Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
marketers understand what they should focus on in their marketing strategy. For example,
a hybrid seed corn company might have a group of corn hybrids with average yield
characteristics, but exceptional drought tolerance when compared against hybrids from
competitors. Here, the seed company may focus on marketing those hybrids in regions of
the country more vulnerable to drought, leaving regions with more normal weather to
companies with superior yielding, but less drought tolerant hybrids.
A thorough competitor analysis may also turn up business opportunities—a group of
customers the competitor doesn't service well, a product feature that customers are inter-
ested in, but is not currently offered, or an entire market segment that has been overlooked
and which may offer new business to an opportunistic fi rm. Competitor intelligence may
involve market research, use of secondary data like trade press articles, informal data collec-
tion by the fi rm's fi eld sales force, or extensive web-based research. Such data is collected
and evaluated with a key question in mind: “How does the competitor stack up against our
own efforts in this area?”
Understanding customer needs and wants
Here it is critical to have a fundamental understanding of what the customer will need from
the organization, both today and in the future. Food companies study trends in demographics
of consumers—older consumers have different needs than younger consumers—and they
study cultural changes affecting food choices—trends toward eating lighter, eating away
from home, and consuming less fat have important implications for marketing strategies. For
agribusiness fi rms selling to farmers and ranchers, “knowing the customer” typically means
thoroughly understanding the customer's business and the role the fi rm's product plays on
the farmer or rancher's operation.
Back to the livestock feed equipment example, if the fi rm is targeting pork production
operations with rapid growth potential, it will be critical to understand the types of changes
in feeding systems farmers make as they expand their production capacity. By carefully
studying pork operations with growth potential, the fi rm may fi nd that equipment capacities
must be re-engineered, that there is a big demand for engineering expertise to assist in plan-
ning equipment needs, and that fi nancing programs are well received given that capital for
expansion can be tight. Armed with this information, the agribusiness marketer can incorpo-
rate features that will address these issues into the fi rm's marketing plan.
Firms can gain insights into what their customers want from them through a wide variety
of techniques and activities. Some of these techniques are very informal—a breakfast meet-
ing with six key customers, for example. Some are more sophisticated—a virtual shopping
exercise where consumers' shopping movement and actions are recorded and analyzed. Data
and research can be purchased from fi rms that track/benchmark such market data. Many
larger agribusinesses employ professional marketing researchers or outside consultants to
study their customers, their competition, and trends in the marketplace. Even many smaller
fi rms develop their plans only after they have conducted special studies of their customers.
Marketing research can be based on complex statistical techniques, focus group insights, or
it can simply result from informal interviews and observations, or web-based surveys.
Analysis of internal transactions data or market mapping exercises can provide insight. But,
in any case, marketing research should provide objective, analytical information
on which to base marketing decisions. (More discussion of market analysis techniques is
presented in Chapter 8 .)
 
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