Reaching out to Rural Consumers

In today’s age brand activation is extremely important because the consumer has several options to choose from a vast number of available brands for product & services, in short the market is saturated and that becomes even more challenging for big brands especially in (FMCG) product sector to retain and build new consumer base, so when we talk about Pakistan non-urban or rural markets which accounts to nearly 64% of population living in rural area, are exposed to numerous numbers of regional and local mushroom and counterfeit brands are flooded in the market mainly because of insubstantial implementation of intellectual property regulations on these companies which apparently operate without fearlessly.

Throughout out my career span of 18 years, where I have worked on one of the highly most highly market penetrated product categories i.e TEA, has one of the highest per captia consumption in the world at 1 Kg, and is continuously increasing due to increase in demand compared to the annual per capita consumption of 0.75 kg globally.

Despite the continuous challenges from both organized tea sector and loose tea which accounts for 40% of the tea market, of the remaining 60%, Tapal Tea is the undisputed market leader, Unilever’s Lipton is a second, while Vital Groups, Vital Tea has emerged as a significant third player, and the remainder comprise small brands which are strong in specific regions. So in order to succeed a brand in this category it needs to stand out from the crowd as it is highly important that the brands finda a way to reach consumers directly to create an emotional and functional engagement platform on continuous basis, such marketing programs need to bring up positive feeling in the minds about them in order for them to become loyal consumers and purchase their brands, and what every marketer wants are loyal consumer base.

In this article, I will breifly try to cover some key direct consumer engagement aspect of an overall Marketing and Brand Building strategies for Rural Markets, where brand activation or BTL is an integral part of an overall marketing communication efforts to reach out and intereact with the consumer.

Door to Door Selling (DDS)

Considered to be the one of the most conventional and oldest form of activity, it is yet in my view is still the most effective “direct to consumer” technique. A strategically well targeted and controlled door to door plan allows the brand create trial and awareness at the lowest CPC which can range from around PKR 30 to 50. The modalities of DDS activity depend mainly upon the campaign objective such as, "Enhance Trial of a brand", "Convert competition brand to yours", "Reward consumers to maintain theor loyalty & maintain TOM", further consumer offers or deal as we like to call them could be as follows;

-Buy One Get One Free (BOGO)

-Price Discount on Retail Price

-Free Giveaway along with Product.

-Product Swapping.

Street & Home Demonstration

A highly recommended platform, if the core TG is adult female, more extended version of DDS is In-Home Demonstration or Home Demos, where product is demonstrated to the consumers inside a house or Gali (Street) cordoned off to make an experiential space for the activity.

The products that are promoted at in-home demonstrations may be food and beverages, housekeeping products, personal care items, or occasionally other types of products, which allows the consumers to have more detailed functional benefits of the product, a good example is for a detergent brand such as Ariel which performs live demos to show the superiority of its brand against sub-standard brand or in case Chenak Dust (Tea Brand) in-home demo live tea making with a clear objective to educate the consumers about Original brand vs the counterfeit brand.

Road Shows.

Roadshow or Float activation as best known, is specifically targeted towards male target consumer groups at market place to cover large number of consumers. Since it is a mobile medium therefore the basic advantage that it offers is the geographic coverage in a very effective way.

A platform for the brand to have both conventional and creative consumer engagement tools to offer, float activation can made into a mobile theatre, cinema to a virtual photo booth that can give a whole new experience to this section of rural market.

Event Marketing.

Unlike urban metro cites which have numerous event opportunities for brand to promote brands, rural has only a few such as Fairs (religious & cultural mela), Sports (Kabbadi, Football), Animal Market (Mandi).

However the major platform for brand to highlight its presence is religious mela, which take place throughout the one major event platform which is “Mela” where large gathering of people make pilgrimage at a shrine or other location of importance to a person's beliefs and faith, making it a potential avenue for FMCG organization and Telecom sector to showcase their product and services.

Retail Activation

Retail activation or commonly know as Trade Stall Activity is a short term strategy mostly used lift the stocks from shelves during buying cycles. This is also one of the most preferred activity for any Sales personnel that act as a support during heavy trade push of stocks at shops.

Combination of well design stall (Kiosk) attractive consumer offer on purchase of a product and consumer engagement modalities are the key for successful trade activity. Although the CPC of trade activation is high compared to other rural activation strategies that range from PKR 75 to 105, however its effectiveness in terms of brand conversion remains the highest.

These are the most common examples of Below the Line marketing techniques used by companies, with the increase in competition, every company is under pressure to keep the loyalty of its consumers, the same is not possible just by the TV, Radio or Social Media adverting campaign, a way to converse with the end user and re assure them of quality and commitment of the brand is required.

Therefore, when going Rural! marketers should always aim for meaningful engagement with the audience and BTL proves to be the most effective choice for the same due to its non- conventional and personalized features. A direct and strong connection can be established through BTL integration or combination of multiple BTL platforms to reach out different touchpoints targeting specific target group, however rural BTL campaigns cannot be properly executed without the help of an experienced and committed agency or a consultant.