How do equipment dealers sell to farmers, and are those dealers supported by manufacturers in the process?

A recent study conducted by Spindustry, Fastline Marketing Group and Audience Audit revealed several insights into how dealers think about marketing to farmers along with how supported they feel by their manufacturers. The survey results showed dealers break out into four attitudinal segments:

• Confident (21 percent): Feel they understand their customer well and have a strong grasp on their marketing efforts.
• Adapted (23 percent): Understand farmers have changed the way they buy, preferring more often to go online.
• Supported (26 percent): Feel the most supported by their manufacturer partners.
• Outdated (30 percent): Stuck in the past and increasingly concerned about growing in a post-COVID environment.

Getting New Customers with Digital Advertising

Dealers surveyed agreed that 2021 was a year to invest in their marketing efforts to take market share. However, the data analysis revealed varying degrees of engagement with this thinking. Fifty percent of respondents said their budget in 2021 was the same as 2020.

COVID accelerated the trend to more dealers leveraging their websites for commerce. However, not all dealers have approached this the same, with only 33 percent of the “outdated” group using the internet for sales.

Furthermore, digital marketing tactics are becoming more prevalent, with digital now representing the majority of marketing spend for acquiring new customers. The outlier here is again the “outdated” bucket at only 11 percent.

How Dealers Sell, How Farmers Shop

Social Media. Social media tops the list within digital tactics for dealers, but farmers ranked social media closer to the bottom when shopping for parts and equipment. The key with these platforms is to understand how they are used—it may not be the best tool for lead generation but could prove durable for basic brand building.

Trade Shows. Trade shows rank toward the bottom in spending for all dealer groups. It also ranked low for farmers in their preferred shopping strategies. This could be influenced by the shutdown of the past 18 months, or it could be the beginning of a trend in which more dealers are leveraging websites and videos to demonstrate products vs. trade shows. This is definitely a trend to monitor.

The “outdated” group leveraged trade shows for half of their annual marketing spend which could prove problematic in the future as they seek to reach new customers.

E- Commerce. Only 38 percent of respondents use e-commerce to get new customers, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Close to 70 percent of farmers begin their buying journey at a website or search engine, so if dealers are not creating robust “digital storefronts” (aka: websites) that are user-friendly and represent their brand, they risk missing growth opportunities.

The vast majority of farmers, young and old, are utilizing the internet for some portion of their buying journey. This is most problematic for the “outdated” dealers who are behind in creating a strong digital footprint, continuing to allocate 50 percent of their marketing budgets to trade shows.

Marketing Support from Manufacturers

When it comes to feeling supported by their manufacturing partners, ratings vary wildly. It’s encouraging to note that the “supported” group gives a 50 percent rating, but that also means the other 50 percent do not feel supported by manufacturers.

If manufacturers can provide better images, real-time updates to parts and whole goods, and easier to navigate co-op policies, they stand to grow their revenue and build loyalty among dealers.

Additional Trends to Watch

Sixty percent of respondents have an annual marketing budget of less than $50,000, and only 9 percent are developing their budgets based on a percentage of sales. That runs counter to how most companies allocate other line-item expenses, proving there is room for improvement when it comes to developing a strategic marketing plan. Only 25 percent of respondents are thinking about how they break out their marketing spend by segment (print vs. digital vs. other).

Sixty percent say their businesses use co-op funds. They are used mostly for print (82 percent) vs. radio at 50 percent and digital at 35 percent.

Respondents said the documentation required to be reimbursed for digital advertising is frustrating, which discourages them from pursuing it with co-op funds. The “outdated” group is the least likely to use digital.

Manufacturers should think through how they can evolve their co-op policies to be more accommodating to digital tactics. To hammer this point home, 88 percent of respondents think co-op is important, but many are not using it because they say it is a hassle.

Biggest Challenges Ahead

The biggest challenges ahead as rated by the dealer respondents align with the daily headlines. However, following supply chain, cost and labor challenges are poor or no ecommerce and a weak brand. These are two items that dealers can control.

The ecommerce piece might be a bigger bite to chew, but putting some amount of focus on the basic website look, feel and functionality can do wonders for a brand.

Couple that with some strategic integrated marketing tactics in both the traditional and digital realms to help dealers stay top-of-mind and better position themselves for when inventory corrects itself.

