Marketing To Farmers, Ag Digital Marketing Guide - Farm Market ID

7/1/2021 Marketing to Farmers, Ag Digital Marketing Guide | Farm Market iD
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Home Data Applications Services Resources About
G E T S TA RT E D 
Marketing to Farmers: A
Comprehensive Guide
Leverage Big Data highly specific and targeted ways to improve your
efforts in marketing to farmers
 

https://www.farmmarketid.com/marketing-to-farmers/ 1/72
What you’ll Who this is

learn… for…
How Big Data and data analytics Marketers who want to get started
can help your business improve with digital marketing but need
G E T S TA RT E D
your marketing.  help and want to justify the upfront
investment.
How to select data and information
that’s accurate, comprehensive, Agribusiness executives and
detailed and current. leadership looking for more
effective and measurable
How to bring your entire team from
marketing techniques to improve
top to bottom on board with data
revenue and ROI.
analysis tools.
Ag marketers looking to improve
Specific tactics for implementing
the effectiveness of their
these strategies among the right
campaigns in terms of conversions
audience.
and overall revenue.
Marketing and salespeople

struggling to understand their
market and the unique needs of
growers they serve.
Who’s behind this…

Farm Market iD is the leading
How is Farm Market iD Data D
provider of farm and grower data to

inform and improve agribusiness

strategy, marketing and sales
efforts. Our database covers over
2.4 million active operations –
Home Data Applications Services

including $311 billion
Resources About
spent on
seed, equipment, financial services
and other products – and is the
only source of field-level data
connected to owners and
operators. This data powers
agribusiness web applications,
end-to-end marketing services,
licensing and list rental, and custom
data solutions.
Click here to learn more about our

database.

Table of Contents
Click the link to be directed to the chapter.
Chapter 1: How Data Improves Your Marketing
Chapter 2: Top Revenue-Generating Marketing Strategies 

Chapter 3: Investing in the Right Data
Chapter 4: Implementing Data Tools Among Your Team
Chapter 5: Specific Marketing Tactics That Work

Chapter 1: How Data

Improves Your
Marketing
While many agribusinesses base their strategic decisions on instinct and
intuition, there’s always the risk that your instincts may be wrong. That’s
potential revenue and market share that you can’t afford to lose.
Reliable data can be the difference between a decent marketing strategy

and one that knocks it out of the park. Here are a few ways that farm data

can help improve your messaging as you’re marketing to farmers.
Stay relevant amidst shifting

industry trends
Your agriculture industry experience is invaluable in making strategic
marketing decisions. However, as farmers and the industry as a whole
evolve, those “gut feelings” are becoming less reliable and must be
augmented by data and research.
Much of the current conversation around data and technology in

agriculture relates to precision ag. Precision ag is certainly important, but
it’s only one part of the conversation. Another important application of
data and technology is in informing agribusinesses where to invest their
time and money in go-to-market and connecting with growers.
See how small startups overtook their much larger competitors:
How did Amazon beat Borders and Barnes and Noble and later
Walmart?
How did Google top the mighty search firms of the time like Alta
Vista, Yahoo and Excite?
How is your next customer going to choose your firm versus your
competitor?
The answer: these companies all knew their customers. And knowing your
customer begins and ends with data:

Use available market data to make strategic
decisions. Third-party data providers can
provide a massive amount of data on farmers,

their operations, their financial ability, contact

information and more. Use this data analysis to
identify your ideal market, and then focus your
marketing and sales efforts on that specific
Home Data Applications

groupServices
of farmers.
Resources About

G E T S TA RT E D  Customize your marketing efforts for your
audience. Instead of just taking out an ad on an
agriculture media site or magazine, focus your
efforts on reaching your specific audience
where they are. These channels, among others,
provide insights as to how your audience is
behaving so you can respond in a way that’s
tailored to them.

Engage in meaningful and productive sales
conversations that solve for farmers’ needs.
Instead of wasting time having the farmer fill
you in on their operation, let your sales team
use their data intelligence to anticipate and
respond to farmers’ needs, becoming trusted
advisors and building long-term relationships.
If your messaging isn’t tailored to your customer, then you won’t be

providing them with anything of relevance. And if you don’t provide
relevant information, you may lose their business or, worse, see them turn
to one of your competitors.
A complete and accurate data picture will help you objectively understand
your prospects, customers, demand and market(s), helping you make
profit-maximizing decisions. 
Know “who” to communicate (e.g. customers where you are getting

less than 10% of their business)
Know “what” to sell (e.g. a drought-resistant corn hybrid seed)
know “when” to offer (e.g. customers or prospects who just acquired
new farmland
Home Data
in an area of the
Applications
corn belt
Services
that is experiencing
Resources About
drought
conditions)
Know “where” to market (e.g. an email or targeted ad)
Data GisE the

T S TA RT E D
key to understanding
 your customers and the market as a
whole. Watch the video below to illustrate one possible way to access that
data.
MarketView | Business In-

telligence and Strategic
Analysis Platform for Ag-
ribusiness
from Farm Market iD
01:55
Get Started
Modernize your tactics for

marketing to farmers

When it comes to marketing tactics, your gut may tell you to stick to tried
and true. But what if your tried and true methods aren’t helping you reach
your full marketing potential?
Technology, data and information give agribusinesses a competitive edge

in a stagnant and consolidating market. If you want to keep up and
outmaneuver your competitors, modern technology is going to be your
greatest asset. Here are a few examples of the technologies you need.
Customer Record Management (CRM) System
A lot of ag companies we talk to haven’t started using a CRM yet. That

means that if you have one, you’re already a step ahead of the pack.
When you have thousands, hundreds or even just dozens of records,

organizing and maintaining them becomes time-consuming. But not
managing these records just isn’t an option. If two members of your team,
through miscommunication, both contact the same customer or, worse,
someone falls through the cracks, then that could turn into hurt
relationships and lost dollars.
A CRM helps you avoid all of that:
All your records are in one location, so you never have to hunt when
you’re trying to review a customer’s history.
Each team member can have access to your CRM (even if it’s “view-
only”), so everyone can see the same data and be informed about
contacts they’re going after.
If you want to know a customer or prospect’s history at-a-glance, a
CRM puts it in one location where everyone can see it.
If your online activity is limited to a website and the occasional email
newsletter, bringing your contacts into a CRM is an excellent first
step to modernizing your business practices.

Modern Website or Content Management

System (CMS)
Every
Homebusiness
Data needs a website.Services
Applications So if you’re already going
Resources to invest in one,
About
why not maximize its use as a brand and lead generation tool? Here are
some things to keep in mind:

Host your site on an accessible and easily editable
platform. As your business grows and adapts to the
shifting market, your website is going to have to grow
and change too. Agile web editing—being flexible to
make short incremental changes over time—requires
a modern web system to accommodate this.

Help the end user. People go to websites looking for
information, products and services that are going to
help them. While websites do serve a promotional
purpose, the underlying goal is to provide value to the
user. So be sure to invest in educational and
informational content in addition to your standard
product and company descriptions.

Always feature calls-to-action to guide the user
along. When a user visits your site, you have their
attention. Since you’ve already accomplished half the
battle – capturing attention – then go ahead and use
it as an opportunity to drive engagement, whether
that’s to set up a time to talk or get them to subscribe
to your email list.

Email & Marketing Automation Software

If your website is attracting and converting leads, the next step is to
convert those leads into customers. And while traditional marketing
methods do help convert and nurture customers, marketing automation
software makes it easier and scalable.
Here are some ways marketing automation software can help you:
Automate emails to go out a certain amount of time from a

conversion or contact – use this as an opportunity to explain more
about what your business does and how you solve their specific
problems.
Alert salespeople when a lead has engaged in activity with your
business – like visiting your website, clicking on an ad or filling out a
form on your website – so they are reaching out to people who
already have your company on their mind.
These are just a couple of the ways you can use marketing automation
software. It’ll help you better communicate with your customers and bring
more prospects into the fold.
Digital Ad Technology
While direct placement ads on ag media sites can be very effective in

reaching some of your audience, these ads can be expensive and there’s
little to no real way to track results. Fortunately, technology makes it
easier than ever not only to create and distribute ads, but to ensure
they’re being displayed to the right customer.


