Hero Honda steps up rural touch-points

Over 500 rural sales executives of Hero Honda dealers are now busy meeting the sarpanch, the headmaster and the anganwadi workers in villages all over the country. They are also visiting potential customers at their homes, inviting them to drop in at the company’s dealerships which might be located a few kms away.

The frequency of these visits has increased these days, with Dussehra and Diwali celebrations round the corner. These festivals account for almost a fifth of the total annual sales of the country’s largest two-wheeler maker.

The poor monsoon this year doesn’t worry Anil Dua, senior vice president (marketing and sales), Hero Honda. “We are confident of surpassing last year’s sales of 600,000 two-wheelers during Dussehra and Diwali by a long shot,” Dua says. The company is ready to roll out its on-ground activation for the rural customers and has doubled its touch-points in rural areas from 2,000 in 2006 to nearly 4,000.

The on-ground activation is actually the last leg of Hero Honda’s rural marketing efforts. The first leg is its Usage & Attitude studies, which are conducted by the company’s in-house research team once in every two years. “The study captures every aspect of the potential customers’ lives. It tracks aspects like the level of awareness of brand Hero Honda, the current modes of transportation, what is the expectation of the customer from motorcycles etc,” says Dua.

The company is also doing Rural Footprint studies on a quarterly basis. “Under this, we chart the events that will take place in villages. The core idea is to take the brand to the customer when he is in a happy mood. And these happy times are linked to good harvests, festivals and marriages when there is cash in hand,” Dua says.

Thirdly, to ensure that the village customer doesn’t postpone buying a two wheeler just because there’s no cash in hand, Hero Honda has entered into numerous vehicle finance tieups with NBFCs, cooperative banks and regional rural banks. “We have 30 such tie ups,” says Dua.

The other cornerstone of Hero Honda’s success with its Har Gaon, Har Angan campaign is the choice of media vehicles. The company banks on good old Doordarshan for this. “DD’s reach in the rural areas is a good enough bet to reach the target customer. We invest heavily in cricket on DD,” Dua says.

Har Gaon Har Angan seeks to build an ongoing relationship with millions of households in rural India, given that penetration of two-wheelers in rural India is only 8 per cent. And the company had decided to seize the latent potential of this market by launching some of its entry-level products which are tailored to suit the needs of the rural consumer like adjustable suspension, strong headlights and good ground clearance.

Reasons that are good enough for rural sales contributing 40 per cent to the company’s overall annual sales.