Concepts and Components of rural markets

Concepts

Rural Marketing is defined as any marketing activity in which the one dominant participant is from a rural area. This implies that rural marketing consists of marketing of inputs (products or services) to the rural as well as marketing of outputs from the rural markets to other geographical areas.

Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments. It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves. It is a function which manages all the activities involved in assessing, stimulating and converting the purchasing power to effective demand for a specific product and service. This moves them to the rural areas to create satisfaction and uplift the standard of living.

Rural areas of the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture. Defra have a working definition, The Rural/Urban Definition, that was introduced in 2004 as a joint project between a number of Government Departments and was delivered by the Rural Evidence Research Centre at Birkbeck College (RERC).

Components of rural markets

For the market to exist, certain conditions must be satisfied. These conditions should be both necessary and sufficient. They may also be termed as the components of a market.

1.     Existence of a good commodity for transactions (physical existence is, however, not necessary)

2.     Existence of buyers and sellers

3.     Business relationship or intercourse between buyers and sellers; and

4.     Demarcation of area such as place, region, country or the whole world. The existence of perfect completion or a uniform price is not necessary.