marketer should chalk out an intricate plan to promote the brand. The awareness strategy of a rural advertising campaign needs to be easy and direct to grasp. This approach would be simple enough for the brand to pursue and influence rural consumers. Since the literacy rate in rural India is not that high, marketing techniques like newspaper and magazine advertising could be a failure. The rural people are more inclined to the mediums of radio, television, and cinema to absorb information.
- The distribution of a product – Any marketing strategy might turn out to be a failure if the distribution of the products is not monitored properly. To ensure that the product reaches every corner of the rural areas, strategies such as selling the product in the local village fair, haats, and melas could be adopted. The other distribution policies can include the inauguration of retail outlets, regular interaction with the village consumers to know about the status of the products, monitoring company delivery vans delivering to the rural markets, etc.
One can take the help of a few age-old advertising strategies that have always clicked in the case of rural advertising. Rural people get more engaged with a brand with the incorporation of media buying for promotional purposes. One could take refuge to the following measure to increase brand visibility:
- Cultural shows like folk shows
- Village melas
- Regional newspaper
- Promotional activities in the concerned village school
- Puppet shows; and
- Involving the members of the village panchayat or the gram sabha.
FAQ’s for Rural Marketing in India
Rural advertisement consist of various brand promotional activities carried out by companies in order to enhance brand awareness and visibility in Indian villages among rural audience.
OOH media options like Mobile van advertising, Kiosk Advertising, Hoardings and Wall painting are used to target rural markets and audience in India.
Rural markets in India, unlike their counterparts in urban areas are highly difficult to predict, and have specific characteristics and behavior. Financially, the rural population of India is mostly mix of low and medium level varying irregular income and flow of farm income may vary as per the monsoon season.
Rural promotion or brand activation in Indian villages primarily include set of various activities to boost particular brands visibility and awareness in remote village areas in a given geographical location.
In India’s growth story of being a developing nation, villages have played an important role. Overall rural development efforts has reached villages as well and same can be seen in data of average rural household spending. Growing purchase power definitely attract brands to grow their footprints in Indian rural areas.
MyHoardings have capability and expertise to help brands build their rural marketing strategy. With vast experience in brand promotion in rural areas of India, MyHoardings can provide planning expertise and hassle free campaign execution of ad plans and branding in every corner of India.
Despite a long growth story, challenges remain in rural marketing sector in India. Data shows that number of people under the poverty line has not reduced at the planned and expected rates. Along with that, lack of better transport infrastructure, multiple languages and dialects, low income per capita and seasonal low demand clouts rural markets with clouds of uncertainty in India.
Since India rural markets remain uncertain when compared to urban counterparts, performance measurement also remain a challenging task in limited time periods. As far as Rural marketing is concerned, sustained presence in market is the key to perform in Indian villages and performance can only be verified with sales data in hand for ample period.
Yes. As an established rural branding agency in India, MyHoardings help brands to provide end to end services in rural marketing sector in India. We also provide experienced and influential promoters for interactions with villagers who can be beneficial for brands in Kiosk branding and roadshow advertising campaigns in India.
Yes. MyHoardings is growing rural advertising agency in India and multiple brands have chosen to collaborate with MyHoardings to execute their rural branding campaigns in Indian villages.
Products and services can be promoted with static ads like OOH hoardings, wall painting or interactive advertising mode involving promoters using mobile Kiosks or roadshow advertisement.
Wall painting is traditional, popular and impact creating mode of advertisement in rural Indian. Brand promotion in Villages with Wall painting include painting client creatives on available large walls in rural areas of India.
Wall wraps are usually considered as advanced version of wall painting, include large size flex or vinyl stickers pasted on road walls and retail areas in India. Wall wrap is an very economical and cost effective mode of outdoor advertisement and branding in India, especially in rural areas.
Growth story of Indian rural markets in past few decades is a well-known. Will rise in rural economy, increasingly more and more brands plan to increase their presence in Indian villages in order to increase company footprint and enhanced sales.
Roadshow advertising is used to promote a particular company products and services by displaying same on vehicles and carrying vehicle in busy rural areas of India. Usually promoters also accompany the roadshows in order to explain the product details or plans to the rural audience.
Rural advertisement activities vary highly when compared to urban marketing which need separate planning and crafting different messages for different audience groups. Rural advertising is also dependent on the cultural, geographical and social formats of living.
