Oct 17, 2019

How B2B Agriculture Brands Are Using Content Marketing


91 percent of B2B marketers use content marketing.

This includes businesses in all sorts of industries, from food and fashion to travel and technology. The agriculture industry is no different, although this sector isn’t as fast at adapting to new strategies as others.

That said, there are a number of agribusinesses doing great things with their digital content, and we’ve pulled together some of the best in this list.

1. John Deere – The Furrow

This list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the original content marketing campaign from the agriculture industry.

John Deere, a farming machinery manufacturer, was ahead of the times when it published the very first edition of The Furrow, a B2B farming magazine, in 1897.

Today, The Furrow is still in circulation, but now it has a digital counterpart that is packed full of farming stories, use cases and information for those in the agriculture business.

John Deere knows its audience well, and continues to create content that they can engage with and find useful. As a result, the brand has elevated itself to expert status in the farming industry, and is one of the go-to brands for machinery.

Key Takeaways:

  • You don’t have to reinvent the wheel with your content marketing campaigns
  • Use stories and industry-related content to engage prospects

2. Hectare Agritech – Tudder

If you think you’ve heard it all, then wait until you hear this.

Agritech brand Hectare recently created an app that has been dubbed “Tinder for cows”. Yes, you heard that right.

The swipe app basically allows farmers to find breeding cows and bulls that are near them. It was released just in time for Valentine’s Day, which added to the surge of publicity behind it.

This is a great example of a brand using a familiar concept to leverage its own products and services.

The app is a spin-off of Hectare’s SellMyLivestock website, which is used by thousands of farmers across the U.K., and it generated a ton of media coverage that gained exposure for the brand and put it on the radar of farmers who hadn’t yet heard of it.

Key Takeaways:

  • Use humor to inject potentially dry topics with a sense of fun
  • Play off familiar concepts, and tie your campaigns into pop culture trends

3. Massey Ferguson – Campaign for Real Bales

Massey Ferguson, another farming machinery manufacturer (and hot competition for John Deere), knows that it needs to connect with farmers to get more sales.

Today, that means creating content for every stage of the sales funnel —something that’s particularly important in the B2B world, because buying cycles tend to be much longer and require more effort to engage prospects.

To tackle this, the brand has created several campaigns, including the Campaign for Real Bales. It’s essentially a content hub on that website that incorporates user case studies, clear advertising copy, key details about the heritage of the company and a themed competition, all centered on selling more balers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Provide prospects with a variety of different information that will help fuel their buying decisions

4. AGCO

Agriculture manufacturer AGCO (and the umbrella company that owns Massey Ferguson) has been a spearhead in the evolution of content marketing in the farming sector.

The company places a particularly heavy emphasis on social media to engage farmers and connect with potential prospects.

Using thought leadership pieces and topical content, it populates its social channels — from Twitter and Facebook to YouTube — with content that showcases unique expertise and helps reach a wider audience.

Before launching its social channels, AGCO did some extensive research into the behavior of its customers, and quickly discovered that a lot of them were posting short YouTube clips of themselves using the company’s equipment.

AGCO repackaged these and added to them before sharing them across its social channels. The company also provides a weekly “Tillage Tips” section on its Facebook page that offers quick solutions for farmers who might be struggling with this aspect of their business.

By showing up consistently on social media and sharing content AGCO knows its audience wants and needs, AGCO has managed to grow its Facebook following to 180,000, its Twitter following to 10,000 and its YouTube subscriber number to almost 3,000.

Key Takeaways:

  • Share content with your prospects on platforms they’re already hanging out on
  • Repackage user-generated content, and share it across your own channels

Sow the Seeds of Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing in the B2B agriculture world is evolving. The industry may well be behind others in terms of the latest trends, but there are many farming companies that are stepping up their game to provide engaging, interactive content for their prospects.

You can get ahead of your competitors by sowing the seeds of your content marketing strategy today, and sharing your knowledge with farmers around the world.

Related Articles:

Effective Agribusiness Marketing Strategies in a Green World

The Internet of Things Commands Attention in Agribusiness

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