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Purebred Livestock Marketing - Part 4 of 6
Written Tessa Verbeek
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In this segment, we will discuss some of the main forms of larger investment advertising, how to build a better print ad and considerations when formulating your advertising budget and evaluating success.
Print BREED PUBLICATIONS Breed specific publications are a tried and true way to reach not only all of your fellow breeders but also commercial cattlemen that are already buying bulls from your breed. While we would all like to advocate the merits of our respective breeds and make ‘converts’ out of so and so who’s Daddy and Granddaddy only ever raised (insert breed here)… the reality is that the most likely person to buy the breed of bulls you are offering is someone who is already investing in that breed. Your breed association publication is distributing their publication to all of those commercial buyers who have purchased from members of the Association. In this way, it could be argued that the potential interest per dollar spent is likely to be exponentially higher since every recipient of the publication is at least interested in the breed you have to offer.
INDUSTRY PUBLICATIONS There are a number of industry publications that cattlemen frequently advertise in. These include national and provincial beef magazines, as well as other agricultural magazines if you feel your customer base is reading those. For example, if the majority of the bull buyers that would be in your potential customer base also have crops you may want to consider advertising in a grain industry publication. The competition for attention may be less than beef publications where there is a cow or bull on every page.
RURAL NEWSPAPERS Seek out options for special bull sale inserts outside of your local area. Consider advertising not only in your local newspaper but perhaps especially in publications local to the majority of your customer base. Your own pleased customers will be your best advertising of all, better yet when their neighbours recognize your operation’s name.
RADIO Radio advertisements may seem old-school, but when it comes to selling cattle and reaching your customer base, they may be the most relevant avenue to your audience. They are also quite affordable. Whether in the truck, the tractor or the farmhouse kitchen, it is a rare occasion for the radio to not be on. If you are fortunate to have an agriculture-based station that the majority of farmers and ranchers in your area or province listen to, the decision of which station to advertise on is easy. If your station has a farm report that airs daily, that may be the most appropriate time slot to advertise in. Radio advertising is best saved for the week or so prior to your event (i.e. bull sale or field day).
TELEVISION & VIDEO While our friends south of the border have significantly more options for advertising through television channels such as RFD-TV, you may want to consider thinking outside of the box when it comes to digital promotion efforts. There are a number of agriculture specific videography companies that could come to your place and capture video footage, messages from the owners and testimonies from customers and craft it into a breathtaking short video. With the advent of drone footage, and the addition of some timely music placement, these can turn your ‘ordinary’ operation into something that appears to be out of a movie. This could be utilized solely for web and social media or professional videos, and perhaps commentary, of your sale lots could be included and a hard copy DVD could be sent to your customers. Both traditional television advertisements, as well as the ideas of web-based or hard copy videos, would tend to be some of the more expensive forms of marketing.
WEBSITE BANNER ADS & LINKS Many cattle related websites such as breed associations, livestock marketing agencies, and industry groups offer advertising space on their websites for a cost. The goal of this type of advertisement is to drive traffic to your website – therefore ensuring your website is up to date is imperative. As with all forms of advertising, consider your customer base when deciding if and where to spend your budget in the online advertising space. As mentioned in Part 2 of this series, targeted Facebook advertising campaigns can be a highly cost-effective way of reaching your target market, especially if you have a sale to promote or animals selling by private treaty.
SHOWS It could be said that your cattle are as much of an advertisement, good or bad, as any paid advertising. We certainly all hope our animals are a truly good reflection of our operation. While it is also an investment-heavy means of advertising, showing your livestock is the best way to get your actual product, not just words or pictures, out in front of a captive audience. Provided you have done the work ahead of time in terms of proper feeding and training and have sufficient equipment and help to make it a successful endeavour, showing can serve as a means of advertising, customer and interbreeder relationship building, and a whole lot of fun for your entire family. And, if glue and sheen are all a little much for you, but you still like the premise of getting your stock in front of people, look into entering into a pen show. These are widely popular with commercial cattlemen. Alternatively, you may want to organize your own field day with other breeders where you can each bring your best animals together for a day of socializing.
SPONSORSHIP Although donations and sponsorship may be done purely as an act of good will, they are also a form of advertisement. Sponsorship can help to create and maintain brand awareness, while also demonstrating your good character and care for the betterment of the organization or event you are donating to.
