Community marketing: serving the base of the economic pyramid sustainably

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to acknowledge the importance of community networks in distribution of services and to present a conceptual framework outlining the antecedents and consequences of community marketing. Developing countries represent large untapped markets at the bottom of economic pyramid which is not serviced by conventional products using traditional marketing channels. Organisations are increasing looking at involving local community and broad range of partners called “Community Marketing” in this paper as a viable channel to expand their market by reaching out to this segment. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology for this paper involves in-depth study of the relevant literature on role of community networks and highlighting the noteworthy findings of other researchers. Although role of community networks has been widely studied in consumer goods, little has been researched on services. The study draws from cases of mobile financial services in India to develop a framewor...