Programmatic ads. When you combine accurate, up-
to-date ag customer data with programmatic
advertising, you’ll make sure that your display ads
aren’t being displayed on a specific site, but to a
Home Data
specific farmer.
Applications
Whether
Services
your farmer
Resources
is on ESPN or
About
Weather.com, your ad will follow them and make sure
your message stays on the top of their minds.

Programmatic ads. When you combine accurate, up-
to-date ag customer data with programmatic
advertising, you’ll make sure that your display ads
aren’t being displayed on a specific site, but to a
specific farmer. Whether your farmer is on ESPN or
Weather.com, your ad will follow them and make sure
your message stays on the top of their minds.
Digital ad technology also lets you gauge the performance of your ads in
real time, so you know what’s performing well and make adjustments
based on that information.
Target messaging in brand

awareness campaigns, not just
lead gen
Even for agribusinesses that don’t sell direct to farmers, leveraging data to
grow your business’ brand will make your branding initiatives more
effective in achieving your long-term goals.

A lot of branding campaigns in ag involve taking out ads in magazines or

spending a lot of dollars on TV and radio ads – which are expensive to
produce. Those channels may seem to be successful, but here are two
reasons why you may be missing out:

“Success” isn’t quantifiable. You can’t know how many farmers are
seeing your ads, and where they’re viewing them. Are they listening
to the radio in the car or on an app? Where are they reading the
magazine – and how much time do they spend looking at your ad?
You may be spending so much on audience marketing that you don’t
have the wiggle room to invest in and experiment with other channels
– even if those channels are going to be better at brand messaging
and creating a positive ROI for your business.
When you take out a TV, radio or magazine ad, you’re paying for the
advertising space, not the people who see it. While this is beneficial in
terms of influencing the perception of the market and improving your
brand recognition, it won’t guarantee new business.
Fortunately, with the rise of digital technology and marketing automation,

you don’t have to choose—you can invest in targeted ads that will improve
brand awareness among your ideal customers:
For starters, programmatic ads let you deliver your creative to your
ideal audience based on target demographics. So if you want to
deliver a message to Corn/Soy farmers of 500-plus acre farms, you
can make sure your ads reach that audience.
But it extends beyond “typical” digital ads. Use email marketing to
send brand messages directly into those farmers’ inboxes.
Since TV ad placement is incredibly expensive, create a video and
upload it to Facebook and YouTube – the two top social media
channels for farmers.
Plus, there’s the advantage of segmentation. With traditional marketing,

the only control you have in terms of segmentation is where you place the

ad. So if you want to place an ad geared toward commodity farmers in a

commodity trade, then that’s a step in the right direction.
Data-powered digital marketing takes it to the next level. You can create
segments based on whether farmers farm commodities or specialty
crops. Your ads will then be delivered so that only commodity farmers are
seeing your commodity message, and only specialty crop farmers are
seeing your specialty crop message.
You can also see how many farmers are viewing your ads and where
they’re seeing them. And then you can map that against your revenue, to
see if there’s a correlation between increased brand spending and the
revenue you generate from the farmers who engage with your content.
Chapter 2: Top
Revenue-Generating
Marketing Strategies

Now that you’ve seen how data and information technology can help your
agribusiness, here are some marketing strategies that can help you
generate revenue.
Focus on Moving the Needle

Instead of spending time on marketing activities that may be good but not
great, focus on high-impact areas that are actually going to get you closer
to your goal. Find those measurable indicators that you want to drive,
focus only on the actions that lead you toward those, and cut out the stuff
that doesn’t.
Successful marketing campaigns start with the following question: What’s

our primary focus going to be? Here are some examples of campaign
goals and how to map your marketing tactics to those goals:

Brand Authority & Awareness. A brand campaign can
benefit from a combination of audience marketing
and targeted digital marketing, because the ultimate
goal is more awareness of your company among
farmers.

Education. If the market is uneducated on your
products, services or expertise, then it’s your job to
educate them on the value you offer them. Blogs,
eBooks, video, email and social media are all great
channels for sharing educational content with your
audience.


Engagement. Growing your online presence means
not only that you need to generate conversions, but
engagement. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn all
measure engagement by three metrics – likes, shares
Home Data
(or retweets)
Applications
and comment.
Services
TheseAbout
Resources
campaigns
require content that people are going to want to
share within the social media application.

Conversion. Generating a conversion means that you
need to serve ads to potential customers, so targeted
marketing is going to be your best bet here. Make
sure that the value and offer are clear, the call-to-
action is easy to follow and that there’s an enticing
reason to click.
This will provide a foundation for you to track and measure your campaign
after you’ve deployed it. So choose your primary goal and map your tactics
to that goal.
Market to Your Current

Customers
Start by going after the low-hanging fruit. There are plenty of advantages
to going after your current customers. You already have a relationship with
them, they’re already familiar with your brand, and you know they’re a
good fit. And while you shouldn’t focus only on your current customers as
a source of business, they’re a great place to start.

There’s data out there to help you analyze your share of wallet among
those customers, and see where there’s opportunity to improve.
Knowing the details about your customers’ farm operations is going to

help you better identify additional products that can help them—and
improve your revenue at the same time.
Find Ideal Pockets in the Market

to Penetrate
Marketing and prospecting are expensive endeavors, but that doesn’t
mean you should completely give them up. Instead, look for strategic and
focused ways to expand your footprint in a way that reduces upfront
investment and increases the potential payoff.
You should focus on the farmers that have a good chance of doing
business with you to maximize every dollar you’re investing in marketing.
That means you should find your ideal market and focus on marketing to
those farmers. Your ideal market may be Corn/Soy growers in the
Midwest. Or it could be farmers with a certain level of gross farm income
on the West Coast. Or it could be all farmers in the U.S. who farm 500+
acres of cotton.
Instead on focusing on “The Market” in the abstract, dig deep into your
ideal customer through use of the data and information available to you.
Use it to determine what your target market is; that is, the traits and
demographics of your ideal customers.
There are many ways to segment your target market. Here are just a few:
Geographic territory (region, division, state or county)

Size of the operation (Gross Farm Income or number of acres farmed)

Type of operation (commodity vs. specialty, organic vs. non-organic,

etc.)
Demographics of the farmer (age, gender, etc.)
Prospect vs. current customer

Using this data, you can create segments within your target market to
customize and target your marketing messages.
Try New Things

When uncertainty hits the market, it’s natural to double down on channels
you’re familiar with. But consider the counter-intuitive alternative:
uncertainty in the market makes it the perfect time to try new things.
One reason for this is that it’s another way to outmaneuver your
competition. If everyone else is doubling down on familiar channels like
direct mail and direct placement ads, then the market is wide open in
other channels, like targeted programmatic ads and Facebook ads. Also,
while you may have had success and generated revenue from familiar
channels, there may be other channels that can bring you to your revenue
goal even faster.
That doesn’t mean you dump your entire marketing budget into a new
channel. Start with a $50 investment in targeted Facebook Ads, for
example. If you generate business from it, then up the price, and then
consider making even bigger investments in other kinds of direct ads.
Experiment with new channels—especially different channels integrated

with a consistent message—to see what can positively influence your
business revenue.

Be Deliberate in the Frequency

and Timing of Your Messages
You should also be intentional about how and when you deploy your ads.
You could have the best ad with the best message, but delivered at the
G Etime
wrong T S T Ait
R Tcould
ED be ineffective,
 or worse, detrimental to your marketing
efforts.
Look at the frequency of your messages. You don’t want to send too many
messages so as to overwhelm them. On the other hand, sending too few
communications means that you’ll lose their attention over time and
become less and less interesting to them.
Here are some factors that could influence how frequent you
communicate with a farmer:
Size of the purchase. Larger purchases require longer sales cycles,

and your marketing communications will need to keep those
customers engaged over that longer period.
Industry news and events. The other factor to consider is timing
relative to what’s happening in the news and the industry. You want
your marketing messages to be relevant to what your farmers are
experiencing.
Events impacting the farm. There are times of the year where the
farmer is interested in your product or service and there are times
when they aren’t. Timing your communications accordingly can keep
you from getting off on the wrong foot.
Integrate Marketing Channels to

Increase Your Impact

Marketers have an expansive set of marketing tools available to them

thanks to modern technology. With all of these options, there’s no reason
you should limit yourself to one channel.
Test and experiment with the right combination of ads that will give you
the most value. For example, you could use targeted programmatic ads to
get attention, Facebook ads to re-engage, and email to follow up and
nurture leads until they’re ready to talk to sales.
One of the core principles of integrated marketing is to have a consistent

message across the campaign. That way, each subsequent message
builds on the previous messages and you’re building a presence in the
mind of your farmers.
(Read More About Integrated Marketing Campaigns)
Measure Results and Analyze to

