Rural markets are segmented on the basis of land holding pattern, irrigation facilities, progressiveness of farmers, cropping pattern; mix of enterprise, education levels, and proximity to cities, sociological factors, and occupation categories. The small and marginal farmers, agricultural labourers and artisans cover the majority of the segment in rural market where as rich farmers cover about one third of rural market.

Rural marketing strategies will be segmented on the basis of the highly heterogeneous rural market and identification of the needs and works of different segments. Strategies and framed from the marketing mix point of view. Main strategies are related to product, price, place and promotion in the rural market. These are;

A. Product Strategies: We will study product strategies that are meaningful for rural market and rural consumers.

1. Small and low priced packing: Rural consumers are more comfortable with smaller packs. Larger pack sizes are out of reach for rural consumers because large packs are priced more. There are lots of products available in such a way like shampoos, biscuits, pickles, etc. Main objective of this activity is to keep the prices low so that everybody in the rural market can afford to buy these products. This may however not to possible in all types of products.
Brand Name: In the rural areas the brand name awareness in fairly high. A brand name or logo is very important for rural consumers as it can be easily remembered. The rural consumers are more concerned with the utility of the products.

Pricing Strategies: Pricing strategies are very much related to product strategies. Some of these strategies are as follows:

Low cost/cheap products: This strategy being adopted widely by many manufacturing and marketing men. Prices are kept low by small unit packing. Low priced products are more popular in the rural areas.

Avoid sophisticated packing: Simple package can be used which can reduce the cost as it is presently being done in the case of biscuits.

Refill packs/reusable packaging: Such measures has a considerable impact on the rural market. Price can be reduced by using this technology. Packaging should be done in such a way that it lends itself for reuse in rural areas.

Application of value engineering: Cheaper raw material can be used instead of expensive raw material. This would help to reduce the overall cost of the products, within sacrificing the quality or functional efficiency of the product, for example in food industry, soya protein can be used instead of milk protein. Milk protein is expensive than the soya protein but the value of nutrition is similar. This technique can be used to keep the price at an affordable level. But where this technique can be applied, would have to be explored by manufacturing and marketing men in the context of rural markets.

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