Rural Marketing in India Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Around the world, four billion people live in poverty. And marketing firms are still struggling to turn them into customers. For the past decade, business visionaries have argued that these people, dubbed the “Base of the Pyramid”, make up an enormous, untapped market. Some of the world's biggest, savviest corporations have aimed to address their basic needs — by selling them everything from clean water to electricity and from FMCG to consumer durables. “Improving the lives of billions of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid is a noble endeavour. It can also be a lucrative one.” C.K. Prahlad. The paper studies the changing scenario of Indian rural markets and implies some suggestions in improving the marketing strategy in rural selling and market promotion. An improved marketing mix is the call of hour, with strategies framed by deeply considering the dynamic rural buying behaviour. This is in context of Indian rural market which is stands tall due to its cultural diversity. This throws an open ground challenge to the marketers in a country with multi-cultural, multi-lingual varsity. This paper is an attempt to provide some mettle solutions to these challenges as it studies and follows some successful rural marketing strategies of modern times. This is particular in context of rural sales strategies rural promotion mix.