Steve Ells, founder of Chipotle, shares an insight that those in agriculture need to adopt: Facts are not exciting. Stories are.
I thought we were going to get customers excited by telling them there were no antibiotics in our meat or no growth hormones used to raise the animals or no RGBH in our cheese or sour cream. Well, that's not a very appetizing message.
How can agri-professionals adopt this? When thinking about sharing information with consumers, non-farmers, or the press, don't provide just facts. While they are true (they are facts, right?) what people always remember are the stories.
So now we have a marketing program that's going to start a dialogue about why better ingredients make for better-tasting and more healthful food.
I have been asked several times on how one might "increase loyalty" through media, marketing, and communications? My questions right away were:
What is an indicator of being loyal?
Can you measure it? and
Is it possible to move the indicator in a specific direction?
Marketing Profs offered ideas with 10 Tips for Building Customer Loyalty. This one article highlights the key points of understanding the true purpose of marketing, never take loyalty for granted, tap into what customers want, and integrity leads to trust=> which leads to a relationship.
Josh St. Peters(@jstpeters) explains some of the approaches Pioneer Hi-Bred uses to connect with customers, partners, and interested groups. Mobile devices are key to shortening the cycle to get information to customers and educate FFA students. Josh also talks about the ever changing hardware/tools and how to work through those changes.
Goats on the Roof of Your Shop? - Marketing, in its basic form, is about getting people interested in a product, idea or cause. Sometimes that can lead to some crazy attention getters.
Tim Zweber(@zweberfarms) uses social media to interact with customers on their organic milk and meat. Tim also mentions they want to educate consumers about agriculture. This conversation is from the 2010 AgChat Foundation Agvocacy 2.0 Training, August 30-31, Chicago, IL, USA.
Mark Gale(@MarksKiosk), Charleston|Orwig, makes the observation that social and new media can not be a communications "check-off" item and companies need to make commitments in people, hours, and tools to successfully utilize the web.
Connecting Food, Nutrition, and Farms Learn more about what dietitians and nutritionists think about food, how they write about it, and where they connect with farms.
Jeff Fowle(@jefffowle), President of the Agchat Foundation, share thoughts on why ranchers and farmers use social media. This conversation is from the 2010 AgChat Foundation Agvocacy 2.0 Training, August 30-31, Chicago, IL, USA.
