Are You Missing the Most Powerful Marketing Tool?

It happens all too often. Well-meaning ag companies are excited to share updates about their grain marketing tools with their clients a­­nd prospects, but they stop with the dreaded “data dump.”

When this happens, a laundry list of every contract available is presented in a newsletter article or online update. While this is important information, it’s overwhelming. It’s often confusing. It’s like making your clients wander aimlessly through a big-box store, with no assistance in sight, when all they want is to find a package of AA batteries.

It happened to me recently when a VistaComm client wanted to share a complete list of every grain marketing contact available from this ag cooperative. I was concerned all this data would be hard for readers to wade through. The biggest risk? Readers might skip the article entirely.

I thanked the client for compiling all this information and suggested we try a slightly different approach. Instead of detailing every contract available, I encouraged the client to let me tell a story and showcase a different grain marketing contract in each quarterly newsletter.

Storytelling is one of the most powerful content marketing tools available. It’s an inviting way to inform customers and prospects about your products and services. A story is fun to read when it’s written right. An effective story positions you as the expert. Best of all, a story doesn’t sound like a sales pitch, yet it can help grow your business.

Your story told in your customers’ words

The most compelling stories are often best told through your customers’ own words. When my client decided to focus on decision rules contracts (DRCs) in its summer 2017 print newsletter, I asked the grain merchandisers which one of their clients might be willing to put in the good word about DRCs.

They loved the idea and connected me with a helpful corn and soybean grower. While I’ve changed the names for this example, here’s how I started the story:

Farmer X knows how daunting grain marketing can be. “You’ve never heard any farmer say they’ve done the best possible job with their marketing, right?” said the northwest Iowa corn and soybean grower.

Farmer X and his father had traditionally made cash sales at fall delivery and used a little forward selling. “You question your decisions, though,” Farmer X said. “You don’t know when to pull the trigger.”

That’s why Farmer X decided to attend a grain marketing seminar that the co-op offered this winter. He was intrigued by the co-op’s grain marketing tools and made an appointment with one of the co-op’s grain merchandisers to learn more. Merchandiser X helped him tailor a marketing plan for his needs, including Decision Rules Contracts (DRCs)

“He explained that DRCs aren’t a once-and-done, where you’re trying to hit a home run,” Farmer X said. “It’s like hitting a series of doubles and triples, which made a lot of sense to me.”

Instead of talking about the technicalities of bushel enrollments, floor prices, priced bushels and more, this article goes on to explain the basics of how DRCs work and how they solve farmers' real-world marketing challenges.

The goal? Show what DRCs mean to real farmers in terms of more effective grain marketing, less stress and greater peace of mind.

More fun, less worry, better results

To me, this is the unique value the VistaComm team can offer you. Know that we’re not just order takers. We're professional marketing consultants who offer proven solutions to help you reach your marketing goals.

We may take an approach you hadn’t thought of, like skipping the data dump and opting for a powerful, well-told story. Rest assured we’re drawing on years of experience working with ag clients just like you.

First, we listen to understand your unique marketing goals. Then we’ll work together to determine the best route to help you reach these goals. Prepare for more fun, less worry and better results as we help you uncover your stories and work with you every step of the way to share them in a way that resonates with your target audience.

Let’s talk

Ready to unleash your most powerful marketing tool? Our storytellers are here to help. Contact VistaComm today at 800-657-8070 to start the conversation. We look forward to hearing from you.

See Full Article Here: Are You Missing the Most Powerful Marketing Tool?

Hot Ideas Were on the Bayou for the 2017 CCA Institute

[caption id="attachment_2728" align="alignright" width="375"] Editor/Communications Specialist Talisa Wager and Creative Services Assistant Danny Andrews.[/caption]

Earlier this month, my coworker Danny Andrews and I ventured down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for the annual Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) Institute. While there, we participated in educational workshops, networked with other communicators from the cooperative world, enjoyed the sights and tastes of Baton Rouge, and tried to stay indoors as much as possible. (Let’s just say the humidity was a bit much for two Midwesterners.)

This was my third year attending CCA Institute. Why do I keep going back? Because every year I come away with new skills I can apply at work, a refreshed perspective on why I enjoy working in communications, and new network connections I can reach out to. The opportunity to travel to different cities and enjoy new sights is a bonus!

[caption id="attachment_2754" align="alignleft" width="250"] Merger postcard series for CFS.[/caption]

One honor I had while attending this year’s institute was accepting two awards on behalf of VistaComm. I’m proud to say our team worked hard to earn first place website and third place in direct mail. The website that received first place was NuWay Cooperative. And in the direct mail category, we were recognized for our work on a merger postcard series for CFS. I’m very proud of our talented team for being acknowledged by a group of communicators that are the best of the best.

In conclusion, this year’s CCA Institute did not disappoint. The sessions were educational, there was hands-on learning, socializing, and many opportunities to enjoy the “spicy” culture Baton Rouge offers. Perhaps, we’ll “saddle on up” and head to the Lone Star State for the 2018 Institute in Fort Worth!

