Ag marketers are excited about growing options to reach farmers, with precise targeting, through paid digital media. Yet, many still struggle as part of organizations that are slow to adopt new strategies and are much farther from an effective digital marketing operation than they hoped.But there is hope.
“Digital transformation” isn’t just buzzy marketing speak. It’s an insight. For many organizations, implementing digital marketing practices will impact more than just the marketing team. Other departments, like IT who help with techstacks, legal who will need to review privacy and data policies, and finance who handle allocation of resources, are likely to get involved. Depending on how your organization is structured, adopting new digital strategies could require a complete overhaul.
The consumer marketing world poured money, technology, and people into developing a sophisticated digital advertising ecosystem. That’s great for ag marketers because they don’t have to charge blindly into an unknown space and can look to the consumer space for lessons learned. On the other hand, in general, ag marketing hasn’t made the same investment and has fallen further and further behind while waiting to invest. And speaking of digital marketing in the consumer space, if you are looking for digital marketing inspiration, check our blog that outlines digital marketing ideas pulled from the consumer space that can be incorporated into your marketing when you’re ready.
So, what should ag marketers be doing to propel their digital marketing efforts?
The first step isn’t to map out a paid digital strategy. It’s going to start with your website, your data, your systems, your staff, and your strategies. Before you start, make a thorough and honest assessment of your organization’s digital capabilities. This shouldn’t be a self-assessment. Why? You’ve heard the phrase, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” That applies here as well. Conducting the assessment yourself will only yield results based on what you already know, leaving gaps and missing out on key insights.
Find an ally. Ask for help from someone who has experience with digital marketing operations. Ideally, it is someone who understands the larger landscape of digital marketing – from systems to tactics to reporting. Most likely, it will be someone who has been involved in B2C digital marketing. Explain your marketing objectives to them and have them advise what your company needs to do.
Have your ally evaluate your website. Does it have advertising pixels? Does it offer content and conversion points across the customer journey? Does your site drive traffic to content that aligns with the paid ad message? Do you have a privacy policy in place? Also, be sure to have your ally look at your internal workflows to determine what changes need to be made. Here are other items you will want to include in the assessment and may have to address:
While this isn’t a comprehensive list, it leads to another key rule to follow: when the assessment is done and you’re committed to change, include key stakeholders early. Make sure they understand everything you need to do. This project will quickly become bigger than marketing. The faster you get essential participants on board, the sooner you will make progress.
Feeling overwhelmed? We get it. It’s a big list. And a big job to get it all in place. That’s what causes most ag marketers to stay on the sidelines. Once you understand all that has to be done, you may realize you don’t have the budget to do it or the staff to get it done. So you, along with your stakeholders, will have to make choices. With the help of your ally, focus on building a phased path forward and prioritizing the steps along the way. There isn’t an “easy” button or a universal blueprint.
This can be done. And you can do it. This process is already underway with ag marketers throughout the country, and your organization can also reap the benefits of a new approach to marketing. Just don’t be the last! As farmers’ usage of traditional channels diminishes under the growing tsunami of digital communications platforms, smart use of digital marketing will become your brand’s best communication strategy.
Working toward a goal of effective digital marketing will lead to positive changes across departments and business units, such as updated websites with an enhanced user experience, useful data at your fingertips, reporting that yields insights, budgetary realignments, a better customer experience, and paid media that drives sales. It can’t happen all at once, but every improvement and achievement along the way will keep you competitive and improve your marketing efforts.
We can be your ally and help navigate the digital marketing landscape. Our experts have experience that can help you with the transition. Drop us a line to get the conversation going.
In the meantime, if you haven’t added advertising pixels to your site, learn about the benefits and improve results in our post: From Quantity To Quality: How Pixels Improve Digital Marketing.