Environmental Initiative + Trust in Food

4

Choose Engagement

Selecting the right outreach method is crucial for effectively delivering your messages to ranchers and encouraging them to engage with your regenerative agriculture program.

While direct field outreach is a powerful approach, scaling requires layering kitchen table conversations with wider-scale engagement designed to reach farmers and ranchers in a range of formats.

Additionally, each rancher group may respond differently to various outreach methods and communication channels, so it’s essential to carefully consider the engagement that will maximize reach and impact.

What We Did

We uncovered two key data points about engagement design as we built our rancher persona for North and South Dakota: This group is more trusting of mobile phone-based media and more likely to make online purchases.

Over the course of the project, we deployed tens of thousands of touchpoints across email, text message, e-newsletter creative placements, website articles, live personalized ads, and social media platforms to meet ranchers where they are on their journey and directly support both increased understanding and perceived value of conservation agriculture practices for their operations. These placements allowed ranchers to engage with potential new content at their convenience.

Step4Photo1
Step4Photo2

Clicking the content at these touchpoints took ranchers to a page with an explanation of how grazing management plans foster success, as well as resources for ranchers who weren’t sure where to start or who wanted to do more research before downloading the workbook.

What stood out in the analysis of the outreach was that of all the resources we provided on the landing page, ranchers clicked articles hosted on Farm Journal’s platforms the most. Ranchers appeared to be weighing their options, validating our previous finding that they are interested in understanding the value of conservation agriculture practices.

Make it Happen

Download this worksheet to outline your engagement approaches. Connect in ways that are most aligned with your rancher persona.

Sample Outreach Methods

The success of your campaign hinges on the alignment of your persona, messaging, and channels. Carefully consider your audience’s engagement preferences to maximize reach and impact.