Agencies and Agriculture: Creating Strategic Growth
That critical decision to invest resources into seeking sage marketing advice from an agency is an important move. For those in agriculture, there are several hurdles you must tackle when trying to grow your business. Nine to Five-ers are few and far between in this world, and the traditional structures of the B2B space are turned on their heads. When agriculture or life science companies struggle to quantify results and have a ton on their plate, an agency may seem like one more thing to juggle. Luckily, an ag-specialized agency will work to streamline your processes, reach (the right) growers and distributors, and do it all with tailored research to ensure you’re not shouting into the void.
Getting started with an agency is like establishing just about any other relationship: you want to start off on the right foot with a basis of trust, mutual respect, and shared goals. Find an agency that knows your field as well as you do. From tackling the tradeshow gauntlet with ease to nurturing the correct grower/distributor/retailer customer, here are a few ways an agency will get you growing in the right direction.
Marketing Support
As the client, you have taken a big step to invest in an agency partner to help you shape your marketing efforts. It is a line item you have asked for from your management, and you want it to progress without a glitch because of the heightened attention. Keeping up with the revolving door of trends, reps, and product innovation is a never-ending task, and luckily, ag-focused agencies have the latest happenings and growers’ schedules on their radar. From social monitoring, to tradeshow support, to email automation announcing the latest crop protection technology, your agency understands the ins and outs of your day-to-day processes.
Segmentation and Customer Support
Agencies are in the business of understanding your client base and the idiosyncrasies that come with it. You may be dealing with growers and distributors spanning a huge age and geographic realm. From 5,000-acre corn growers in Iowa to smaller yield fruit and vegetable farms in Georgia, peak hours and schedules shift with the season and region and agencies can help automate the process. Tailoring content to the right audience is key in this market. Though all companies are interested in increasing revenue, it comes in different forms for each. An agency can help you create a content strategy to help target distributors and growers at the right time.
Trade Shows
Even in a Post-COVID19 world, we believe Trade Shows and Expos will remain massive in the Ag industry – and you want to ensure you engage prospective customer here. Technology is key to generate leads at shows, and utilizing a CRM keeps data on your leads live and tangible.
Utilizing everything you glean at these shows is key. Communicate with your agency about who you hope to attract and your ideal output.
By identifying your ideal leads upfront, your agency can provide strategic support on everything from promotional output to email capture on to post-show lead nurturing.
Nurturing and Sales Enablement
In a world of inconsistencies, the sales cycle for agricultural clients isn’t set in stone. Your agency can help to implement CRM management to follow your leads through the sales cycle and provide the appropriate levels of communication, sales support, and nurturing.
There is a misconception that an agency partnership will create tons of additional work on your part.
That is untrue because the focus shifts slightly to more strategic planning and collaboration. However, you still need to carve out time in your weekly schedule for communicating with the agency, approving content, and adjusting strategy.
It will be a different type of work due to approving and collaborating, but ultimately one with a very measurable and positive outcome!
