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By Michael Bird

Many of you serve farmers or serve dealers or distributors who serve those farmers. In either scenario, knowing how farmers think and act when researching parts and equipment could help you decide how to market your products and ultimately propel your business.

Spindustry teamed up with attitudinal researchers at Audience Audit earlier this year to learn from more than 750 farmers across the U.S. and Canada what their thoughts and preferences were during the process of shopping for farm equipment and parts. The results of the study were first unveiled at Supply Summit 2021 in Kansas City. We share key findings in this issue of Ag Innovator and offer suggestions on how to optimize your online presence.

Predictable (and Sometimes Surprising) Findings

While you can likely guess the internet plays a role in farmers’ decision-making, how different groups use the internet and when they choose to not use the internet may surprise you. If you are a manufacturer or distributor planning digital and marketing strategies, this real evidence will help you make informed decisions.

Our research identified three groups: those loyal to local businesses and services, online optimizers, and those focused on savings. While there were differences, there were also many commonalities across groups.

Here’s what we learned:

• �鶹apps start with search engines and websites regardless of whether they intend to buy online.
• While the Internet was No. 1, more than 50 percent of respondents reported using print catalogs and YouTube to research products. This is an interesting blend of old- and new-school methods of information-gathering. Combining the two by using QR codes in catalogs that drives people to your YouTube channel could maximize both platforms.
• Producers used social media to shop only 14 percent of the time. We believe social media is still an important tool for brand-building, but when a farmer needs a part, they are not going to social media during the research process.
• When farmers buy something from you online, 86 percent of them likely will buy from you again. While we can already make the case that Google ads and other digital methods have better ROI than trade shows or other traditional methods in many cases, this finding on repeat purchases reinforces that these methods pay off. Consider the lifetime value if someone who buys from you once is statistically almost certainly going to buy from you again.

These findings, as well as session discussion, served as a launch point for these broader insights:

Give Dealers What They Need to Market What You Sell

Dealers and distributors need manufacturers’ support for e-commerce. Just like endcap displays and catalogs helped in the past, dealers need manufacturers to support their e-commerce sites.

Our research tells us that farmers want schematics, make/model details, information about what machines fit with the product, quality photos, and technical specifications. Often the manufacturer does provide this information in an electronically importable format (An Excel file is useful; a Word document is not, because its content cannot be imported into a database). Providing this information to your dealers should be a priority.

Think about Search Terms

About 50 percent of visitors to your web site will use your search bar rather than navigate your site. Your site should have a search tool, and you should be recording both what terms the searchers entered and what results that term generated.

If you know that people are searching for “hoses,” and your site has hoses but is not presenting those products in response to searches, it may be because the word “hoses” is not in the product name. Maybe the name is just “hose” or simply a number or branded name. Either way, you are at risk of losing a customer. If you have information about terms and results, you can add keywords or rename products to get the right results to appear.

This process also helps you learn your customers’ vocabulary, which you can use in both online and traditional marketing. Optimizing on-site search is one of the single most important tactics in continuing to prosper in the farm equipment marketplace.

Learn More

Spindustry, Audience Audit, and Fastline Marketing Group are conducting another round of research now to learn more about what dealers and distributors need from manufacturers to most effectively sell their products. We will present data at the Marketing & Distribution Convention in Oklahoma City in November.

Some of Spindustry’s clients have had as much as 50 percent of marketing and technology projects paid for by government funding. This is a grant program (no payback required!) from Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms designed to cover digital marketing expenses. Find out more at