I propose to define it right away: you can't do without a brand today, you need to work on it every day (every hour, every minute) - you can't bring it to the market and forget it.
The stages of launching a brand in the agricultural market are unlikely to differ from any other market. The specifics will lie in the work on its recognition, key messages for the target audience, understanding of insights, colour scheme, design and rules of use.
Let's start with the internal stages for the company:
1. Idea: What was your (the company's) idea when you started the business? To bring knowledge to the masses? To feed the whole world? To inspire confidence? To make life easier? And many others.
2. The company's strategy in general and marketing strategy in particular: what we want, in how long, why, with what portfolio, with which business units. This is a point worthy of a whole article, or maybe even a book.
3. Market research: capacity, major players, their portfolio, market shares, brands, their level of recognition, their target audience, key messages, tactics and methods of competition.
4. Portrait of the target audience: defining the target audience of your brand, studying it (demographics and geography), understanding the deep motives, preferences, interests, behavioural patterns in certain situations, role models (employee, husband/wife, father/mother, son/daughter), problems you can help with, needs you can meet, triggers you can influence; dividing the target audience into sub-segments - you won't be able to cover everyone at once with one tool.
5. Naming, motto and key messages: how the brand and its motto should sound, why it should sound that way, how clear they are to your target audience, whether they reflect the idea, strategy, are memorable, what emotions and associations they evoke.
6. Font, colour scheme and brand book: the same as in step 5.
Let's continue with the external stages for the market:
7. Formation of the information field for the brand launch: we haven't said what it is yet, but teasers and explanations of why the target audience needs it should be made (by the way, this stage comes after steps 1-4). In the agricultural business, you need to start this stage at least 6 months before the brand is launched, and preferably 12 months before.
8. Brand output: naming, motto, core values, accompanying storytelling, brand history, product portfolio appear in all available sources of information (depending on the budget and the target audience portrait). Print media, electronic media, and social media are still in high esteem for the agricultural market, but the best and most effective way is through the fields, because seeing is believing, and farmers are conservative people. Interviews with top executives are also welcomed at the launch stage, especially in the agricultural market. Catalogues, brochures and booklets, both in print and in electronic form, are very effective at this stage and beyond in the agricultural market. Branded souvenirs are a must-have. Without it, farmers have no brand.
9. Collecting feedback from the target audience after the brand launch and analysing it to adjust the next steps. Analysis of brand awareness.
10. Maintaining and increasing brand awareness. The agricultural market involves a lot of work in the fields, directly with farmers, as the market is very personalised and conservative. This includes field events, consultations with sales managers/technical experts (sometimes 24/7), joint trips, workshops, conferences, round tables, interactive communication, creation of cool content (info-driven events), development of the product portfolio and the company as a whole. Analysis at each stage.
What's next?
A brand can live for decades or centuries. It can go through a certain cycle and leave the market, and another one will appear instead. Rebranding can happen for various reasons. How do you know what to do with a brand and at what stage? Analyse qualitatively and quantitatively, communicate with the target audience (by the way, the agricultural market is very lucky - you can communicate with almost every farmer both interactively and in real time), draw conclusions, follow trends, and understand the strategic trends in the company.
Bringing a brand to the market is a responsible task for highly professional marketers: it requires a lot of knowledge, experience and strategic vision. And at the same time, it's a lot of fun. In a sense, it can be compared to the birth of a child, its upbringing and growing up.
Source: AgroPortal
