Page 135 - DMGT509_RURAL MARKETING

Rural Marketing

Notes 7.4 Rural Market Segmentation Tools

1. Thompson Rural Market Index.
2. Mica Rural Market Rating

3. Linquest
4. Indian Market Demographic
5. Business Intelligence Unit
6. Lincompass
7. ARCVIEW

Notes 13% of villages falling in the last three categories account 50% rural population and
60% rural wealth.

7.4.1 Thomson Rural Market Index

This index takes the distinct as basic unit. This study is projected as a relative indicator of the
overall economic or market potential. Three hundred and Eighty Three districts are covered
under this study. The data are presented against 23 indicator.
The value of agricultural output, available for most of the districts and considered to be an
overall indicators of the rural Economy has been adopted as a parameter for compelling the
index. The presentation is done systematically within the zones and for the states in that zone.
For this purpose the markets have been classified under five different categories.

7.4.2 Mica Rural Market Rating

The MICA Rural Market Ratings (MRMR) has been developed by the Mudra Institute of
Communications, Ahmedabad (MICA) in association with ML Infomap Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.
MICA is the premier institute for training communications professionals and ML Infomap is
a specialist IT consulting company, with several digital map products to its credit. The result
of this joint effort is an exciting and outstandingly useful marketing tool. For the senior
marketing executive, or media planner, or even an NGO involved in rural development
work, this could be the perfect tabletop multimedia guide to rural India. And all this has been
delivered on one CD and presented in colorful maps using digital mapping technology from
MapInfo Corporation.
MICA, in its continual effort to serve the advertising and marketing community, developed a
rural market index, to indicate the rural market potential of all the districts of India. This
exercise was based on stringent research and analysis of forty-two variables.

An interesting aspect of the project is that instead of ending with just presenting this research,
great value has been added through several interesting features. For one, the data is available
only on electronic media and so can be observed and presented in several different ways just by
the click of the mouse. For another, the results of this research are presented on maps. For this,
ML Infomap’s proprietary product, The Standard Digital map of India TM has been used. Shaded
district maps indicate the level of market potential. Since the results are seen on a map, clear
patterns of market potential can be ‘seen’. Then, clicking with the information tool on a district,
one can immediately see important facts relating to it. These relate to bank advances,
demographics, infrastructure, and more.

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