Improve Future Campaigns
The biggest advantage that comes from modern digital marketing is the
ability to measure and track results and adjust the ads over time. That way,
you’re always looking at the effectiveness of your campaigns and seeing
what works and what doesn’t.
This is where you go back to your campaign objective you established at

the beginning. Since that’s clearly defined, measuring results should be
easy:
Brand authority & awareness should be measured in terms of ad

reach, number of views and impressions
Education should be measured in terms of the number of qualified
leads that are going to your sales team

Engagement should be measured in terms of likes, comments, shares

and clicks
Conversion should be measured in terms of number of leads
generated and the conversion rates for those leads into new
customers
Once you have a goal, have built a campaign, and are tracking the results
of that campaign, you’ve set up an ongoing process that gives you a leg up
G E T S T A R Tsuccess
in generating ED and
 results for your business.
Get the Whole Team on Board

Just one person using data isn’t going to have a company-wide impact.
That’s why you must work to get the whole team—executives and
leadership, marketers and salespeople—engaged and on board if you want
to move the needle. Getting everyone basing their decisions on the same
data helps you get the whole business moving in the same direction.
This can be daunting. A lot of teams are hesitant to disrupt their marketing
or sales processes. “This is the way we’ve always done it” may have
worked in the past, and no one wants to rock the boat.
As a leader, there are two ways you can get people to adopt data:
Mandate data use from the top-down. This is probably the most
efficient way to get people on board. While it may seem harsh,
sometimes the best way to get everyone using data is to make it a
requirement. Your team may actually adapt quickly to the new way of
doing things.
Get buy-in from the bottom-up. Start getting buy-in from your team
and focus on the people who are using data effectively and
increasing their results through using it. Publicly comment on this
during your team meetings. Show your marketing and sales teams

how they stand to benefit if they use data in their marketing and sales
processes.
These two methods aren’t mutually exclusive. You’ll likely use a

combination of the two approaches. But the end goal is the same: get your
people using data so you can see the impact it will have on your entire
company.
Chapter 3: Investing in
the Right Data
Executing these marketing strategies requires data and information to
drive targeted marketing. When push comes to shove, bad data results in
lost dollars instead of a significant return on investment.
But finding that information is easier said than done. Here are some ways
you can make sure you’re investing in the right agriculture data.

How to find an agriculture data

partner
Even though good data is going to be more expensive in the short term,
you stand to make a better return over the long haul, which means more
G E T Sfor
business T A Ryou.
TED 
If you want data that’s reliable, gives you insights that you can actually
execute against and that’s going to keep up with your business over time,
you need someone who has a track record in managing and maintaining
data. Here are some ways you’ll know that you’ve got a good data provider:

They know their stuff. When you sit and talk with
someone from the company – especially if it’s
someone on their data management and data
science team – you can tell that they know what
they’re talking about.

They show you, rather than tell you. A lot of
companies talk about their product. But you want
someone who’s willing to show you their product.
That’s a company that’s so confident in what they do
that they’ll just let the product tell the story for them.

They answer questions substantively. Probably the
worst thing that could happen is if you ask a question,
and the person from the company either ignores the
question or gives you a trite answer. Actually, it’s

worse when that person gets defensive around the

subject matter when the question is asked. If they
can’t respond to a little push-back, then they’re not
going to be a good fit for you in the long-term.
A short-term data rental may help you close a couple deals and make a
few quick
G E T S bucks.
T A R T E D But a trusted
 partner who’s the best source for
agriculture information is going to help you grow your business and build a
reputable brand over the long haul.
If a company provides data as a side piece to their main business model,

then that data isn’t going to be maintained as regularly and diligently as a
company whose primary source of business is through data.
For example, a publishing company may collect data on the farmers they
serve over time, either through subscriptions or surveys. So they may say
that they have a lot of data on farmers and then want to turn around and
sell that to ag companies (ignoring the fundamental flaws that exist in
survey data). That data won’t be the same quality as a company that’s
completely devoted to managing and maintaining a database.
Also remember: you get what you pay for. Good farm data is going to
come with a price tag. But it’s important to think about data in the long
term. You may save a buck on cheap data now, but over time that data’s
going to lead to bad deals and wasted sales rep time – wasted money.
But if you go ahead and invest in high quality data, then you’ll get better
information, which leads to a better strategy, marketing and sales
campaign, which then leads to more deals in the end.
Learn More About FMiD Data

How to determine if the data is

high-quality
If you have bad data, you’ll get bad insights, which lead to bad business
decisions, which lead to losses for your business. So if you’re going to
investG EinT farm
S TA RT E D
data, make
 sure you’re looking for high quality farm data.
High quality farm data providers are going to test their results against a
number of sources. Ideally, you’ll get someone who cross references
public (USDA, FSA, etc.) and private (proprietary third-party data) sources.
Even if a given data provider has multiple sources for their data, it’s
important to look beyond the numbers themselves and ask yourself: how
did they collect this data?
For example, if a provider used surveys to collect their farm data, that
would be a problem. Here’s why:
Surveys incentivize inaccurate reporting – both under- and over-

reporting – because of the incentives associated with them
Surveys are subject to selection bias, where only those interested in
the survey end up reporting, leading to a skewed and limited number
of respondents
Most surveys can’t account for overlapping acres, or the distinction
between land owned versus land operated
Any collection methods that involve surveys, polling or anything similar

aren’t going to deliver reliable results. A good data provider is going to
know this and will give you data that comes from objective sources.
Companies that provide high quality farm data know that their data is high
quality, and don’t need to be mysterious about it. Transparency is a clear
sign that you’ve found a high quality farm data provider.
Here are some questions to ask:


Where did the data come from?

How often do you update the data?
What process do you use to update the data?
How does your data compare to other sources?

If you have a data provider that has high coverage, accuracy, and procures
data from a variety of testable sources – and the data delivers strategy,
marketing and sales results for your business – then you know you have a
G E T S T Afarm
high quality R T E D data provider.

How is Farm Market iD Data Different…

Different…
Case Study: Should Your

Agribusiness Go After Millennial
Farmers?
Let’s look at an example of how high-quality data can inform strategic
marketing decisions. The Millennial Farmer is a highly sought-after

demographic and there’s a lot of talk about Millennials in our industry.

Instead of assuming that Millennials make up a valuable market for ag,
let’s actually examine the question: should we be focused on the Millennial
farmer?
Millennials make up the smallest percentage

of growers (excl. GenZ)
G E T S TA RT E D

So who is farming in America right now? Let’s put it this way: agriculture is
a “booming” market, since Baby Boomers own and operate the majority of
farmers. On the other hand, Millennials are a small group compared to the
overall market. By small, we mean less than five percent. Take a look at the
breakdown showing the percentage of growers by generation:
You can see that three-quarters of all growers are ages 55 and older. Plus,
the Silent Generation – ages 74 and older – makes up a larger percentage
of the market than GenX and Millennials combined.
Here’s what happens when we drill down into Corn/Soy growers:

The numbers don’t shift much, but the little shifts are worth noting:
Baby Boomers remain the majority

The Silent Generation makes up a smaller share of the market by
1.5%
Generation X and Millennials absorb the remaining share by 1.0% and
0.3%, respectively
Let’s see what happens when we drill down even further and look at
Corn/Soy growers in seven states with over 10 million planted acres of
Corn and/or Soy:

Whether we look at the overall market, a high-value crop demographic

or geographic area with high acreage, the results are the same: Millennials
make up a sliver of the market compared to older generations.
What does this mean for you? It confirms what we all know – that the ag
market is an older market. That means that the Millennial demographic is
likely not where you’re going to find the most opportunity.
Reaching Your Addressable Market: Channel

Counts for Each Generation
This high-level analysis is only helpful if you can execute against it. So
after we examine the aggregate data, eventually you’ll have to push this
down from strategy to marketing and sales.
Here’s some data on the coverage from four marketing and sales channels
– mailing address, landline, mobile phones and email (which can be used
for both email marketing and social media):