BUILD A BETTER AD Headline, Tagline, Copy, Call to Action, Contact Info – Your headline should be attention grabbing. It may simply be the name of your sale or the sire you are promoting or it may be more creative and tie into the graphic elements of your ad.
The tagline is often your operation’s slogan such as “Family owned and operated since 1970”. While more widely used in main stream corporate advertising (i.e. McDonald’s® i’m lovin’ it®), a tagline can certainly be effective in livestock advertising, but is optional.
Most livestock advertisements include some type of advertisement copy, or text. This may be animals pedigrees, performance information, show accomplishments, notable relatives, or other selling points.
A call to action, simply put, is the take away message of the advertisement and gives the reader an idea of the next step to be taken after reading the ad. This can simply be an invitation to your sale or event with the date, location and time or a statement such as “Contact us for your next herd sire”.
Contact information is imperative to every advertisement. Most advertisements generally include the owner name(s), phone number(s), e-mail, website, and possibly social media URL or icons.
PHOTOS It is absolutely imperative that photos, especially for printed publications, be high-resolution images taken with a digital camera, not a cell phone. Even the most advanced cell phones that appear to take stunning images do not have the ability to capture the sufficient number of pixels (enough image date to use the photo in print without it becoming blurry or distorted when blown up to the size necessary for publications. If taking your own photos ensure you set your digital camera to take the highest resolution images. Send files as a high-resolution JPG (1.5 MB file size minimum). Do not re-size your images yourself and do not allow your e-mail to resize or down sample your image when sending to the graphic designer. When taking your own background photos for an advertisement (i.e. a herd shot or an image of a cow/calf pair on pasture) a good rule of thumb is to leave ample space around your subjects. Zooming in too closely without leaving some landscape constricts space that may be necessary for the text on the ad. When making an investment in a printed advertisement, it is ideal to also invest in professional photographs, especially of the animals, so as to present your livestock in the very best way possible. Always schedule photographers with ample advance time to shoot, edit and receive the photos back to be sent onto your graphic designer.
INFORMATION TO PROVIDE Provide your graphic designer with all of the written information you would like included in the advertisement. This may include the headline, tagline, call to action and, if applicable, sale date/location/time, and all contact information. Double check the information before you send it and triple check the proof you receive back. You may also provide the graphic designer with specific ideas or requests, or show them examples of other advertisements you like. Ultimately though, it is their artistic eye and skill that you are paying them for so let them do their work and you will always have the opportunity to proof and ask for changes to be made. Once you begin working with a professional to design your advertisements, it will be easy for them to help you maintain consistency throughout all of your promotional efforts by utilizing the same colour scheme, text, and design elements to maintain that important brand recognition that I spoke about in Part 1 of this series.
ADVERTISING BUDGET Although absolutely essential, advertising does come at a cost. While there is certainly no one-size-fits-all approach, “Many agricultural businesses set their advertising budget at 2% to 5% of gross annual sales,” says Cole Christiansen, President of Cole’s Ag Communications. It is wise to establish an advertising budget, and a well thought out advertising plan, each year. You may also want to budget a bit of excess for unexpected publication deals that may arise. The ideal advertising plan includes a calculated mix of advertising mediums. Remember the old adage about not keeping all of your eggs in one basket? The same applies to advertising. Your target customers are unlikely to all be reached via solely one method of advertising. Make efforts to keep your brand in front of your audience year-round, even if your ‘off-season’ efforts are more minimal and less costly. When you are preparing for your own annual sale or other big event, or have consigned animals to a sale, your advertising efforts should ramp up significantly. In our next issue, I will be delving into developing your sale planning checklist, including timeline suggestions for advertising efforts.
EVALUATING SUCCESS Unlike the hard measurements and numbers that come at weaning time to evaluate the success of this year’s calf crop, evaluating your advertising success is a lot less tangible to measure. It is still necessary, though. Simply asking new inquirers how they heard about you is a great starting point. Each year, determine which customers were new buyers and how they found your operation. We are all looking for ways to cut costs, likely more so now than ever. However, tough times are not the time to let up on advertising. While results are not always immediate, remember that the longer a company, sale or animal is advertised, the better. Good advertising is not an expense, but an investment.
