INDIA Calling….are the Marketing Writers listening?

India consists of 28 states and 7 union territories has the world's 12th largest economy at market exchange rates and the fourth largest in purchasing power. Economic reforms have transformed it into the second fastest growing large economy. As per last census conducted in 2001, the overall literacy rate of India is 65.38%. This is a big number when you consider the current population is 1,147,995,904.

So are we a good market for the marketing gurus, writers or publishers from the west. Unfortunately I am still force to say NO. Surprising to my knowledge there seems to be an underlying negligence by marketing writers and publisher from the west on the Indian Market. I wonder what could be the reasoning for marketing writers of not considering India as a market to distribute their work or get reviews and so on. However I would say that India portals like rediff, Indiatimes, etc and bookstores like oxford are doing a decent job in getting the international work to India. But it surprises me when I see that Amazon does not deliver to India. It forces me to wonder that are Indians considered to be somewhat of not “considerable importance” or thought of  as unable to spend on quality work? Through this post I would love to have feedback(s) to clear my misconception(s).

Books like “The New Rules of Marketing & PR”, “Tuned –In” are some wonderful work by David Scott, and are surly a recommended read for all marketers specially in India, who are exploring or transitioning towards the “new age marketing”. This is a wonderful piece of work by David that would enable young and old marketers to leverage the new age marketing including digital marketing, especially in the current situation of economic slowdown where we all marketers are or can expect squeezed marketing budgets. David brings his experience and expertise to his work in such a simplistic form that attracts or rather forces me to recommend his work in nearly in all forums that I attend. Another good work that comes to my mind is – “All Marketers Are Liars” by Seth Godin. Having mentioned these examples, by no means I plan to discount or neglect the work(s) of other authors that I am been privileged to read.

However I am still forced to wonder when I see its unavailability of similar work(s) at the local sites and/or book stores. Are the marketing writers or even I would say their publisher in west feels that India is not a big market for them. Similarly few days ago I noticed couple of people from India on Twitter requesting their “followers” in US to courier marketing books to India due to their unavailability. This is a similar case in local marketing forums that I attend. Hence this is one of the reason that I was carrying a pile of 10+ books from my US trip.

Surprisingly I even had a not so good experience once I tired connecting with one of the renowned marketing writers in US for his latest release. I wrote an email requesting him to guide me to an Indian publisher from where I can buy his newly released book, and got a reply - “well, the good news is that my site has literally thousands and thousands of free posts”. I kept on wondering that what made him think that I am trying to get some freebies out of him. Is it the way I wrote the email, was it where I was writing (country) or is it something else. Nevertheless the book is still not available in India. I would not like to name the author as I truly likes his work.

The aim of articulating this post is to encourage writers and publishers in west to see the importance of India as a market. I am marketer by profession and try to follow marketing & strategy writers all across. Hence would thought of making an attempt for writers in the west to ensure that their work should also reach the country known as INDIA.

Have a happy Sunday!