Addresses are covered at nearly 100% regardless of age. But looking at

the trends for the other three channels yields interesting results:
1. Landline matches increase overall with growers’ age – although

there’s an interesting uptick of landlines among young Millennials and
GenZ
2. Mobile phone matches decrease as growers’ age increases
3. The highest email address coverage comes from older Generation X
and younger Baby Boomer farmers
Not only do Millennials not dominate the market overall, but they really
don’t dominate any one particular marketing channel. The bottom line
here: while you shouldn’t completely ignore the Millennial farmer, neither
should you put an undue focus on them.
The industry mostly consists of older farmers and while we’ll have to wait
and see what the future holds, today your best shot at increasing revenue
is to go after older farmers and earn their business – with the long-term
goal of staying in business with them when the farm changes hands.
Segmenting and Going After

Your Target Audience

Modern technology puts more power in the marketer’s hands. Instead of

blasting your message out and hoping the right person will stumble across
it, you can build and market to the perfect audience for your own business.
If this sounds too good to be true, it isn’t. Building the perfect audience for
your business and marketing to them is something that’s within your
reach. Here is a step-by-step guide.
Start with your value proposition – and work

backwards
The ultimate goal for your agribusiness has been, is and always will be
revenue. Every step you take in strategy, marketing and sales should get
you closer to your revenue number.
Take a look at the products and services you offer. Then take a look at
your number. And then ask yourself:
Who’s the best audience to get me to that number by purchasing my

products and services?
Who’s going to benefit the most from what you’re offering?
Either way, building your perfect audience means starting with your value
proposition and working backwards.
Talk to your current customers, analyze internal customer data, and

remember that your current customer may not be your ideal customer, so
consider other potential use cases from your customers.
Identify the 6-10 demographics of your ideal

audience

After you have an idea of the kind of people who comprise your ideal
audience, then you can start quantifying that to guide your research. The
key is to look at your ideal audience that you determined in the previous
section and make it more concrete by assigning specific demographics to
it: Home Data Applications Services Resources About
Crop type / rotation pattern

Gross Farm Income
Number of acres farmed
Specialty vs. commodity
Geographic location
Number of individual farm fields operated
Amount of land owned, not just operated
These are just a few examples – the Farm Market iD database has over
200 demographics to choose from, so you can see how detailed and
granular you can get with your audience. Then repeat this process for as
many segments as you have.
Build your prospect lists based on those

demographics
Then take those demographics and use them to guide and focus your
prospect research efforts. A third-party data source is going to be your
best bet if you want to maximize your investment and minimize lost
opportunities. It will allow you to find new farmers so you can focus your
spend and resources on farmers who will be responsive.
This isn’t some abstract concept that involves guesswork. Here are some
of the tangible benefits you get from this kind of data-targeted marketing:
When you segment growers based on objective criteria for who is the
best fit for your business, your audience size goes down but the
percentage of likely customers goes up.

By using data to understand the context around the grower’s

operation, you can communicate directly to their needs and offer the
solution that helps them improve their day-to-day.
Using reliable, up-to-date information, you can segment growers into
groupsData
Home
whereApplications
you can deliver targetedResources
Services
communications –
About
email,
direct mail, digital ads and social media – directly to them.
Fine tune your segments to get as detailed as

G E T S TA RT E D
possible
If you want to communicate with your audience with as personalized a

message as possible, then you need to develop your communications
specific to key market segments. Let’s use an example using real-life ag
data. In this example, you work for a hypothetical agribusiness that does
business primarily in Midwest states with Corn/Soy growers.
Right off the bat, you can start to narrow in on that audience by limiting it
to your addressable market. There are nearly 950,000 Corn/Soy growers
in the Midwest and while these make up the largest segment of growers in
the country, it eliminates a significant chunk of the market.
Here’s a breakdown of the Midwest Corn/Soy growers by state so you can

see where they’re located:
State Growers
Illinois 120,390
Indiana 82,819
Michigan 107,015
Ohio 79,726

Wisconsin 77,922
Iowa 113,209
Kansas 73,628
Minnesota 93,359
Missouri 62,455
Nebraska 68,003
North Dakota 28,828
South Dakota 40,583
With the right data, you could go on a more detailed county-by-county

analysis. Using the data at your disposal, you can segment and select the
operations with the largest number of operations farming 500+ acres of
Corn/Soy:
County 500+ 1000+
Cass, ND 634 405
Mc Lean, IL 518 220
Champaign,
495 204
IL
Brown, SD 484 284
Livingston,
437 169
IL
Renville,
436 241
MN

Minnehaha, 397 144

SD
La Salle, IL 390 162
Home Data Iroquois, Services

Applications IL 389
Resources 171About
Richland,
387 247
G E T S TA RT E D
ND

Lancaster,
377 130
NE
Kossuth, IA 364 144
Plymouth,
348 129
IA
Grand
347 187
Forks, ND
Spink, SD 347 241
Sangamon,
343 163
IL
Redwood,
341 112
MN
Stutsman,
329 203
ND
Platte, NE 326 122
Sioux, IA 325 97
You can continue drilling down into these segments which, while small,
ensure that you can target the farmers who are most likely to do business

with you. By targeting an audience of likely customers, your marketing and

sales efforts will go farther.
But this kind of segmentation isn’t just for prospects. Examine customers
and prospects to better align your resources to available market
opportunity.
It may be more effective to focus on sub-markets where you have low

market
G E Tshare
S T A R Tthen
ED say markets
 where your share is above 80%. Customer
marketing should develop into wallet share, lifetime value, frequency,
engagement, etc. to maximize your efforts there.
For a more detailed view on how you can segment market data to enhance
your targeted marketing efforts, watch the video below.
FarmFocus | Data-
Powered, Precision Mar-
keting Software
from Farm Market iD
04:45
Get Started

Chapter 4:
Implementing Data
Tools Among Your
Team
When deciding whether to invest in data for your marketing team, there’s
a lot to consider. Budget and finances certainly factor in. You may also be
considering the impact on your most valuable resource: time.
Think of all the hours you spend in meetings discussing and theorizing
about where the market is going and how farmers are responding to your
marketing efforts. What if you could circumvent all those meetings by
having the answer – and answer based on cold, hard facts – at your
disposal?
Here are some examples where data contradicts the conventional wisdom
in the industry:
The Millennial Farmer. There’s a lot of talk about the Millennial Farmer
and how they’re taking over the industry. However, our data
shows that the average age of the farmer is going up, not down. 
Social media. Instinct and intuition tells people that ag media sites

and direct mail pieces, but the numbers show that at least 46 percent
of farmers are active on social media, especially channels like
Facebook and YouTube.

Additionally, beware the trap of saying “we know all our customers.” While
you certainly know the people you’re doing business with, there’s no way
you know all the potential customers out there in the market. Let’s take a
G E the
look at T S Tnumber
ARTED of active
 growers there are and the acreages they
farm:
Farm
Size
Growers
(acres)
25+ 997,802
50+ 794,119
100+ 589,809
250+ 341,971
500+ 198,863
750+ 134,244
1000+ 96,715
Even if you focus only on 1000+ acre farms, that’s still a large market
that’s difficult to address in its entirety. There are more growers out there
than you realize, so be open-minded to where you can hunt and find new
customers for your agribusiness.
In addition to general, strategic decisions around who the target market is

and where you should be focusing your efforts, data analysis helps the

marketer make decisions in executing against those segments. Here are

some of the questions data helps you answer:

Home Data Who is the Services
Applications right audience? Your
Resources current
About audience
may not be the right audience. Analyze data to

understand who the best fit for your business is –
G E T S TA RT E D whether
 that’s a grower that farms a particular crop
or a specific size of operation – and build your
marketing lists from there.

What are they responding to? Different messages
are going to resonate with different segments of
your audience. The more specific and contextual you
are in your messaging, the more likely your audience
is to engage with your content. Use the data at your
disposal to see what content is performing among
your audience and adjust your messaging
accordingly.

When is the best time to communicate with your
audience? Timing is everything, especially in a
seasonal industry like ag. The ability to respond to
key events in real time and offer a contextual offer
that helps the farmer – that’s going to set your
marketing efforts apart from the competition.


