We live in an age of disruption. Brands struggle to sustain long term relationships with farmers, and find innovative ways to communicate to current customers and build new markets. Part of this struggle is due to the speed of technology development, especially as competitors utilize that technology to interrupt and secure customers. And changing demographics cause even more disruption, especially as younger farm family members become more involved in decisions on the farm.
Some of the current challenges include:
Farmers have a complex decision making process, and one that can change during their various crop seasons. According to an Association of National Advertisers study even though half of companies say they focus their resources primarily on customer experience, only 13 percent feel strongly that they have identified their customers’ decision journeys and understand where to focus marketing, while nearly half cannot measure the critical stages of the consumer decision journey.
Farmers use data, and insights from that data to drive their on-farm decisions. Marketers need to match up.
The ability to make data-informed decisions is a critical capability for marketers. But while 46 percent of marketers make marketing decisions based on data rather than on qualitative metrics, only 10 percent believed they were very effective at using insights into customer behaviors and feeding them back into the marketing program to improve outcomes.
Brands can no longer rely on advertising alone to carry the burden of talking to customers. There is tremendous pressure to provide fresh content to customers, across all platforms that a brand uses to communicate and sell.
The percentage of companies with formal content development roles has nearly doubled in recent years, and will probably continue to rise. So acquiring quality content writers and managers is critical. However, even while content development is rising, there are only a small percentage of companies that actually have a formal content strategy program in place.
With the constant changes in marketing options and continuing development of technology, increasing speed to market is becoming the new normal. Brands that take at six months or more to make it to market will be left behind.
Success in marketing to farmers in this age of disruption will depend on marketers ability to keep pace with these changes, and continue to find new ways to build customer relationships.
Several items are sourced from the 2015 Masters of Marketing Conference and the 2015 Association of National Advertisers Marketers Edge Study.