Marketing seedstock: Make it count

While that might sound a little harsh, Cozzitorto has a point. He explained that 20 years ago, there were around 800,000 commercial cattlemen and now that number has dropped to 600,000. Likewise, there used to be roughly 200 Angus sales a year, now there are 1,250 Angus sales a year.

Cassidy Woolsey

Managing Editor / Ag Proud – Idaho

Cassidy is a contributing editor to Progressive Cattle and Progressive Forage magazines.

Email Cassidy Woolsey

“We’re not growing any more [cattlemen]. There is no more land, no more cattle, that’s how you do it. And that’s all done through marketing.”

To be effective marketers, Cozzitorto told attendees they need to:

Establish awareness
Get customers to consider their business
Get customers to convert
Establish loyalty

The challenge, however, is there are only eight seconds to do it.

Citing a study from Microsoft Corp., Cozzitorto pointed out that the average consumer’s attention span is only eight seconds, thanks to an increasingly digitalized lifestyle. That doesn’t give breeders much time to educate a new customer about their program and ultimately, get them to convert.

Sara Reardon, also with Angus Media, referred to the awareness and consideration phase as an “elevator speech.” Basically, she said, “make sure you are not everything to everyone. If you’re explaining your business in a paragraph, what’s really special about that? You need to be able to say who you are and what you do in eight seconds.”

Diving a little deeper, Reardon told attendees to think about what promises they can deliver and if they are realistic. She pointed out that delivering the best cattle in the U.S. probably shouldn’t be on the list. Rather, she encouraged them to ask questions such as: What values are important to their organization? What makes their business unique? What are they doing for their customers? And from there, define their purpose and translate it into a mission statement.

“It’s your guiding phrase for your business,” Reardon said. “It focuses all decisions and the way you operate. Once you’ve established that mission statement, you might be surprised when you look back at your marketing materials and find that you probably weren’t as focused as you thought you were.” She encouraged breeders to set aside time to look at their website, current ads, social media and sale books to make sure their message is consistent.

Reardon also addressed the looming question: Is there a return on investment? While breeders might feel like they are throwing away much-needed cash, Reardon noted a study showing that with consistent delivery of brand image and message, business revenue can increase by 23 percent. “Did it happen immediately with just one ad? Absolutely not,” she said. On average, consumers have to see an ad seven times before they will even notice it.

In terms of budgeting, Reardon told attendees to look at their projected gross income and then develop their budget from there. If awareness is what a breeder needs, they can expect to spend 3 to 5 percent of their projected gross revenue. If they want people to start to convert, they can expect to spend 7 to 8 percent, and if they want to make a real impact, they should expect to spend 10 to 15 percent.

She said, “If you’re not willing to invest to reach those averages, maybe you need to adjust your expectation of what you’re going to get out of those ads.”

Both Reardon and Cozzitorto agree that it is much cheaper to maintain current customers than it is to find new ones. In fact, Cozzitorto said, a loyal customer is 50 percent more likely to buy a second bull, a second heifer, semen or a new product the business is offering, whereas it’s seven times more costly to gain a new customer.

“Take care of the ones you have, return that phone call, fix the problems, do everything you possibly can because they are loyal and they’ll stay with you,” he said. “If you lose a customer, it is your fault.”

Lastly, Cozzitorto encouraged attendees to spend some time researching their competition. How many ads do they run? Do they have a website? Are they on social media? He said, “We have people who breed great cattle and get average prices, and we have people who breed average cattle and get great prices. The difference is really just marketing.”