Where and on what channels are they more likely to
engage with your content? The farmer is going to be
active on multiple channels. You have to identify
where the best places are to communicate with
Home Data
them.
Applications Services Resources About
WhenG Etime
T S T Aand money 
RTED are tight, nothing should be sacred. Everything you
invest in should be under a microscope for you to see what needs to
continue and what needs to be cut. Your marketing activities should be no
different.
But how do you decide what marketing activities should continue on?
That’s another reason why engaging in targeted marketing can be to your
benefit. There are many marketing activities that don’t maximize your
return on investment. Data analysis can show you where you’re falling
short.
There may be benefits to investing in traditional audience marketing like

radio and TV ads, but it’s difficult to track the ROI unless you’re using a
dedicated email, phone number and landing page in your call-to-action.
But if you want to gain leads through your marketing efforts, you have to
double down on the channels that work and eliminate the ones that don’t.
Here are some questions you can start asking and metrics you can start
measuring today:
Can I clearly tie revenue to this particular marketing activity? If not,

how am I measuring the value/success of this channel? If so, what’s
the revenue generated compared to the overall spend (i.e. ROI)?
Can I clearly see who is viewing the content I’m sharing on this
channel? Can I gather detailed demographics on the audience and/or
ensure that I’m only targeting the segments that work for my
agribusiness?

Am I able to adapt/adjust the content/creative when circumstances

change?
Can I contextualize the message to the particular segment? Say, I
want to say something different to Corn/Soy growers versus
specialty
Home Data
crops? Or to larger
Applications
operations
Services
versus smaller?
Resources About
If the answer to those questions is “no”, then start asking some tougher
questions:
What benefit are we receiving from this channel? Is it “moving the
needle” in terms of the business?
Are we focusing on “vanity metrics” rather than driving actual
engagement with customers and potential customers?
Is there a way we can do what this channel does, but better? For
instance, investing in a TV ad may be something you do, but can you
broadcast that content as a pre-roll targeting your customers so you
know you’re reaching the right audience?
By answering all these questions, you can find the best places, times and
content to engage your audience and drive them to do business with you:
You can identify the channels that are easily measurable

You can identify the audiences that engage/resonate with your
marketing communications
You can identify the specific ads/messages/content that’s
performing well among your audience
You can identify the products/services that these audiences are
more likely to engage with
By reducing costs and increasing spend on activities that generate a

better return, you can see faster growth for your agribusiness.
Building Buy-In from Other

Stakeholders 
Unless you’re a small company, you probably aren’t the only stakeholder
who needs to be involved in the decision to invest in ag data. Whether it’s
your leadership or other departments, part of your job is to build buy-in so
that everyone who needs to sees the value that data offers. Here are a few
ways to help
Home
makeApplications
Data
that happen: Services Resources About
Tie everything back to revenue

Revenue is the ultimate goal you work toward in terms of marketing and
sales. Show how you can bring in more revenue in the long haul by making
an investment in farm data. Here are some ways you can help make that
case:
Farm income & spend potential. It costs money to acquire a new

customer. By knowing the size of the farm operations in a particular
segment of the market, you can focus on those customers that are
going to get you closer to your revenue goal, and not those that aren’t
going to purchase your product or service.
Acreage & farm size. Depending on the specific products and
services you offer to farmers, you may be looking for smaller versus
larger farmers (or vice versa). Focus on the farmers who can benefit
from what you offer.
Crop type & rotation pattern. Whether you want farmers with row
crops or looking for a specific specialty crop, being able to sort out
what farmers are growing can help you avoid wasting time on
customers who don’t align with what you have to offer.
Owner vs. Operator. To make the most of your sales conversation, it’s
important to know not only who owns the farm, but who operates it.
That way, you ensure that you’re talking to the person who’s going to
make the buying decision.
You don’t just want to show that the data will pay for itself – you want to
demonstrate that the data can maximize your marketing and sales spend
and bring in significant new revenues for your agribusiness.

Demonstrate how this will open new

opportunities to market and sell
AsHome
your business
Data grows overall footprint
Applications Services and your market
Resources share, knowing
About
where those prime opportunities for growth can help you focus marketing
and sales in a direction that’s going to help you achieve real results. With
2.4 million
G E T S Tgrowers
ARTED in the
 market, it’s unlikely that you know every single
grower in your target market (here’s an analysis where we break that

down).
Plus, some companies make the mistake that their current customer is
their ideal customer. While there’s a lot to learn from current customers –
clearly, since they’re the people who have actually purchased from you –
there may be segments of the market out there that are also a good fit for
your business that you aren’t considering. For example, look at oat
growers in a handful of states:
You can see where various growers are and the size of their farming
operations. Knowing this can help you decide where to target your
marketing and sales efforts. This shows that you’re not only increasing
revenue but the business’ overall impact on the ag market.

Learn more about your current customers
Not only can good ag data help you learn about new market opportunities,
but also your current customers. Even if you’ve done business with your
customers for a long time, the circumstances impacting their operations
is bound to change the products or services they’re interested in – or
whether they’re in a position to continue doing business with you.
But knowing the impact of external and internal factors on your current
customers extends far beyond those things. You should understand the
history of the operation and what they’ve been farming and how much
acreage is allocated to each crop type. You should look at the
relationships your customers have with other growers to see if there are
other opportunities to grow there. You should see which of your
customers have more spend potential than you’re taking advantage of so
you can go after them and increase your share of wallet.
Show stakeholders how this detailed farm data can help improve those
already existing relationships and further solidify the foundation on which
your business rests.

Show how this will make your whole

company more efficient
Not only does

Home DatadataApplications
help you make strategicResources
Services decisions, but when you “push
About
it to the edge” and properly implement it among all the members of your
team, it helps align everyone around the right customers and toward your
revenue
G E T goal.
S TA RT E D 
This increases efficiency by arming everyone with the information to

reach that goal, so everyone can spend their time on decision-making and
execution:
Strategic leaders make decisions based on market data

Marketing leaders deploy communications and start conversations
with specific segments
Sales leaders go after individual farmers and move the conversation
to a close
That means that marketing is being strategic, sales is selling to who

marketing is communicating with, and strategists are listening to
salespeople and the data at their disposal to adjust the overall strategy.
No IT Team? No Problem!
Some agribusinesses may feel that they need an IT team in order to
process and interpret the data analysis. If you have someone in your
company who can own the data analysis side of things, that’s great.
However, if you don’t, you can still take advantage of the information that
good data has to offer you.
Although it may be tempting to write off data and information insights as

something you can’t do without an IT team, the reality is that without
these insights, you’re going to have a hard time staying on top of the 
market. Even if you think you know your growers, chances are you’re
missing some and your competitors are certainly researching and finding
ways to grow their market and wallet share.
Thankfully, with the rise of new technologies to help non-IT people

analyze and interpret data, it’s easier to gain these insights than before.
Here are some tips to get started.
Start with what you know
When you don’t have an IT team to help you get started, it’s probably a
good idea to dip a toe into the water first. There’s a lot of data and
information out there, and if you want it to be helpful to you, it’s best to
start with what you know.
For example, if you know that having access to a farm’s crop rotation
pattern is going to help you make decisions when selling to them, then
start by accessing that data. If you know that you want to reach out to
farmers that farm more than 500 acres, use that data to narrow down
your audience for marketing and sales purposes.
Over time, you’ll get a hand of the kinds of data and analysis that can help
you and your team gain insights. But start with what you know and build
your information from there.
Invest in data you can access and analyze
As someone whose job isn’t about data analysis, the less time you spend
looking at data and the more time you spend putting that data to use, the
better. Thus your data shouldn’t just be accurate and comprehensive; it
needs to be accessible.

For example, business intelligence tools can take massive amounts of

market data and analyze and visualize key insights from them. Market
share, wallet share, and opportunities to expand your footprint come
through tools like these.

Of course, modern marketers also have their fingers in data, using
segmentation to target smaller, focused lists of farmers in order to deliver
personalized messages. The more information you have on these
segments, the better your messaging is going to be.
Salespeople also are familiar with customer relationship management

(CRM) technology that lets you view information on a grower by grower
basis, bringing information from multiple sources together to give you a
full picture.
Use the insights from this data to drive results
The end goal of an investment in data is to drive results – real, tangible

results like revenue growth. This is where the “rubber meets the road” so
to speak.
However, all data can do is provide information to you. The responsibility

for taking that data and using it to drive success and growth for your
agribusiness rests on you – the ag professional.
Identify opportunities for revenue growth through footprint, market

share and wallet share analysis to inform and drive business strategy
Communicate with the best audiences for your company through
targeted marketing efforts
Understand the details of the operation before you begin a sales
conversation to position yourself to close the deal
Take the contextualized data at your disposal and use it to achieve real
revenue results, helping your agribusiness remain stable in the midst of a
changing and evolving market.