A key focal point for manufacturers is helping pull the bottom 30 percent of the dealer groups up more on par with the other groups, which should lead to big gains later. Now is the time to be strategic and perform the basic “marketing hygiene” to position for the future.

Manufacturers cannot downplay the importance of their website as a marketing tool. It is essential to business growth. Make the most of yours by evaluating your site for these common mistakes.

Mobile Device Compatibility

Recent studies show that over half of all online traffic comes from mobile devices or through mobile apps, and a whopping 72.9 percent of all online sales will be from a mobile device by 2021.

This means that if your website is not mobile-ready, you could be failing to connect with more than half of your potential customers. In fact, users who have a negative experience with a mobile site are 62 percent less likely to purchase from that business.

An easy way to tell if your website is mobile-friendly is to use the Google Mobile-Friendly Test. Find it at .

You also should take a look at your website from your mobile device. Are you looking at a desktop version of your site on a smaller screen, or is it a distinct mobile version? Is the design easy to navigate? Do the pages load in three seconds or faster? These are key questions to ask.

Clear Messaging

When someone visits your website, you have five seconds to answer three questions for them.

• What is it that you offer?
• How will it make life better?
• How does a customer buy your products or services?

If you confuse, you lose. When a website visitor exits your site not knowing what you do or how to buy, the site has failed them and failed you. Clarifying your message will engage visitors and grow your business.

Visitors to your site should discover simple language that quickly tells them how what you offer will help them survive and thrive.

Vague messaging is a more common mistake among B2B companies, where the desire to sound professional often overrides the message you want to send your reader. Tell it like it is, and avoid vague or generic language.

Calls to Action

Manufacturers’ websites need clear calls to action, or CTAs. Make it easy and obvious for visitors to request more information or make a purchase.

CTAs are the foundational element in driving sales and boosting business—period. Clear, compelling, and well-displayed CTAs also improve customer experience, streamline the purchasing process, and convert more leads. Among effective CTAs:

• Call Now
• Find a Dealer
• Request A Quote

CTAs generate leads beyond office hours. Studies show that 90 percent of site visitors see them. And, a CTA integrated into the content of your site increases conversion rates by 120 percent.

It is critical manufacturers engage site visitors with the right calls-to-action, at the right time, based on your customer demographic.

The article was contributed by member company Driven Digital, which provides website services to manufacturers. It has offices in Oklahoma and Texas. Learn more at .

So how can you super-charge your email marketing campaigns in 2020? Here are a few important advantages email provides.

Personalization. As a concept, personalization isn’t a new idea. As far back as 1993, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers introduced the idea of one-to-one marketing, meaning your message is tailored to an individual’s interests rather than being a broadcast message.

What continues to evolve are the technologies that help businesses embrace personalization, including email. Use an email marketing platform that integrates with your CRM system to build data-driven, customer-specific lists and tailor the content so it’s relevant to your audience.

Marketing Automation. This is the practice of planning a series of emails or marketing touches that are automatically sent to a pre-defined group of contacts on a regular interval or based on an action the contact takes.

Use marketing automation to nurture and grow relationships with customer and prospects. For example, you could create a series of emails to send a customer who has purchased a piece of equipment with product information, a promotion on accessories or related products, and scheduled service reminders.

Although there is an entire segment of marketing software dedicated to doing marketing automation, most email software provides the opportunity to create a series of scheduled emails.

Device Optimization. In today’s digitally connected world, it is important to remember that people are using multiple devices to access their email, and they expect you to meet their experience expectations on all of them.

Most companies still design their email templates primarily for desktop users. Sending emails that are not designed to be responsive or adaptive not only limits the effectiveness of the email. It also can damage your brand by creating the impression that you do not embrace technology.

It’s important to choose an email provider that offers email template designs that scale automatically according to the user’s screen size. And don’t forget to test your emails before sending to make sure they appear correctly.

The start of a new year is a great time to re-evaluate your marketing practices and set goals for improving them. Is it time to think differently about how you approach email as a channel to fully capitalize on its potential?

Contributed by Betsy Chase at Charter Software, which partners with agricultural, construction, golf and motorsports OEMs through technology-based management tools.