 

[caption id="attachment_2733" align="aligncenter" width="900"] Baton Rouge riverfront at night.[/caption]

See More Here: Hot Ideas Were on the Bayou for the 2017 CCA Institute

The Facebook Pixel: If You’re Not Using It, You’re Doing It Wrong!

Why should the Facebook pixel be an essential part of your online advertising and marketing? To answer this question, you must first understand what the Facebook pixel is and how it can impact your online advertising.

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It is surprising, in the age we live in, how few marketers I talk to are implementing this tool in their marketing mix. Facebook has over 1.2 billion active users each day. Facebook captures loads of data about your customers, where they live, what they like, their career, what they follow and much more. This data combined with the Facebook pixel allows you to target your advertising better. Because of this, I want to start with the basics and walk you through some of the ways you can implement the Facebook pixel to create higher converting ad campaigns that better target your customers and their interests.

What is the Facebook pixel?

Pixels are found across most advertising platforms. They are used to drop a cookie onto a visitor's browser when they come to your website so that you can advertise to them later. In this regard, if you are spending money on pay-per-click advertising and not using the pixel you are not maximizing your budget. The pixel allows you to retarget website users based on behavior, optimize ad performance, and track leads and conversions on your site from Facebook ads.

To set up the Facebook pixel, you need to have a Facebook Ad Manager account. If you don’t already have this, you’ll need to set one up.

Once you have your Ad Manager account, you can set up your Facebook pixel. Open your Ads Manager in the main menu and click on “Pixels” under the “Assets” menu.

You will then be prompted to either generate the code to place on the website or use a tag manager to place this code.

Depending on how your website is set up and the platform you are using, this step will vary. For many, simply work with your developer to follow the steps outlined in the Facebook instructions. HINT: Enabling “advanced matching” allows you to identify similar audiences on Facebook based on website users email or phone number they may enter during registration or checkout

 

Once the code is placed on your site, verify everything is working by checking the status of your pixel with the Pixel Helper.

Once you have the pixel in place and have verified it’s working, there are three ways you can use the Facebook pixels to maximize your Facebook ad campaigns.

1. Custom audiences and retargeting

When creating a new audience, the first thing you do is select "Create a Custom Audience". The Facebook pixel allows you to identify and advertise to audiences that have visited your website. The base option allows you to target all visitors to your website, but there are many customizations to choose from to create multiple audiences.

You can choose to target based on certain pages visited or how long it’s been since they visited your site. You can even target based on what page they visited. For instance, if you have an audience who completed a request-for-info form and doesn’t complete a purchase, you can serve a different ad to that group. This allows you to serve dynamic ads to audiences based on where they are at in your sales process.

Once you have identified your audiences for retargeting, it is very easy to create look-alike audiences. Facebook will match other targets that have similar interests to those that have visited your site already. This allows you to scale your advertising to a broader audience based on which campaigns and audiences have already proved successful.

2. Conversion and lead tracking

One of the most useful features of the Facebook Pixel is in tracking actions through custom conversions.

Through the pixel, you can track specific actions and tie them back to your Facebook ad campaigns. This allows you to know how many sales, or how many new lead signups were generated from these campaigns or even specific ads.

When creating your custom conversion, you want to tie the conversion to the success of an action. Such as a thank-you page on your website that follows a contact submission, or you can even tie the conversion to a specific event such as a click to call from a mobile phone.

After you select the specific URL or tracking event from the drop-down menu, you will need to select what category this conversion falls into. This is for your classification, so just make the selection that makes the most sense to you.

Once this is set, you can name your custom conversion in the following screen and assign a dollar value to it. If you don’t have a monetary value to assign you do not have to enter this, but if there is a purchase tied to the conversion I would highly recommend doing so. This will allow you to better assess your return on the ad spend.

To begin tracking your conversions, check “track all conversions” on your ad campaigns and Facebook will handle the rest.

Viewing the conversions does get a little more complicated, as Facebook doesn’t put this in plain sight. From your Ads Manager screen, select the “columns” drop down and go to “Customize Columns.”

From here, you can search for the name of your custom conversion and view the number of conversions, the cost of those conversions and (if you assigned a dollar value) the value of those conversions.

3. Optimizing your campaigns

By setting up your custom conversions, Facebook can help you optimize your campaigns. Whenever you create a new campaign, Facebook will ask you what your marketing objective is. You will almost always select the conversions option.

By selecting this option, Facebook will recognize users that are converting based on the custom conversions you set up (such as a sign-up thank you page). Facebook will then optimize your campaign for other people who are most like those that have already converted on your site.

That’s a wrap! You should now have a better understanding of how to utilize the Facebook pixel to increase the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising. From reading this, I hope you see how crucial it is to implement this to make your ad dollars effective.

Source Here: The Facebook Pixel: If You’re Not Using It, You’re Doing It Wrong!