Aligning the Whole Team Around

Data
Silos are great for grain storage. But they’re horrible for business.
It’s easy
G E T for
S T Ayour
R T E D business
 to fall into the silo trap, where marketing does
marketing and sales does sales – all within their own vacuums and echo
chambers. Typically, silos start to form when the following happens:
Nonaligned priorities
Lack of information flow
Lack of coordinated decision making across silos
If one – or all – of these things are happening to you, then chances are
you’ve fallen into the silo trap.
Fortunately, reversing this process is within your reach. And when you’re
using data to drive your decision making, then it’s even easier for you and
your whole team.
Here are a few tips for avoiding silos, moving to a 360-degree view and,
ultimately, integrating your strategy, marketing and sales.
Get everyone on the same page – with facts
One of the biggest contributors to a siloed operation is different teams

using different facts and data. Sales teams gather insights from decision
makers, customer service from end users, and marketing from the market
as a whole.
While individual insights gathered from each team are valuable, they
should validate, rather than provide, the information that guides the whole
team. That’s because they don’t give you the full picture. 
Instead, start with data gathered from fact-based sources, and then use
individual insights to augment and complement that data. Use this data as
the bridge that aligns your marketing and sales efforts, making sure that
both teams are going after the same people.
Make sure everyone is using the same tools

Disintegrated data is just one contributor to misalignment. Another is the
use of a myriad of tools across your teams.
For example, if your sales team is using a CRM that doesn’t integrate with
your marketing software, marketing doesn’t get to benefit from the
insights of the sales team, and vice versa. And when it comes down to it,
it’s one unified funnel.
A good first step is to give everyone access to your company’s CRM – at

least to be able to read. It’s even better if the CRM integrates with your
marketing automation tools. That way the entire path to purchase is
tracked for everyone to see.
Collect feedback from other team members
Executives are responsible for making strategic decisions, but if those

decisions aren’t informed by marketing and sales insights, then it’s
possible the strategy won’t be actionable.
People in any discipline can inadvertently put blinders on and become

overly focused on what they’re doing. And that’s not always a bad thing.
But when tunnel vision accompanies an already siloed organization, then

no one is going to be rowing in the same direction, which, at the end of the
day, is revenue.

While marketing people are best positioned to make marketing decisions

and sales management are positioned to make sales decisions, it’s always
a good idea to gain insights from other team to provide a more holistic
perspective.

And when you share information and start from a common framework of
data, it’s easier for everyone involved to be informed when offering
feedback and suggestions, so you not only get varied feedback, but
informed feedback.
Don’t assume
In an industry as established as agriculture, assumptions and intuition are

a part of how we operate.
But in an age of disruption and evolution, assumptions are less valuable

than you’d think. The market is changing, and it’s changing at breakneck
speed. If your strategy, marketing and sales teams are good at what they
do, they’re evolving their own practices to keep up with changing times.
Here are some assumptions you shouldn’t make:
Don’t assume your marketers are marketing the same way they were
a decade ago. And if they, don’t assume the market is going to
respond to the message the same way.
Don’t assume that your ideal customer is synonymous with your
current customer. It’s possible that there are pockets of opportunity
that you aren’t even aware of.
Don’t assume that your products or services still offer the same value
to farmers. Technology, automation, and a down economy all mean
that farmers are re-evaluating what actually offers value to them.
If you make these assumptions, it’s possible that they’ll pan out. But then
again, they may not. You sure you want to take that risk?

Having fact-based data that inform your decision making and guides
marketing and sales teams is the key to avoiding assumptions and making
informed, actionable decisions.
Establish
Home Data
a Applications
true S-M-S cycle
Services Resources About
We talk a lot about howstrategy should inform marketing which, in turn,

G E T S TA RT E D
informs sales. However, this isn’t a linear process, but a cyclical one.
If your sales team is truly focused on learning about customers and

gaining insights on how your business can best help them, then those
insights should inform the strategy process, working with your market
data to provide a 360-degree picture of who your ideal customer is.
When this is all together, you’ll build a true S-M-S cycle that involves
continual planning, data, and execution to achieve business success.
Chapter 5: Specific
Marketing Tactics That 
Work
Integrated Marketing
ThereG Eare
T S near
T A R T Ecountless
D  ways to communicate your brand, products and
message with the farmers you’re trying to reach. The best campaigns take
your top-performing channels and bring them together in an integrated
effort.
If a farmer sees a branded ad as a pre-roll video, and then receives an

email in their inbox with the same information, they’re more likely to open
and click the email – simply because they’re already familiar with it.
Know the farmers that you’re marketing to and the messages that they’ll
respond to, and make sure to broadcast those messages across your
channels, using data to make them targeted and precise. While this may
sound like a hefty operation, it’s a lot simpler and more intuitive than it
sounds. Here are some tips we’ve found to make you integrated marketing
campaigns effective and successful.

Focus on a single objective for each campaign. An
effective integrated marketing campaign is focused
on a specific objective that grounds all the creative
and channels. As far as choosing what that objective
actually is, that’s up to you. Building brand awareness,
generating leads for large purchases, selling your
products online—these are all examples of objectives
that you can center your campaign around.


Tie your content offer to your objective. While your
integrated marketing campaign has only one
objective, you can use many different types of
content to reach that objective. If you’re running a
Home Data
lead gen campaign,
Applications Services
don’t create ads
Resources
that take people
About
to click to a purchase page. Instead, offer some type
of content that’s going to solve a problem their
having.

Get inside your personas’ heads. Your buyer personas
help you focus your marketing messaging by keeping
top of mind the kinds of content, wording and online
experience that will engage them. As a marketer, it’s
important to get inside your personas’ heads so you
can predict how they’ll behave when they see and
interact with your marketing content. This is how
you’ll bridge the gap between where your potential
customers are and where your product or service is.

Identify the best channels for that persona. Not all
marketing channels are creating equal. You want to
select the channels used in your campaign based on
where that persona is most likely to have a positive
interaction with your content. For example, if you
know that they’re regularly checking in and watching
videos on major news sites, targeted programmatic
pre-roll video will be a better solution for you.


Develop a consistent ad theme. An integrated
campaign only works when it’s integrated. That
means that across all channels, personas and
verticals, your ads are pointed toward the same
Home Data
objective and
Applications
use similar
Services
messaging.
Resources
Get your
About
prospects to connect the dots, because they’re going
to have already developed a positive perception in
their mind. That means that every step in the
process, they’re going to be more willing to let their
guard down and listen to what you have to say.

Customize your creative. Because of the power that
marketing technology gives companies,
personalization is pretty much expected from
consumers today. Another important best practice is
to use data and technology to personalize for each
individual. Big Data opens up the door to more
personalization options. For example, email merge
tags let you personalize names, locations and more
for each send. Some websites can store cookies so
that when visitors return to your site, they receive a
different message than the first time they visit.

Coordinate your deployments. Make sure that you
time your ads based on what the right cadence for
your personas is. Too quickly will overwhelm them,
but too slowly means that they’re going to be less
likely to respond to each one. It’s important to
coordinate not just based on internal factors, but
external ones as well. Make sure that you’re
coordinating your deployments with what’s

happening in the world, so it looks like you’re

cognizant of more than just your own business.

