Leverage your experts to tell your story
What’s the ultimate marketing asset? How about an expert who can explain business processes and details in such a way that even non-experts can understand and appreciate them?
Fresh produce companies have a huge opportunity to reach consumers by telling the stories of how they grow, harvest, pack and ship their products, and I believe most companies already have exactly the right people available to tell those stories.
Let’s talk for a moment about the information itself. If you think the normal operations of a segment of the produce industry couldn’t be that interesting to the average person, think about how much traction behind-the-scenes entertainment has gotten.
There are so many TV shows that document work, from renovating homes to restoring classic cars to revamping failing businesses. Why have some of these series had such success? Because people are interested in process, and when you add in compelling characters, you create memorable engagement.
Details and personality go a long way in elevating content to the level that viewers later use pieces of it in “Did you know?” or “Guess what I learned today” conversations with friends and family.
Owyhee Produce CEO Shay Myers has done a remarkable job demonstrating the potential of this approach for the produce industry. His videos, which have significant followings on TikTok and LinkedIn, are generally 1-minute or 2-minute clips of him discussing anything from soil to storage to pesticides.
People are interested in process, and when you add in compelling characters, you create memorable engagement.
Sometimes marketers avoid certain topics in agriculture because they aren’t well understood by the average consumer and might be viewed negatively.
Myers hasn’t been deterred. Instead of never mentioning pesticides, for example, he explains why and how Owyhee uses them and why he has confidence the company’s farming practices are sustainable.
“When we don’t talk about reality as it is today, we do ourselves a disservice, we do the industry a disservice, and we do the consumer a disservice,” Myers said in an interview with The Packer earlier this year.
“Because how can we expect them to appreciate, to pay for and to consume what they don’t understand?”
Who’s that person who has been with your organization forever, who knows operational details and explains them with ease, who really takes pride in telling others about the details of the business? See if that person would be willing to talk on camera to describe different parts of the business as a way to slowly bring consumers into the fold — one short social media video at a time — so they can better understand what it takes to bring fruits and vegetables to the table.
Not every topic will be easy to describe succinctly, and not all will be met with equal interest or acceptance.
But, as Myers has said, it comes down to this: Someone is going to be telling the story of agriculture, and more specifically, the story of the produce industry.
Do you want it to be the people who know the industry inside and out and live it every day, or do you want it to be someone else?
Ashley Nickle is editor of PMG magazine and retail editor of The Packer. E-mail her at anickle@farmjournal.com.
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