The plethora of sources available in today's marketing communications space can be a double-edged sword. Sure, there are plenty of options out there that can fit every marketing communications budget. But as we've seen, some channels can be more effective than others. And effective marketing communications is the goal.
The agricultural marketing space is complex. Crops vary, soil conditions vary, weather patterns vary. Variability is one of the only constants. And probably more so than any other marketing audience, agricultural producers are making decisions that directly impact their bottom line on a regular basis: the type of seed they buy, the feed supply, the fertilizers, chemicals, not to mention the wide variety of equipment on every farm.
One of our focus points in this year's Future of Communications (FOC) Audience Insights Study was to investigate specific subsets not only where farmers looked for information but also who influenced their decisions.
When respondents had to choose their top influencer in their decision-making process, agronomists were the top choice at 31 percent, retailers and dealers came in at 28 percent and other farmers were chosen by 22 percent of the respondents.
When learning about a new product or farming technique, 79 percent of the respondents said university or Extension advisers were extremely to moderately influential, while 56 percent of the respondents said a retailer or dealer was extremely to moderately influential. Other farmers were mentioned as extremely to moderately influential 52 percent of the time.
These advisers have broad influence, but the highest-ranked areas were learning about a new product or farming technique (61 percent extremely to moderately influential), adding a product for consideration (54 percent extremely to moderately influential) and helping to make the final product choice (48 percent extremely to moderately influential).
Another interesting takeaway from our study was that these adviser groups provided greater influence depending on the decisions being made. Trusted advice shifted among types of activity:
•Retailers/dealers are the most influential when adding a product to the consideration set.
•University/Extension advisers are most influential when learning about new products or services.
•Other farmers are the most influential when learning about new products/services and when adding a product to the consideration set.
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