Home Data Don’t “set itServices
Applications and forget it.” You’re going
Resources About to collect so
much data from your ad campaigns that are going to

help you optimize ads throughout. It’s crucial to
G E T S TA RT E D consistently
 analyze and optimize throughout the
campaign, so you can ensure you’re getting the best
results over the course of the entire engagement.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a well-known, proven method of communicating with
customers, prospects and the market in general. For every $1 spent, email
marketing generates $38 in ROI.
If you already have a customer file with email addresses, or you’ve

recently acquired email addresses for those customers through data
append, then that’s a great place to start. Before you send, however,
validate the emails. This will maximize deliverability and inboxing by
finding the records that don’t have an email. In other channels, a bad
address, phone number, or errant ad delivery will certainly be ineffective,
but the impact is isolated. Not so with email.
With email marketing, the ISPs (e.g. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc).
evaluate you, the sender, through a number of ways; your IP Address and
sending domain, your email message, and most importantly, the response
of their recipient users.
Here are some signs you have bad emails in your CRM:

More than 10 percent of emails are undeliverable

Your file contains any spam traps
More 0.1 percent of recipients mark your email as spam
Finding new customers through email – called Acquisition Email

Marketing – is the most difficult of all the email marketing types.
Most (nearly all) marketing automation software and email providers

simply
G Esteer
T S T A Rclear
T E D of this
 type of campaign. They prohibit sending
unsolicited emails through their platforms because of the issues around
deliverability and inboxing (see the first section above for a list of these
issues).
As a result, navigating these challenges is going to be challenging and

require an adept hand. Here are some rules to help you out.
Don’t use your regular CRM sending domain. Although this may help
you reach your prospects’ inbox, any deliverability issues you come
across will impede all of your email sends going forward.
Carefully monitor the ratio of positive to negative engagement.
Positive engagement includes opens and clicks, and negative
engagements include unopens and spam complains.
Optimize your emails for positive engagement. Be relevant and
specific, ensure that your email meets technical specifications
(download this free guide for a checklist), perform A/B tests on
campaigns before sending and always learn and improve as you go
along.
ISPs are continuously changing their email filter rules, audience

preference changes, and the many topical considerations such as time of
day/week/year, recent events.
When a farmer comes into contact with your business, they may be ready
to make a purchase right then and there. But more often than not, they
aren’t quite there yet.

So if they haven’t explicitly told you they’re ready to talk to sales, hold
back on selling and focus instead on nurturing. A nurture campaign geared
toward farmers will have three primary goals. Here are some practical
ways to work toward those goals:

Capitalize on farmers’ attention. When a fills out a
G E T S TA RT E D form
 on your website or has a conversation with
someone on your team, your brand is front and

center. Enjoy it, because that level of attention won’t
last long. From the moment that conversion activity
happens, you start to lose their attention. And before
you know it, you’ve lost it completely. Set an
automated to go out immediately after the
conversion, create a retargeting campaign

Educate farmers to make the best purchasing
decisions. Because of the Internet, farmers are more
knowledgeable than agribusinesses. Ag companies
need to adapt to the reality that they don’t control
the flow of information. Use your insight to help
farmers make sense of the information at their
disposal. When applicable, fill in the gaps. Help them
understand how their operation fits into the industry
as a whole. And once your farmers are educated, that
means that they’ll understand how your products and
services help them best.

Show them the value your products give them. If a
farmer doesn’t see the immediate, practical value
your products give them in their day-to-day life and

work, then they aren’t going to purchase. Talk in

detail about the use cases of your product. Put
together case studies or testimonials from other
farmers who’ve had a good experience with the
Home Data
product. Get
Applications
detailed Resources
Services
feedback soAbout
farmers can
understand the specific benefits it’s provided to
them. Show videos and photos of the product in use
when possible.
Analyze the results/reporting to see how the campaign performed across

many different variables, such as time of day, receiving ISP, audience,
clicks, etc. By using this data and feedback, you should be able to fine-
tune your efforts and increase your ROI.
[Webinar]: How to Use Email in Your A…

A…

Programmatic Ads
When you’re investing in digital ads, are you investing in the placement of
the ad or the audience? With today’s marketing technology, it’s easy to
serve online ads directly to farmers – and only farmers.
As the years go by, technology continues to advance, change, and aid in

the completion of everyday tasks. Big Data keeps getting bigger and its
applications more usable. Those that embrace and use it effectively will
strengthen relationships with their customers and will create bridges to
new customer relationships.
With advanced technology systems on the rise, traditional ag media is

struggling to keep up, despite maintaining good relationships with farmers
for many years. Along with these changes comes the opportunity for
marketers to reach out to farmers with new media and ways of marketing
their ag business.
Tools like programmatic advertising allow marketers to buy audiences

based on demographics and consumer behaviors, which lets them
understand real-time decision making of these consumers, rather than
just looking at general data. In fact, programmatic is the dominant form of
online ad spending, although the agriculture industry appears to be far
behind in its use of AdTech, including programmatic.
In its simplest terms, programmatic is the automated buying and selling of

digital ad space. Programmatic advertising to farmers or agri-marketers

puts a focus on reaching the right people, not the virtual ad real estate
you’ve bought.
Rather than just place an ad on a website that sells various types of farm
equipment and hope that the right eyes see it, digital advertising methods
give you the ability to control who sees your ad at a very specific level.
When you know your ad is landing on the eyes of corn growers versus
cattle ranchers, you can target your messaging to directly speak to the
audience whom you want to reach with greater chance of conversion.

Know your audience. Programmatic lets you target
demographic information, type of crops grown,
behaviors, etc. Not only can you target your audience
by demographics, you can utilize programmatic
advertising to reach everyone from those who have
bought particular farming equipment in the past
thirty days, or who have accessed a particular
website on a mobile device versus a desktop
computer.

Go where the farmers are. Why pay for impressions
of people who may not have any interest in you
product? Marketing to farmers specifically with
programmatic advertising can cause you to show up
on the websites your audience is browsing at a time
when they’re most inclined to see it.

Test and adjust your campaigns. It’s no longer
necessary to stick with a campaign that isn’t working.
Whether you want to test out the best call-to-action
to reach a target demographic or change messages 
based on the seasons, optimize your advertising

strategy and test new opportunities.

Home Data Don’t fall for
Applications false dilemmas.
Services Today,
Resources many ag
About
marketers are falling into the trap of choosing

between a traditional ag media plan or a non-ag
G E T S TA RT E D digital
 plan. In reality, you do not need to ignore one in
order to create a successful marketing plan. Farmers
are people too, so they are consuming more media
than ever before, just like audiences in a variety of
other industries.

Maintain relationships. The relationship between ag
media outlets and farmers has been alive and well for
years. Farmers trust the media and the media works
to continue being the main source of content. As long
as this relationship remains strong, farmers will
continue to trust ag media to deliver content that is
relevant to them and their businesses.

Modernize and create value. Marketers have to do a
few things in order to keep up and stay relevant in an
ever-changing, technology-based world. Taking
advantage of newer tools to create content such as
videos, will allow for ag professionals to remain
current. Also, it’s important to ensure strong data is
available to tell a farmer’s story and to be able to
deliver information to the proper audience.

How to Advertise to Your Ideal Audien…

Audien…
Download the Guide
Direct Mail
Even in the age of digital connection, direct mail is here to stay. Sending
mailers that land directly in farmers’ mailboxes is a great way to capture
their attention. And among farmers in particular, it’s one of the most
reliable ways to stay in touch with them.
Here are some specific advantages to consider:
More reliable delivery. Direct mail can have up to 95 percent delivery

rate, thanks to the tried-and-true USPS. If it’s absolutely crucial that
your message land in farmers’ hands, then direct mail may be a better
route.
Less competition. Companies are giving up on direct mail, which
means that you have a better opportunity to cut through the noise –
something that’s becoming more and more difficult with email and
even social media.

Drive the rest of your integrated marketing efforts. Direct mail, like
any other marketing channel, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Farmers
are active online just like any other consumer, so they’ll be interacting
with your brand through Google searches, social media, emails, and
more. Data
Home
Direct mail serves to Services
Applications
complement that, not replace
Resources About
it. So
instead of thinking of direct mail as its own channel, think of it as a
driver of your other marketing efforts. When they work in tandem,
you’ll see better results.
Direct mail works best when combined with other marketing channels. It
boosts the effectiveness of your email, social media, messenger, display
ads, and other efforts by reinforcing the messaging in those campaigns.
Here are some tips to be effective:

Test your mailers. How can you expect to succeed in
direct mail if you don’t begin with a goal and then
measure the results of your campaign by keeping
track of the numbers? You’ll need to test your direct
mail on an ongoing basis. Start by segmenting your
data. One way to do this is through an A/B test.
Whichever one performs the best, send that version
to the remainder of the list. This could save countless
dollars.

Be creative in how you market. Your direct mail
campaigns that target farmers may see better
results if you try an eye-catching, creative approach.
No one wants to read a boring, 4-page text-only
letter in 16-point Courier typeface. They want
something eye-catching, engaging and, yes,

entertaining. Don’t be afraid to use humor and a

creative approach to capture attention.

