There are several types of agribusiness marketing strategies employed to assist these companies in gaining as many loyal consumers as possible. Much like other types of industry strategies, food industry marketing focuses on learning about the current client base, formulating methods to encourage a greater client base, and advertising effectively to appeal to as many people as possible. These goals are often met through practices including market segmentation, analysis, and instituting a marketing plan. In most cases, this form of marketing usually takes a business-to-business approach, as opposed to targeting the individual consumers directly. Agribusiness companies often employ contract farming agreements with several farms, and take the responsibility to sell the products to manufacturing and retail clients.
One very effective agribusiness marketing strategy often used in food production business is market segmentation. Market segmentation is the process of taking the company's current client base, as well as potential consumers, and carefully evaluating three sets of criteria regarding the groups. Physical attributes refer to the client base's size, location, and evaluated interest or need of the products offered, in addition to other distinguishing factors. Careful analysis of the group's behavior includes specific information about past orders such as frequency, most common times of the year or seasons purchased, and how much product is typically requested per order. The final step of segmentation marketing is identifying quantitative factors, including breaking down the client base to discover less definite information about the clients regarding overall feelings of the brand offered, and intentions to buy.
Another type of agribusiness marketing strategy employed with great success is market and client analysis. Most companies have teams of marketing experts on hand to carefully review all of the important information gathered about the current client base, as well as the overall market status. This information is often discovered in the market segmentation reports, and is crucial in providing details for the advertising teams to implement in the upcoming advertising campaigns.
Effective agribusiness marketing strategy must include some type of marketing or advertising plan. Many food industry businesses outsource this work to specialty advertising firms. These firms use the information gathered in the segmentation and analysis portions of the process to formulate effective tools to attract and keep as many clients as possible through methods such as email advertisements, pamphlets, and direct contact with industry buyers. It is not uncommon for the campaigns to focus primarily on business-to-business relationships at this stage of the food production process.
