Rural Marketing is the latest trend in the marketing industry. After keeping the city consumers the centre of focus for several years, the brands and marketers are now seeing the untapped potential and growth opportunity in Rural markets and Communities. It’s important to note that, in rural areas, people have different preferences, and it’s necessary to understand these before taking the first step in this market. In this article, we will discuss what is rural marketing, and its importance as well as strategies to implement.
What is Rural Marketing?
Rural marketing, in simple words, means the process of developing, pricing, promoting, and distributing rural-specific products and services, leading to consumer satisfaction and achievement of organizational objectives.
People living in rural areas have different personalities than urban residents. In rural areas, people are more strongly connected to their culture, prioritize personal connections, and are more practical in their buying decisions.
Technopark’s study drew attention to the fact that with the increasing demand for fast-moving consumer goods, pharma products, auto parts, and others, the rural market is growing at a rate of 15%. This gives businesses a good opportunity to boost their growth by focusing on rural areas.
Why rural market is important?
- Rural areas have a vast population, which has more potential for large customer base for businesses. In recent years, the purchasing power of people living in these areas have increased as well. This helps companies to generate more revenue and boost their sales as well as increase their brand awareness.
- By focusing on rural areas, businesses can promote balanced growth in both urban and rural areas.
- It would help in creating employment opportunities for people by promoting the products and businesses in these areas.
- Rural marketing would introduce people living in rural areas to new products and services, ultimately improving their quality of living.
Challenges
- The biggest challenge in the implementation of rural marketing is limited reach to remote areas. There are many areas in which remote and delivering products or reaching there takes a lot of time and increases transportation cost as well.
- As discussed earlier, people in rural areas are more connected to their culture. Now, here, the challenge is to be careful about cultural sensitivities and consider these before making your strategies.
Strategies for implementation
- Try to collaborate and build relations with local influencers, retailers, and community leaders. This will help you to take the first step toward rural marketing. (Need help with influencer marketing? You can trust us for this, We are Tech Geekz, a digital marketing agency in Surat with expertise in marketing, web and app development, and graphic design)
- Word of mouth is another great way to establish your business in rural areas because a lot of people in these areas, heavily rely on word of mouth recommendations.
- You can use the power of Facebook and WhatsApp for your marketing campaigns to reach the public in rural areas, as these platforms are more accessible to them.
Conclusion
Rural Market holds a massive potential for businesses and gives them an excellent area for marketing their products. By building strong relationships and good marketing strategies along with understanding their culture and preferences businesses can unlock the potential of this untapped market.