Stay Competitive: 4 Game Strategies to Play Like Pac-Man

A late spring snow storm. Rain for the whole month of April. Finally, warmer weather and May breezes. The soil dries out. OK, the crops are in—bring back that rain. Summer storms, stay away.

No matter what seasonal agricultural conditions you face, as a producer, you’ve got to be able to change strategies and pivot at a moment’s notice. Things don’t always go as planned when your business depends so much on Mother Nature.

Julie Deering in her December 2016 article for Seed World magazine likens operating in today’s agribusiness circles to playing a game of Pac-Man. Remember Pac-Man? You’ve got to be in constant motion searching for the next move to put you ahead in the game. Thinking fast. Staying away from an enemy who could gobble you up – these are KEY!

Released in 1980, Pac-Man was the best-selling arcade game in North America. It grossed more than $1 billion in quarters within a year.

It’s not only the individual “little guy” who must stay on his toes. If you’re a producer who’s joined forces with other producers in a cooperative, the terms merger, acquisition, consolidation, joint venture are very much part of your vocabulary, and happening all around you. Re-structuring the way you do business is not necessarily bad — but always an adjustment — in order to stay in the ag game.

Over the past 4 decades, the number of co-ops in the county has dropped from 6,445 to about 2,100, and the pace of consolidation is accelerating.

So, IS there an answer to “staying in the game” or even WINNING! For valuable tips to consider, I return once again to the Seed World feature where Deering, following her expert research, sites four strategies. You may have heard them all before, but they are truly worth repeating—over and over again.

STRATEGY #1:
Focus on Your Customer and his "Pain Point"

If you’re a small- to medium-sized individual producer, you’ve got to know your end-user—the consumer who will give you the best possible chance of making a profit in a given year. You can’t plant everything you’ve ever wanted to grow or feed and market every live food source there is. You’ve got to focus—determine your niche products and go big with just a few—the few that are in most demand by your end-user.

For agribusinesses, this means you’ve got to know your target audience (customers) as well as you know your own family. In the movie classic Field of Dreams, Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella follows a voice no one else can hear with memorable results. Among the messages he receives: “Ease his pain.” Do you know your customers’ pain points? What keeps them up at night? The agribusiness that does the best job of making life easier for customers will likely gain more of them. Word travels fast in the country. 

STRATEGY #2:
BE READY TO CHANGE

In any business, you must be forever conscious that failure can happen. Be prepared to FAIL FAST. What do I mean by FAIL FAST?

PIVOT. Pam Moore of Marketing Nutz calls pivoting the art of recognizing that the pursuit of a specific idea, direction or product—in which you’ve invested significant time, money and energy—is no longer the correct path to follow.

In Western Kansas on April 30, 2017, a rare spring snow storm wiped out 40% of the wheat crop in the state. But after a quick melt and dry-out, the hearty plainsmen in this area were out making plans to till, then plant the damaged fields with milo — a crop that could still make them a good profit in 2017. That’s a pivot!

“Be agile,” says Moore. “Develop processes that reward quick decision-making. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. Learn to FAIL FAST and learn from each success and failure along the way.”

STRATEGY #3:
DARE TO BE DIFFERENT

As a small- to medium-sized agribusiness, you’ve got to make yourself stand out by being different from your competition. This is sometimes quite hard to come up with when your annual process seems so cut and dried: planting — irrigating — pest and weed controlling — harvesting — moving — storing — etc.

Troy Schroeder, a management consultant with Clutch Performance, Inc., says business success that’s sustainable is all about the customer experience, and making sure that every function of your organization is based on customer-first thinking:

• Better customer service
• Added value for your customers
• More knowledge
• Better delivery
• Tailored sales approach based on specific customer needs
• Better application of your products
• Ease-of-use of your products that’s better than anyone else

What can you do better than your competitors?

STRATEGY #4:
LEVERAGE BIG DATA

Analytics. Agricultural consultant, Jim Thrift, is convinced that effective data management will drive the future of agribusiness. He says, “A smart person with the most information wins!” He feels that agribusinesses that can transform complex data into actionable information can make effective business decisions.

Forward-thinking agribusinesses are getting onboard with this strategy. A recent survey reveals that 73 percent of companies have invested, or plan to invest in big data during the next two years—a number that has risen from 64 percent in 2013. Business investment in analytics is increasing at an average annual rate of almost 30 percent.

This strategy requires a real commitment. Once you start collecting relevant data from within the ag industry you must constantly analyze what you’ve got to see if your tactics are holding up and paying off as you would like. You’ll be making numerous tweaks along the way—that’s just how it works!

In conclusion, everyone needs planning and strategy. I hope these four I found in my reading will find a place in your marketing plan, whether you are a farm operator or a small- to medium-sized agribusiness. Just be smart, agile, reactive and ready to play the game — like Pac-Man!

Resource: How to Power Ahead in a Competitive World, Seed World, December 2016.

Source Here: Stay Competitive: 4 Game Strategies to Play Like Pac-Man