The biggest problem most agricultural marketing has today is that it is totally predictable.
We are obsessed with being right, with chasing the same white space as everyone else.
So we do the exact same things the agency recommended last year or what our competition has done for decades.
“We always do things this way.”
“You have to do this in agriculture.”
It's thoughtless. It's mindless. And it doesn't change a thing.
As we enter the planning season for 2024, marketers and leaders in agtech and agriculture should think less about mitigating risk and more about saying and doing things that matter.
You can use these three points to evaluate/start thinking through your marketing plan for 2024:
Does this plan enable us to change the thinking in our market so that we can design and dominate a category that matters?
Does this plan include radical opportunities for the market to hear from your CEO? Are we leveraging PR and owned media in an effective way? Are we changing the conversation in agriculture or are we adding to the noise? Are we driving word of mouth? Are we making our new way of doing things seem inevitable?
What is the radical way we are driving leads and revenue today? What are the high-leverage activities that are undervalued by our competition?
We need more purposefully incorrect thinking in how our companies develop marketing programs and plans; we need to zig where everyone else is zagging.
Dare to be different, then be bold enough to double down on that difference with marketing that matters.
Make something different. Make people care. Make fans, not followers.