Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8438 / SEEDWORLD.COM JANUARY 2017 IT’S MONDAY MORNING. The farmer on the telephone is inquiring about a seed variety he believes is ideal. He needs it tomorrow in half-ton bulk bags. You say, “I’ll call you back in half an hour” and put the phone down to go to the warehouse to see what’s available. Then you call the third-party processor you contract to process your seed to find out if they have any of the requested variety, only for them to go looking for some, too. You call the farmer back and learn that while you were searching, the farmer has been in contact with your competi- tor down the road who had some readily available and took the order. There could have been many other answers to the farmer’s inquiry to get you the order: “I won’t have that variety for a few days, but I have a different variety available now that would perform just as well.” “I have some but it’s in paper bags, I can get it repacked and delivered to you tomorrow.”  This is the kind of information you could have used, right in front of you, to answer the farmer’s request while still on the phone. A proper business manage- ment system should give you the following information: What is on the floor in each of the warehouses? What is physically in the warehouse and ready to go? What variety is currently being cleaned in the plant? What is a “work in progress” that will soon hit the warehouse floor? You may not have any ready right now, but you may have some very soon. How much of what you have is already scheduled for delivery? What is reserved and about to be loaded onto a vehicle? The last thing you want to do is upset BUSINESS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS What’s Your Position? VINCENT VENEZIALE SEED SOLUTIONS PRODUCT MANAGER, CULTURA SEED SOLUTIONS @culturatech • vincent.veneziale@culturatech.com • cultura.com existing customers. How much of it have you already com- mitted to other customers? You know there are other customers waiting for that seed; you don’t want them to wait too long to receive it. What alternative do you have that you could offer the customer? Making sure you have up-to-date and accurate information on hand helps you to improve the service to the customer, to avoid missing out on sales, to spend the time you have building better and more productive relationships with your customers.  If you could bring all the information you needed together, then you could make a real change to the way you deal with your customers. THE WINTER months in the seed industry are filled with industry events, meetings and trade shows. All of these in-person events are a hotbed for lead generation — you have a highly specific audience viewing your brand and mes- saging in a captive setting. Pair this with an effective content marketing strategy and you can drive even more booth traffic and event engagement. Here’s how. Blog Frequency: The primary purpose of energizing your blogging effort prior to an event is to demonstrate thought leadership. Make readers want to know more about you and provide a clear call to action that your company will be at such-and-such an event in January (or whenever the show is held) to help create engagement. Email Campaign: Once you’ve posted a few blogs and have more in the pipe- line, you’ll want to craft several emails to current contacts for your campaign. The goal of these emails is to 1) let your audi- ence know the events you’re attending, and 2) drive them to the blog to read your content. Strategic Landing Pages: These action-specific mini-pages are not con- nected to your website. They can be focused on a specific audience segment, used to book appointments, run contests or launch new products. Landing page traffic is highly trackable, and allows you to see the ROI of your efforts. Social Media Strategy: In order to reach beyond your existing email list, publish your blog posts on social media and let others in the industry know you’ll be at upcoming events. At the event, get into live tweeting — post photos and info from the floor and give some reasons why CONTENT MARKETING Trade Shows and Content Marketing Belong Together SHAWNA SCHIMNOWSKI CLIENT SERVICES MANAGER FOR CREATE BY ISSUES INK @IssuesInk • sschimnowski@IssuesInk.com • IssuesInk.com people should stop by your booth. And while you’re at the show, don’t forget that events are a great place to col- lect new content. Some content ideas you can collect from the floor include: Written Word: Create articles on the content from the best presentations from the event and key outcomes of meetings. Whitepapers/Industry Trend Reports: Further positioning yourself as a thought leader by using a combination of industry info and speaker/vendor insights to create an actionable piece of content for your audience. Video: Create a video of the event highlights to share online or interview some of your top customers or suppliers. Curated Content: Network and find other experts in your related field who might act as guest bloggers for your company.