RURAL PR – Learn to Connect & Communicate with Rural Public

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time from your very busy schedule to read my blog(s). Sharing PR knowledge with you with finesse has become my passion now and I really feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. Today I’m happy to present my 77th blog “RURAL PR – Learn to Connect & Communicate with Rural Public”.

Public Relations is a decision – making management practice tasked with building relationships and interests between organisations and their publics based on the delivery of information through trusted and ethical communication methods. – IPRA 

The soul of India lives in its villages. If the village perishes, India will perish too. India will be no more India. Her own mission in the world will get lost. - Mahatma Gandhi

Friends, with around 6, 64,369 villages (Year 2019), 65.07% (Year 2020) of India lives in villages. Rural India is a huge market which can’t be overlooked. The rural structure is not uniform in all parts of the country and depends on various factors like the state of development of agriculture, purchasing power of population, infrastructure like roads, transport and communication facilities, etc. Hence, success of a product or service in the rural area has always been a challenging task for any organisation.

The villagers have their own sets of agendas and aspirations and moreover the rural environment to a great extent is different from the semi urban and urban areas, therefore communicating with prospective customers in a proper and effective manner is not so easy.  While communicating with the rural audiences’ communication strategies are to be planned according to the needs and requirements of the people living in the rural areas i.e. villages.  There will always be a strong need to build trust and communicate assurance about the product(s) or service(s) and the organisation’s credentials in the minds of rural audiences which can only be done through either word of mouth or face-to-face touch i.e. feel and talk mode. Friends, my personal experience says – “to stay on the top of the mind of the rural audience these two - ‘word of mouth’ and ‘face-to-face touch’ are the best techniques.

There is an old saying in Hindi “Kos Kos Par Badle Paani Aur Chaar Kos Par Bani” means “at every Ek Kos (3.12kms) there is a change in taste of water and after every Chaar Kos (12.48kms) the dialect or the lingo changes”.  Therefore, the organisations planning to enter the rural markets and or are already functioning in rural areas must think and act locally i.e. understand the dynamics of rural communities, attitude variations, aspirations and hopes of their target audience(s) before working out any strategy to connect with them. Friends, I’ve noticed that the rural masses mostly are innocent, transparent, clear at heart, unbiased and blessed with a lot of common sense.  

Friends, connecting or networking with people living in villages involves a lot of personal touch. Even after regular banking hours (10am to 2pm) every day I use to spend over 3-4 hours in a village, allocated to the branch, to meet and interact with people living there, to understand their needs and requirements related to banking and also their expectations from the bank.

Friends, IMC tool “Personal Selling” which includes person-to-person connect or face-to-face contact / meeting with prospective customers with the purpose of introducing your organisation or the brand, product or service, convincing them of the brand’s or product’s value, and closing the deal is one of the best methods to be followed in Rural PR.

In my personal opinion the technique of personal selling is one of the most effective ways to communicate the brand in rural areas because of its strong impact. Further, in personal selling the communication can always be tailored for a particular meeting or situation, immediate feedback can be processed, and communication can be altered to accommodate the feedback and create a win-win situation for all concerned.

Furthermore, to create a great bond with the rural publics the organisations working in rural areas must associate themselves with the local activities of their target rural community(s). This can be done by reaching out to them in their own dialect or lingo, so that organisations can associate themselves with numerous celebrations, festivals, and activities etc. of their target audience. Friends, many a such rural celebrations and festivals provided me a great opportunity to create a bond with them and promote my organisation.   

Also while working in rural areas I came across many reference groups. Friends, any person who is having a say in their area, a respect in the society and a place in the hearts of the villagers is part of a reference group.  Also bigger the profile of such person(s) in the society, for example – The Gram Pradhan, higher will be their influence on them. Also, there are VLWs, health workers, doctors, school or inter college teachers, principals, panchayat members, local bodies, samiti members, bank manager(s) like me and NGOs etc. who are part of such reference groups.

Friends, most of the people living in rural areas are engaged in agriculture, dairy, poultry, trading, kirana, carpentry, plumbing, shoe making, manufacturing, machine & electric repair work sweets shops etc. They receive promotional and development related communications through various sources. The opinion leaders and influencers (reference groups) play a big role in the decision-making at village - community level. Since the opinion leaders and influencers are easily identifiable in every village, as they are small in numbers, taking their help can boost the marketing efforts to a great extent through word of mouth efforts aimed at village communities and groups. Thankfully, I was hugely benefitted in my marketing efforts because of the very positive support of such opinion leaders and influencers of the villages.

Friends, I had worked as Branch Manager in a rural branch of a nationalized bank for two years. During those two years I learnt a lot about the villages, the villagers, their nature, behaviour, habits, needs, requirements, and occupations. Those two years were my hands-on experience of Life in Rural Areas. During my two years tenure the branch I was heading showed extremely good results as compared to the past years. I received accolades from my superiors heading the region. And the entire credit for this goes to my communication techniques which worked wonders for me. One of my branch staff - a Peon Cum Daftari was living in the same village where the branch was situated and he became my Krishna – The Guide who immensely helped me in understanding the villages with in the 15 kms radius of branch. I had a Vijay Super Scooter and my Krishna was an excellent driver. Daily, after close of banking hours i.e. 2.30pm and sometime before banking hours i.e. around 9am, we two use to visit a new village to explore. We use to meet the Pradhan and some of the influential persons of that village and within three months of taking over the charge of bank’s branch, with the help of my Krishna I visited all the villages situated within the 15 kms radius. During my visits I prepared a long list of Opinion Leaders, Influencers, and Reference Groups. Here I would like to mention that whichever village I had visited during my first three months, I was told by the people that for the first time manager of a bank had personally visited them and heard their problems and had also assured them of full support. My two years stay in a village branch of a bank was a great experience and learning. Thanks to my PR instinct and strategies, I truly had a very satisfying innings in a rural area.

Friends, to conclude, Rural PR is the process of identifying the needs and requirements of the people living in the rural areas, connect with them and build everlasting mutually beneficial relationship by providing the rural publics what they want or require at a reasonable price, ensuring timely delivery and to resolve their issues and grievances.  And, while interacting with our rural audiences we should keep their diverse profiles in mind to decide fitting strategy to connect, communicate and convince.

We may also use IMC techniques and tools for diverse purposes e.g. for creating awareness we can use Public Relations, Advertising (OOH) Events, Sponsorships, Mobile Marketing and Direct Marketing and for brand acceptance we can use Reference Groups – Influencers – Opinion Leaders, Personal Selling, Word of Mouth,  Road shows and Sales Promotions.  

Thank you for reading the blog.

 

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