Definition of Agricultural Product Promotion Skills
Agricultural Product Promotion Skills refers to the abilities required by farmers to increase the sales of agricultural products and services to generate profit.
Marketing is one of the most important aspects of the agricultural production value chain through which crops or animal products get to the final consumers, for the marketing of goods and services to receive a boost, it must be well known to the consumers.
Farming is mostly carried out in remote villages and rural areas across the globe, so making these products available for customers to get acquainted with these products is very difficult. This is where Agricultural Product Promotion Skills comes in.
Agricultural Product Promotion Skills are required in launching new products or existing products and services as well as the special techniques which a lot of farmers require for effective sales or marketing of their products.
Once farmers possess these skills they become efficient in the sales of agricultural products as well as promoting products and services.
Farmers can be effective in the manufacturing of new products or services but if they don’t promote it properly, they are not likely to achieve targets or even end up running at a loss.
In many small-scale enterprises with so many new products and services in the business environments, farmers require adequate product promotion skills to excel or make their product or service meet the current realities.
Agricultural Product Promotion Skills help the farmers to know their target customers and the channels through which the products will reach the customers for effective sales. These agricultural marketing skills are usually carried out by the farmers after harvesting their agricultural products.
The farmers must exhibit these skills to attract their target customers for good sales. The Agricultural Product Promotion Skills that are usually needed by farmers to attract consumers to their products as submitted by Word stream are:
Perform Market Survey
Before introducing new products, it is necessary to perform a Market Survey. Market Survey is one the most important aspects of Agricultural Products Promotion Skills required by farmers for the Marketing Agricultural Products.
A market survey refers to the gathering of information about consumers’ needs, market prices, competitors, and other competing products in the market to make decisions on how the new product will be introduced into the market.
Agripreneurs or manufacturers of agricultural products possess special skills in creating new agricultural products and services, but ensuring that these agricultural products and services satisfy consumers’ needs is paramount.
Therefore gathering information about the needs and wants of the consumers, products, and services to fulfill those needs will boost the success of the farm business.
Farmers usually need market surveys to gather information about the success of a new product in the market.
Carrying out Market surveys is important because, it helps the agripreneur to avoid introducing products that are not needed by consumers, know the success of the new products, and competitors, set prices not too high or too low, and how to introduce a new product.
Farmers require adequate market surveys to provide critical insight into how a product will get the consumers, consumer behavior about that same product in the market, how to cope with competitors, and the consumers’ interest in new products in the market.
Small business organisations noted that Market surveys can be done using questionnaires, interviews, observation, and experimenting the new products in the market. All these can be done through phone conversation, email, and social, social media platforms.
Carry out Advertisement
For new or existing products to catch the attention of customers the farmers must muster the act of Advertisement.
Advertisement of agricultural products refers to any paid promotion tool aimed at creating awareness about a particular product to increase sales.
This is another Agricultural Product Promotion Skills required by farmers to draw the attention of the public about particular agricultural products to influence purchases.
Advertisements of Agricultural marketing are Important for the following reasons: they increase product awareness, and decision-making, they ensure better quality, increase sales of products and services, and help build a good brand image.
Types of Advertisements often used in agriculture are grouped into four types based on their importance.
- Print Agricultural Advertisements: These are hard copies of printed media containing pictures and write-ups of various agricultural products printed in them. Examples are newspapers, magazines, flyers, and handbills.
- Broadcast Advertisements: These are visual and audio-visual media advertisements media for communicating new or existing agricultural products to people as to facilities sales of agricultural products, e.g. TV and Radio.
- Outdoor Advertisements: these are digital or traditional media used to communicate new or existing agricultural products to customers or the public outside their homes. Examples include billboards, buses, poles, and street boards.
- Digital Advertisements: these are technology-based media tools for advertisements of new or existing agricultural products online to customers or the general public. The photos or write-ups of such agricultural products appear on digital channels such as websites, search engines, social media (such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, or LinkedIn), and YouTube videos.
Trade Show
The new product should be displayed in shops, stores, or public areas to attract customers, while doing this, ensure that the uses of attractive containers or good packaging materials can also be used have been manufactured, by the producer.
The Agricultural Product Promotion Skills that are important to demonstrate this marketing process is called a trade show.
Trade Show refers to the strategies adopted by farmers or manufacturers to showcase agricultural products to the public to increase the sales of those products.
The trade show is a marketing skill required to increase promotion, awareness, and increase sales. The farmers or the agripreneur should be able to carry out trade shows twice a year to create a network of buyers and sellers of the product under review.
The Trade Fair
In most cases, a large gathering can be organized by large farmers or agriprenuers to come together to sell and buy products from each other.
The gathering of the farmers with the sole aim of creating familiarity between farmers and agripreneur without public access.
A trade fair is an Agricultural Product Promotion Skills set up to celebrate or organize to link farmers without public access to buy agricultural products from each other.
It is considered a product promotion skill because prospective customers of that particular product can be referred to the farmers or farm owners who specialize in producing that particular product.
Exhibition
This is another form of trade show but different from a trade show because it does not necessarily involve buying and selling.
Agricultural Product Promotion Skills is a method of promoting agricultural products with the sole aim of creating awareness of that particular product only.
Exhibitions of agricultural produce are met to create awareness about the qualities and how the products are best compared to the competing products in the market.
It is an event organized to show the public the beauty of the products in terms of packaging material, labeling, qualities, and quantities compared to other existing products in the market.
An exhibition is also held to display the products so that retailers and wholesalers can see the products.
Exhibitions involve the playing of music and other attractive forms to attract people to come and see the products and also give out the products to people without paying for them, to create awareness of the products.
An Expo
New or existing Agricultural products can be displaced in large gatherings such as political, social, and religious events.
The agripreneurs can also stage large events to display their products to create awareness. This method of Agricultural Product Promotion Skills involves organizing large events to create public awareness about the product under review.
An expo refers to a large public event organized by the farmers or agripreneur to display new varieties of products to customers.
Business Introductory Packages
Business Introductory Packages is another Agricultural Product Promotion Skills adopted by large farm shop owners or agricultural supermarkets to attract customers to buy new products.
The farmers or the shop owners can make the products available as special business introductory packages.
Some of the special introductory packages that can be offered to the customers are; discounts, reduced-rate packages, buy one get one free, and gifts for every referral.
This is one of the strategies that have stood the test of time, as many businesses or agro enterprises make perfect use of these methods to attract large customers to their shop or company.