Finding the Right Farmer Is Harder Than Ever

Agricultural marketing is hard. 

It often starts with trying to find needles in haystacks, only to find out that the needles aren’t all the same size, and it’s not all hay in those stacks. 

SMALL TARGETS

Ag marketers are typically aiming at tight segments within an already tight segment. For example, marketers may want to reach growers with 500 or more acres of crops in a specified geography. That moves the potential audience from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands. Then, making it even more challenging, marketers hope to respond off of cues from within that tighter segment, creating even smaller pools of potential buyers.

COMPLEX EFFORT

The industry is blessed to have a plethora of data made available through government agencies, but it is at the very least limited. In the wrong hands, it is flat broken. For instance, since much of the core government data is based on applying for governmental programs, some farmers aren’t a part of the data set at all. This is especially true when farm businesses are shared and multiple entities within that same business are applying for different programs. It is absolutely possible for major decision-makers to be missed entirely.

This is where the work of cultivating a strong agricultural data set comes into play. It doesn’t all just come together with a file download and plugging it into your favorite AI tool. It takes deep agricultural roots along with time and effort to fully understand the relationships within farm businesses. The retail sector takes even greater effort, discerning the size and type of retailer, the decision-maker titles within each entity and, ultimately, keeping up with the ever-present job position changes.

The efforts are made more challenging by changing media habits, evolving privacy regulations, greater skepticism of giving up personal business data, and the sometimes “good enough” mentality from marketers and their partners. 

PLATFORMS

An area where that “good enough” mentality crops up most often is in the global platforms. Agriculture is mostly forgotten by the major digital platforms. Marketers can attempt to find the right type of farmers or retailers on Facebook, Google or other major platforms, but they won’t only be reaching their desired potential buyers. Farmer’s market vendors, or Farming Simulator players or even aura farmers might muddy the target audience. 

MYRIAD OF PLAYERS

A multitude of vendors with some level of agricultural data has joined the effort over the past decade, many relying on the same government data. They join major players, like Farm Journal, DTN/FMiD, Farm Progress and others, to offer marketers a chance to target the right prospect with the right message and the right time. 

The challenge is while much of the foundational data has the same origin, the similarities end there. There aren’t shared metrics showing agricultural knowledge or levels of efforts so that marketers can make fair comparisons between the many data options. Worse, poor data sets can out-perform stronger in the market due to saturation, messaging, tactics, timing, or a number of other potential test biases. 

KNOWLEDGIBLE GUIDE

Rooster has decades of expertise in the ag data landscape and also, through Roodata, has data, as well. The combination allows us to serve our clients in the best possible manner. 

Roodata offers key data for U.S. farmers and growers, ranchers (livestock and rangeland), organic farmers, first purchasers/grain elevators, ag retailers, California specialty growers, equipment dealers and more. With this data, clients can build foundational lists; append data; conduct research; develop and enhance a CRM; map audiences; segment; verify and authenticate data, set up media targeting and more. 

Roodata may be sufficient for a client’s specific need. Other times, we call on the strong players in the marketplace to have alternative solutions. 

Let’s talk about your next ag data challenge. We’re ready to help you solve it.