Mark Williams, senior vice president, administration at Bader Rutter, presents key perspectives on the urgency and rapid marketing transformation throughout the food supply chain. Consumers are more connected and have access to more information about what’s behind the products in the grocery stores, presenting food industry decision-makers with great marketing opportunities and perils.
In today’s social media-driven world, telling a story has become a key way, and often the preferred way, to communicate. From individuals to companies, everyone has a unique story to tell. What’s yours? For insights, explore your competitive advantages, aspirational goals and company values, as these will lay foundation for the chapters in your story. Keep your key customer audiences in mind. How do they value the products and service you provide? What is expected of your company at different points along the customer’s buyer’s journey? Keep your story positive and focus on what your company stands for and not what it’s against. Get employees involved by contributing and providing input. Vet the story internally and gain acceptance so everyone in the company believes in the story.
Delivering the story: It’s everyone’s responsibility.
From the front-line sales contact to the CEO and among the many individuals who sit in the cubicles and customer service desks throughout the office, everyone should be trained to effectively deliver your unique story. Key messages are not useful if people are not trained properly in how to deliver them. Your brand story won’t mean much if it just turns into a game of telephone.
The entire article is a must read and reminds us all to make sure all levels of personnel in our companies can be brand ambassadors. Read the entire blog here.
Change brings opportunity … but only if you stay on top of the wave.
Sarah Steever, president, and Clara Jacob, creative director, at Paulsen present a thoughtful blog on how innovation and invention in technology place ever-increasing demands on ag marketers to stay on top of marketing tech and our client’s world of tech.
Understanding your customer or marketing targets has never been more crucial and their world is changing at a pace that won’t slow.
For those of us in ag marketing, our information consumption and needs have changed over the past several years. More, faster, better – is how we want our business information. What about our target markets: Producers?[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/1″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]
Penton Ag’s recent producer digital-use research project zeroed in on the HOW, WHEN and WHAT of our readers and users on this subject. We surveyed farmers from across the nation to update our knowledge base and keep us on target with their priorities. Our “Ag Producer Research, Info Needs & Platform Use” study is a large, involved project and I’ll chunk the data into easy takeaway bites.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][mk_padding_divider size=”20″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/1″]
[/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][mk_image src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750slide16.jpg” image_width=”150″ image_height=”110″ crop=”true” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” target=”_self” caption_location=”inside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″ link=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750slide16.jpg”][mk_fancy_title tag_name=”h5″ style=”false” color=”#393836″ size=”10″ font_weight=”inhert” letter_spacing=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”18″ font_family=”none” align=”left”][click image to enlarge] The only way is up. More than half of today’s producers spend 2+ hours online for farm-related info. Study page 16.[/mk_fancy_title][mk_padding_divider size=”10″][mk_image src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750page13.jpg” image_width=”150″ image_height=”110″ crop=”true” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” target=”_self” caption_location=”inside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″ link=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750page13.jpg”][mk_fancy_title tag_name=”h5″ style=”false” color=”#393836″ size=”10″ font_weight=”inhert” letter_spacing=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”18″ font_family=”none” align=”left”][click image to enlarge] Heavier digital use – 53% of producers report spending 2+ hours on the Internet for farm information each workday. Study page 13.[/mk_fancy_title][mk_image src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750_page18.jpg” image_width=”150″ image_height=”110″ crop=”true” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” link=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750_page18.jpg” target=”_self” caption_location=”inside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″][mk_fancy_title tag_name=”h5″ style=”false” color=”#393836″ size=”10″ font_weight=”inhert” letter_spacing=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”18″ font_family=”none” align=”left”][click image to enlarge] Mobile access is 24/7,very portable, and provides on-demand access to information and people. It culminates in access-opportunities for marketers. Study page 18.[/mk_fancy_title][mk_image src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750_page17.jpg” image_width=”150″ image_height=”110″ crop=”true” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” link=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750_page17.jpg” target=”_self” caption_location=”inside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″][mk_fancy_title tag_name=”h5″ style=”false” color=”#393836″ size=”10″ font_weight=”inhert” letter_spacing=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”18″ font_family=”none” align=”left”][click image to enlarge] Mobile access is key to producer and here are the most popular activities. Weather is a popular mobile access subject – also the No. 2 “keeps me up at night” reported topic. Study page 17.[/mk_fancy_title][mk_image src=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750page19.jpg” image_width=”150″ image_height=”110″ crop=”true” lightbox=”false” frame_style=”simple” link=”/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/trendMobile_graphs750x750page19.jpg” target=”_self” caption_location=”inside-image” align=”left” margin_bottom=”10″][mk_fancy_title tag_name=”h5″ style=”false” color=”#393836″ size=”10″ font_weight=”inhert” letter_spacing=”0″ margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”18″ font_family=”none” align=”left”][click image to enlarge] Almost a third of producers use apps for specific, defined and narrow purpose. Weather is always a hot topic with farmers and this bears out on several study questions, read on. Study page 19.[/mk_fancy_title][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″][vc_column_text disable_pattern=”true” align=”left” margin_bottom=”0″]
Changing digital reliance
More than a half (53%) of producers report they spend 2+ hours each day on the Internet for farm-related purposes. (See graph at left, study page 16.)
Definite shift: More than 2x farmers spend 3+ hours connected each day than producers who reported spending less than 1 hour online per day.
Heavy man, heavy: 75% of producers report they are heavier users of digital ag information sources today, compared to two years ago. A significant portion (41%) of these heavy users are “heavy-heavy” users today. (See graph at left, study page 13.)
Key findings – Mobile use
More key producer digital and mobile indicators:
Farmers are massive mobile users.
The majority (55%) of farmers are checking their mobile devices multiple times throughout the day for farm-related information. See graph for the full breakdown. (See graph at left, study page 18.)
What are they doing on their mobile devices?
Most popular types of information accessed on mobile devices:
Weather – 84%
News – 64%
Market data – 63%
Search – 58%
Navigation – 50%
See graph for more activities on mobile devices (See graph at left, study page 17)
31% use farming-related apps. Apps that were named most frequently used are highly specific with a very defined, narrow purpose. (See graph at left, study page 19.)
Top apps reported:
Weather
Farm Futures
Tractorhouse
Weed ID
AccuWeather
Climate Corp
Key mobile takeaway
The study shows that marketers have greater on-going opportunities throughout each workday to connect with producers via mobile. Indications are that this trend will continue to grow this year and beyond. In the midst of this key mobile growth, producers aren’t ready to give up print … much … yet. Only 30% of producers tell us they use print information sources less today than they did two years ago. We aren’t at the tipping point yet for the shift from print to digital. That’s why we need to stay in touch with our readers and users.
Get more
Our next post from this research will dive into age-related and farm size-related mobile trends. Contactyour sales representative for the full study.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
