Growing your agribusiness has been based on word of mouth for the last 20 years. I’m sure you’re doing it and it works like a treat. But how do you know if it’s working or not? You’ve seen both dips and rises in your sales processes relying on the word-of-mouth marketing that the agriculture industry has previously relied on to grow their business outwards. 

Word of mouth marketing for agriculture 

In this article, I’ll be challenging the word of mouth element and how we need to work alongside this with modern-day word of mouth by using social media. 

The power of word of mouth can dramatically increase the spread of positive reviews from farmer to farmer and customer to customer. What is a powerful element to anyone in the agriculture industry wanting to grow is no longer a resource. It is no longer a resource as we can not measure the uptake of word of mouth. When it comes to digitising the industry you need to be able to see which part of the market is most receptive to your products and services. Without this, you may just be barking up the wrong tree. 

Let’s look at this example: 

You go to an agriculture field day event and you have 100 people sign up at your tent to receive a call later on during the week once you sort out all of your paperwork. Out of the 100 people that said they were interested 12% want to come and check out the product or service at work. From 12% of customers, you’ve successfully sold 4 machines of differing values. 

  • $10,000.00 
  • $3,000.00 
  • $12,000.00 
  • $600.00 

From the sales, you will find you will start to receive word-of-mouth from the time they start using the products. But how can you measure this? It’s not the same as an online share, it is a verbal opinion of one of your previous customers. 

Social media word-of-mouth marketing 

You’re sitting in the shed of your startup or in your fancy offices that cater to the needs of your much-deserved employees and you want to create noise and most importantly sales. But how can you do this without visiting every event in Australia? 

Facebook Ads are the best way to reach your audience and track what demographics are more likely to purchase or learn more about your products and/or services. unlike the face-to-face events, you are able to retarget those who are interested in your products. If you run a video on Facebook you can target those who have watched 75% of the video as they are more likely to convert into a customer of your business. 

Don’t get me wrong I’ll be the first person to be at agriculture field days to meet new people and catch up with other mates. But when you’re attending events you can run Facebook ads to those that will be attending the event through various ways of email address, geographical location, and if they have stated they’re interested in the event and have said “attending” on Facebook events.  

If you look at how much an event costs you to attend you can run these against what you would receive through a Facebook ad.  

Event Costs VS Facebook Ads 

Events Costs 

  • Event Exhibitor: $8,500/three days 
  • Foot Traffic: 10,000 Foot Traffic/Daily 

The hook or the wow factor is now up to you to entice the 10,000 into your tent to talk business. If you’re not interested you would walk in. After the event you will want to work out your ROI ration, assuming you’re getting more than the minimum of 1:1. Meaning you pay $8.5K to exhibit and you have one customer purchase for $8.5K. Ideally, you want 1:5 meaning for every dollar spent on the event you receive $5 back in your pocket. 

$8.5K x 5 = $42.5K In purchases from the event 

Facebook Ads 

Running Facebook ads for the same amount as the event cost just to make things easier. If you have a budget of $8.5K and drag the duration of this across Q1, that is 3 months’ worth of marketing.  

$8.5/90 Days = $94/Daily Ad Spend 

The value that you can receive for nearly $100 per day is unbelievable. Once you have your ad material made up you can test different variations to improve how the audience reacts to your adverts. 

Conclusion 

By comparing the value of what you would receive from an event and what Facebook ads would give you are totally different. It is up to you as a business owner to work out what you want as a business. Personally, I think that the two resources are another string to your bow.  

You won’t know until your trial and experiment.  

As far as Facebook Ads go there are enormous opportunities for growth if you’re an agribusiness to grow online. Facebook Ads are just merely a tool to get you where you want to be. To start using Facebook ads for your company please reach out, and we can get you set up and ready to go in just a few days. Email jack@advertyoureyes.com 

Some points to think about for your next event 

  • Retargeting customers/visitors who nearly bought but didn’t 
  • Segmenting your audience into locations 
  • Upselling product lines. 
  • Keep in touch with your audience 

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