Dare to be Different in Agricultural Marketing

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

In agriculture, we are always striving to be better - higher yields with fewer inputs and less expenses. But in today’s competitive marketplace, consumers aren’t just looking for better, they’re looking for different. Dan Schultz says smart ag marketers will give customers a choice, not just a comparison.

Schultz... "A lot of times when we're going to the market we look at and say we want to compete in an existing market category with a better product and a better brand. But that doesn't necessarily translate to automatic value in the customer's mind because you haven't given them a distinct reason to switch away from the incumbent. What you actually want to bring to the marketplace and what actually gets you noticed in the market is what's that distinct difference? What is it that you believe that John Deere doesn't believe? What is it that they can't do? I like to say that you not only need an orthogonal product that operates at a, you know, exchanges value at a different level than the incumbent, you also need an orthogonal product, pricing model. So you need to charge differently than they do because that disorients them. They don't know how to compete with that necessarily. They're built around charging through the dealership model, through this certain way, and they don't know how to attack somebody who's either going direct to customer or who's built some other, other go-to-market. And then the other thing is you need an orthogonal team. You have to find groups of people who are going to be great, who aren't yet."

Again that’s Dan Schultz, lead category designer at Schultz Collaborative.