Journal of Marketing and Sales Management

Author: Mr. Lalit Tank

Abstract: The rural market is an area of darkness to Indian  entrepreneurs,  an area, where communication  is poor  and  the  population  poorer  because  their  operations  are  small scale  and  inadequate.   The Indian  rural  population  has  an  estimated  number  of  120 million  households,  which  is  more  than  70  percent  of  the  total  households  of  country. Even a fraction  of  the  rural  consumer is  a  big market to  generate  enough  revenues and profits for organizations. In  India  the  bottom  of  the  pyramid is  the  largest,  but  poorest  socio-economic group.  In global  terms,  this  is  the  four  billion  people  who  live  on  less  than  $2  per  day, typically  in  developing  countries  (C.K.  Prahalad 2006).  Bottom of the  pyramid  includes parties  like Private  enterprise,  civil  society  organizations  and Local  government, Development  and  aid  agencies,  BOP  consumers,  BOP  entrepreneurs.  This paper concentrates on IMC Bottom of the pyramid markets, i.e. Indian rural Markets.

 A lot of thrust is being  given to  marketing  strategies  for  rural markets, especially distribution  aspects;  little  is  being  talked  about  the  communication  strategies  required there.  Because  of  regional  disparities,  there  is  a  need  of  customized  communication strategies  for  each  region.  With a  specific  communication  tool,  it  is  very  difficult  to create  awareness  or  knowledge  in  the  minds  of  rural consumers.  There  is  a  need  of Integrating  Marketing  Communications (IMC) to  provide  clarity,  consistency  and maximum gives  insights  on a strategic  IMC  model  which is developed by  using response hierarchy  model.  This model depicts the stages  a consumer may pass  through in  moving from  a  state  of  not  being  aware  of  a  company,  product  or  brand,  to  actual  purchase behaviour.  The rural marketer  has  to  select  different  Medias  in  the  different  stages  to carry integrated marketing communication of the organization. The challenge  in  rural  markets  is  to  create  communication  that  would  help  the rural  consumer  in  recognizing  brands,  logos,  visuals  and  colours.  IMC model    in rural marketing calls  for  a  centralized  messaging  function  so  that  everything a  company  says and does communicates in rural markets have a common theme and position.

Keywords: Integrated Marketing communication (IMC), Bottom of the Pyramid Markets (BOP Markets), Rural consumer, Rural markets, Rural marketers, Communication, Rural communication, Rural communication, communication strategies.