One of the major roles of marketing is to deliver the right kind of product to the right customer at the right time and at the right place. Rural marketing is gaining a great deal of attention these days due to the large population living in the rural areas. As urban markets have saturated, rural India is consistently facing a new heat of the world of brands, be it in FMCGs, consumer durables or automotives. Marketing to rural customer has now become a necessity for marketers if they want to stay competitive in the volatile and turbulent market conditions. Although it seems to be so easy and marketers do not leave any stones unturned to market their products in rural areas, the fact is far from reality. In the present paper, a number of barriers that critically inhibit marketers’ successful foray into the rural markets and their interrelationships using the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) have been derived. The identified barriers have been categorized with respect to their driving power and dependence. Through ISM approach, order can be imposed on the complexity of these variables. This approach would enable the rural marketers to identify the critical points where maximum effort could be focused for success.

Marketers have long served the urban markets where they have garnered huge success. But Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ is a big league of learning in the marketing environment as well. The saturation of urban markets has compelled marketers to think out-of-the-box for their survival. This has led to the discovery of a new market—the rural market—which was knowingly ignored for a long time.

The unmatchable skills of marketers make them survive the volatile and turbulent market conditions and act as a benchmark for the whole society. Marketers have now identified 69% of the potential rural Indian consumers to market their products and services in order to beat the competition. They must be pitying themselves for serving only 30% of the urban population and ignoring the major chunk. In order to serve the rural market, marketers must have to be responsive to the rural market needs and conditions which are different from that of the urban markets. Their response towards rural market should be that of an investor where a growing rural market is seen as an opportunity to be captured (Pedhiwal et al., 2011). Marketers must understand that their perspective should be development of the rural people (Modi, 2009). Although marketers are slowly moving towards the rural areas, there is lot more to be done to be successful in rural marketing.

Marketing Management Journal, Modeling the Barriers, Rural Marketing, Interpretive Structural Modeling, Turbulent market conditions.