Home Data Use multiple
Applications channelsResources
Services in addition to direct mail. You
About
want to make it as easy as possible for your

recipients to respond to your direct mail pieces.
G E T S TA RT E D Offering
 multiple ways to contact your company can
help boost results for direct mail pieces. This
multifaceted approach will also give you insight into
an individual’s preference without you having to ask
the question.
Social Media Marketing

Social media is a powerful and important tool in the digital marketer’s tool
belt. For agricultural businesses, it’s important to understand how farmers
use social media, and how that affects how you market to farmers.
Social media is no different than these other technologies. In fact, recent

data has shown that social media is very popular among farmers and rural
Americans. If you want to take full advantage of all the marketing and
sales opportunities open to you, see how farmers are actually using social
media, and how you can use that to inform your business strategy.
A recent Pew Research Center report revealed some interesting trends:
58 percent of rural Americans use Facebook

65 percent of ages 50-64 use Facebook
78 percent of ages 30-49 use Facebook
25 percent of rural Americans use Instagram
17 percent of rural Americans use Twitter

Those last two numbers may look low, but when you consider that roughly
60 million people in America live in rural areas, you’re looking at 15 million
people on Instagram and over 10 million on Twitter. Those are very sizable
audiences.

While older rural Americans are the prime demographic for agribusiness,
not all of those people are farmers. Farmers tend to gravitate toward
Facebook and YouTube, with some of them using Twitter. Take a look at
the following:
46 percent of all farmers in America – nearly 1.5 million farmers – use

Facebook
Only nine percent of farmers use Twitter, but that’s still an audience
of nearly 300,000
The most popular social media platform by far is YouTube, used by
nearly 51 percent of farmers – over 1.6 million
While your agribusiness will need to perform its own ROI analysis of how
much time and money should be invested in social media, these stats
show that it’s clearly a good idea to give it a shot.
Here are some easy ways to get started with social media:

Share content your farmers will find interesting. The
goal of any social media marketing campaign is to
establish yourself as an invaluable and irreplaceable
resource for your audience. This could either be
content you create and publish on your own blog, or it
could be third-party content that you’ve curated and
are sharing simply because you think it’ll be helpful.
Of course, you’ll want to know whether you’re posting
content that your audience wants to see. Always
examine what’s generating likes, comments and

clicks to gauge the level of interest among your

audience.

Home Data Talk about the
Applications goings Resources
Services on of your company.
About People
love “behind-the-scenes” footage. Feature some of
your employees so people can get to know the
G E T S TA RT E D “faces”
 of your company. Live tweet a big event or a
webinar. Show footage of your team working in your
offices, plants or factories. It’ll show farmers that
you’re not just a brand, but you’re human: and they’ll
want to do business with you even more.

Mention upcoming offers. While email lets you put a
message directly in your prospects’ and customers’
inboxes, social media is even more direct, putting
your message in front of people without the need for
any contact info. So when it’s time to launch a new
product, update or offer, consider using social media
to make the announcement. Social media can help
you get your message out quickly and directly. So if
you need to boost those offers, be sure to get started
with social media marketing.

Offer content that will drive them to convert. With
social media, you no longer have to spend hundreds
of thousands of dollars on TV or radio ads, getting
limited ROI and little to no engagement. Instead,
invest your time and dollars in a platform that helps
you find new audiences, engage the audiences you
have and directly place your message in front of

people as they catch up with family or the news.

Whether it’s through CTAs at the end of blog posts,
videos that provide a URL to the “next step,” or an
eBook that you’re just posting directly on your
Home Data
timeline, offer
Applications
good, creative
Services
content
Resources
that will entice
About
your audience to download. In exchange, you get
their email address, and their permission to continue
sending them communications – hopefully nurturing
them into a customer.
How to target ads to your ideal farmer
When you’re using Facebook to target your ideal farmer, you can control
where your ads go and, thus, where your dollars are going.That’s
why before you launch your ad campaign, it’s important for you to pick
who’s going to see your ad.
That’s right. Facebook lets you pick the audience for each ad, not the
placement. Once you pick your audience, Facebook puts the ad directly
into your audience’s news feed. So while farmers are scrolling through
catching up on what’s happening with family, they’ll see your ad.
The first step to determining the audience you want to target on Facebook
is to start with your value proposition and work backwards. We talked
about that earlier on the page (link) Whether it’s a given profit margin or
gross revenue, meeting your number is your number one objective.
Here are some ways to do that:
Start by talking to current customers. The people you’ve done

business with in the past are going to be a great asset for figuring this
out. While they don’t represent the entirety of the market, they do
understand the pain points that your product or service responds to.

Analyze your internal customer data. Not only can you gather

qualitative information from talking to customers, but there’s a lot of
quantitative information you can get just by looking at the numbers.
What’s the age range for your current customers? What crops do
they grow?
Home Data
What size operation
Applications
do you
Services
usually sellAbout
Resources
to?
Remember that your current customer may not be your ideal
customer. While looking at your current customers is a valuable
exercise, they don’t represent the entirety of your market. Always be
thinking about other farmers who could benefit from your products
or services –research who else could be a good fit.
Once you’ve determined your ideal audience, you can use those
demographics to build the audience in Facebook. There are two steps to
do this. The first is to utilize Facebook Targeting. The second is to
augment that with a custom audience file of reliable ag data.
Facebook Targeting. Although it may seem a bit like George Orwell’s

infamous “Big Brother” from the novel 1984, Facebook actively collects
hundreds of data points on its users. You can use this data to your
advantage by creating targeted audiences directly within Facebook.

While these demographics are a good start, they’re generic and can apply
to a variety of industries. None of them are ag-specific. That’s why it’s
important to complement them with a custom file of farmers from an ag
data provider.

Upload Contacts. Facebook lets you upload a .csv file into their Ads
Manager, and serve your ads directly to those people. A .csv of farmers
who fit the demographics you discussed earlier can be easily acquired
from Farm Market iD.

G E TWho isT EFarm

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Home Data Applications Services Resources About

What you’ll Who this is

Marketing and salespeople

Who’s behind this…

inform and improve agribusiness

Home Data Applications Services

Click here to learn more about our

Chapter 1: How Data Improves Your Marketing

Chapter 2: Top Revenue-Generating Marketing Strategies 

Chapter 3: Investing in the Right Data

Chapter 4: Implementing Data Tools Among Your Team

Chapter 5: Specific Marketing Tactics That Work

Chapter 1: How Data

Reliable data can be the difference between a decent marketing strategy

can help improve your messaging as you’re marketing to farmers.

Stay relevant amidst shifting

Much of the current conversation around data and technology in

See how small startups overtook their much larger competitors:

their operations, their financial ability, contact

Home Data Applications

If your messaging isn’t tailored to your customer, then you won’t be

Know “who” to communicate (e.g. customers where you are getting

Data GisE the

MarketView | Business In-

Modernize your tactics for

Technology, data and information give agribusinesses a competitive edge

Customer Record Management (CRM) System

A lot of ag companies we talk to haven’t started using a CRM yet. That

When you have thousands, hundreds or even just dozens of records,

A CRM helps you avoid all of that:

Modern Website or Content Management

Email & Marketing Automation Software

Automate emails to go out a certain amount of time from a

While direct placement ads on ag media sites can be very effective in

Target messaging in brand

A lot of branding campaigns in ag involve taking out ads in magazines or

Home Data Applications Services Resources About

Fortunately, with the rise of digital technology and marketing automation,

Plus, there’s the advantage of segmentation. With traditional marketing,

ad. So if you want to place an ad geared toward commodity farmers in a

Focus on Moving the Needle

Successful marketing campaigns start with the following question: What’s

Market to Your Current

Knowing the details about your customers’ farm operations is going to

Find Ideal Pockets in the Market

Geographic territory (region, division, state or county)

Type of operation (commodity vs. specialty, organic vs. non-organic,

Home Data Applications Services Resources About

Try New Things

Experiment with new channels—especially different channels integrated

Be Deliberate in the Frequency

Size of the purchase. Larger purchases require longer sales cycles,

Integrate Marketing Channels to

Marketers have an expansive set of marketing tools available to them

One of the core principles of integrated marketing is to have a consistent

(Read More About Integrated Marketing Campaigns)

Measure Results and Analyze to

This is where you go back to your campaign objective you established at

Brand authority & awareness should be measured in terms of ad

Engagement should be measured in terms of likes, comments, shares

Get the Whole Team on Board