FMCG companies are having businesses which are mostly consumer facing, every company wants to reach as many consumers as possible. The products sold are mass products mainly. In a country like India it takes huge distribution muscles & awareness creation to make a product successful. Marketing alone cant win consumers, it needs to be supported by strong sales & distribution. Marketing revolves around Product, Price, Place Promotions. Lets look at what can be done in each of these elements.
1. Product : Make a product which is not available in market but there is a great need of such product. For example shampoo sachets were a great innovation to crack rural market, now almost 70% of shampoo category sales comes from sachet format. First it was done by Chick shampoo, later on followed by Pentene, Sunsilk. Another options can be make a better product than one available in market, so that it solves a bigger problem for consumers or offers better benefits. For e.g. Patanjali Dantkanti has been successful due to its natural product formulations, people like it, it has been able to gain share from HUL, Colgate.
2. Price : look at price points which can make consumers afford a particular product or do cost reduction by improving efficiency so that more people start buying the product. Example of a lower price point is Rs 1 shampoo vs a Rs 60 bottle. Rs 1 shampoo sachet makes it affordable for people.
3. Place : Make sure the availability of a product at all channels – Kirana stores, Supermarkets, bus stops, railway stations, airports, online stores, so that once a consumer search for it, its available for purchase.
4. Promotion : This is a very important leg to make a product hit. Once an unmet need it identified & product is developed, its important that awareness for that product is created using right platforms. In a country like India the most effective ways to create awareness is creative TV ads, there are channels which are watched by people in specific languages, use these channels to reach out the target consumers. Use bus shelters/hoardings /wall painting to create awareness. Us e dealer boards at retailers, once its fixed, it will be there for at least a year. In the outlets create shelf displays to attract consumer to buy the product. Use properties like IPL to create attraction, can create mobile content for the product (e.g. give a miss call & listen a song etc). Metro train branding, Auto branding, Cab branding, Merchandise like Caps, T shirts, Key chain etc can be distributed to consumers/retailers. Activation for retailers/wholesalers, lucky draw contests etc create excitements for the consumers to participate & buy the product. Digital advertising is also helpful now a days facebook & twitter can be used effectively.
Above can help in creating good trial generation for a product.
Indian Traditional Marketing
