The major goal of every business owners and farmers is to continuously generate sale so as to meet up with their costs and also make good profit.
The major way by which many businesses generate profit is through sales and there is a need for customer acquisition before sales can be made. Therefore, acquiring new customers and also retaining existing customers are very important for the sustainability and growth of any business.
So how do you ensure that your business continues to attract new customers regularly and also engage with existing customers so that they always remember your brand everytime they need your products and services that you offer?
You need to understand this
In traditional marketing, you will have to budget a good sum of money for adverts, flyers and billboards and even then, the effectiveness of these methods are limited because of the small geographical area it can cover at a time.
The good news is that with the use of digital platforms you can now acquire new customers easily, engage existing customers regularly and even get feedback from customers all in the comfort of your home, office or farm.
This is why I will be showing you how you can generate sales in your agribusiness with these digital tools. The major digital tools that farmers can explore to generate more sales are:
- Social media
Social media is one of the cheapest and easiest ways by which farmers can gain visibility for their agribusiness ventures by positioning themselves to be seen by their prospective customers.
The social media platforms available today include facebook, instagram, twitter, Linked in, snapchat and so on. You do not need to pay before you use this platform, not until you want to run ads on these social media platforms.
However, many farmers have not maximized social media platforms to build their brand visibility and make sales.
To start using social media to generate sales, the first thing you need to do is identify who your customers are and the best social media platforms where you can reach them.
From my personal experience as a farmer and a digital expert, I have discovered that facebook is better for promoting agricultural brands. This does not mean that you can not use other social media platforms. You can put your brand on 2 or 3 social media platforms but I always advise that you don’t try to manage too many social media platforms if you are managing it yourself because it can be overwhelming to manage social media platforms alongside activities on your farm.
The next thing you will do is start putting out engaging contents on all your social media platforms. This is where many people get confused because they don’t know the type of content to put out.
You can start by sharing pictures of activities on your farm alongside short captions to engage your audience.
You can also tell stories about your brand, how you started, what motivated you, the challenges you have faced so far in your agribusiness and what you plan to do.
You can even educate your audience on some practices that can help them as consumers. For example, you can put out an engaging content on why they should cook vegetables on low heat to preserve its flavour and nutrients.
You can even create content that entertains your audience.
The rule of thumb is that any content you create must be useful to your audience and relevant to your agribusiness.
Also, don’t forget to include the links to your website in the content that you create on social media. This helps your audience to know more about your business.
Now that you have put out content about your brand, make sure that you always engage with your audience by replying their questions on time. Be social and let your audience know that you are ready to serve them.
Finally, make sure you are consistent. Always try as much as possible to post content on your social media platforms at least twice in a week.
You can maximize paid social media advertising to reach more audiences with your brand message and generate massive sales. Make sure you get an expert to do this for you if you are not skilled in this aspect so that you don’t waste your money in advertising without results.
- Blogs
Blogs are informational websites that displays posts or articles in a reverse chronological order that is the latest posts will appear first in a blog.
Blogs are very good platforms to showcase your brand and acquire new customers. This is because of the high number of people (traffic) that visit must blog depending on how popular the blog is and how it is constantly being updated.
All you have to do is write educational and engaging blog posts so as to reach a wider range of people with your message.
Do you have success stories you want to share?
Do you have original information you want to share?
Do you have opinions you want to share?
Do you have challenges, complaints or unwholesome activities or practices you want to share?
Use this opportunity to send your documented stories or articles in Ms. Word Document and pictures separately to [email protected] for publication.
N.B. Any material with excessive advert/promotion, adult content or malicious content will not be approved.
- Email Newsletters
Emails Newsletters are also very good when it comes to keeping your existing audience engaged and informing them about new products and services that you offer or even just telling them about the changes that has occurred in the way you run your agribusiness.
Email newsletters also help your existing customers to remember you especially when you consistently reach out to them with valuable information through your newsletters.
To be effective with your email newsletter, make sure you always keep your emails simple and short, as many people don’t want to read long emails.
Also make sure that you don’t spam your audience so that they don’t unsubscribe to your newsletters.
CONCLUSION
The various methods that I have discussed in this article are not the only ways that you can generate customers from digital platforms, but these methods that I outlined here are the cheapest platforms that you can start to maximize today. There are many other channels such as search engine marketing and paid social media ads that help you to accelerate your sales efforts.
Which one of these platforms have you used for your business and what has been your experience?
Do you encounter any challenge while using these platforms to generate more sales?
Let me know in the comment section and I will be very happy to help you scale your business using digital platforms.
