Holistic rural marketing

Abstract

Rural Marketing has evolved in India over the years from agricultural marketing with commodity and institutional focus to a more comprehensive three-dimensional perspective of rural to urban, urban to rural and rural to rural focus, in terms of flow of goods, services and ideas. It subsequently adopted a developmental perspective with focus on the poor and vulnerable and development objectives. Marketing as a discipline also evolved over these years from production orientation, product orientation, sales orientation, market orientation, societal marketing orientation to holistic marketing orientation.

This article critically examines the current state of marketing and rural marketing, traces the evolution of rural marketing from agricultural marketing orientation, to rural marketing, and further to developmental orientation and advocates moving to holistic rural marketing orientation. Though normative in approach, it can provide a useful framework for enhancing and enriching rural marketing knowledge and practice.