I finally caught up with Jim Wessing, Kondex Corporation this afternoon after our session.
Jim is the immediate past president now of the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association. I spoke with him about what FEMA is and what benefits it offers its members. There’s a lot of work this very small staff does out of St. Louis!
Jim said that in the last year the organization has added 84 new member companies and that 31 of them had representatives here at the convention.
The guy who really got the panel put together here at the FEMA convention today was Connor Flynn, Lessing-Flynn.
Connor was our emcee but started out talking about how flat marketing communications has become. He stressed the need for companies to use all the channels available to connect with their customer base.
Another of my fellow panelists this afternoon was Dale Bentlage, Global Reach.
Dale talked about having a well-planned web strategy for your company. He told our audience how important a company website can be in generating sales.
On our panel this afternoon here at the FEMA convention was Joe Baitinger, FarmMarketiD.
Joe was here to talk about database marketing. He talked about the importance of developing your customer database and using it. Too often companies tend to collect data and let it sit unused. I like the way he called it a perishable commodity. What good is having thousands of prospective client contacts if you don’t use them. Joe talks about how important it is to know who your customers are in a very segmented industry.
While I was presenting today Connor Flynn got a picture.
See how I make the AgWired community part of the demonstration? You are a great audience, thank you very much.
I know we’re going to see more and more blogging in the agribusiness world. I should have collected the url’s of the blogs that people in our audience have. When I got started on this about 2 years ago most people didn’t even know what a blog was much less have one.
Hey, it only makes sense
It kind of sounds like a law firm doesn’t it?
It’s just our Marketing Communications Strategies & Tactics session this afternoon at the FEMA convention.
I’ll have some pictures, audio and powerpoint presentations from each of my co-panelists as soon as they email them to me.
We had a full room of people for our session and lots of good questions. Many of them had to do with blogs and the software that we would recommend.
You may know my choice: WordPress.
Here we are in the FEMA convention breakout session. This is just before we got started. We have a full house that includes some bloggers. I’m happy to see that and think it’s a “trend?” Maybe. More in a moment.
So if Jim Wessing is the outgoing president of FEMA, who’s incoming?
He’s Richard Heiniger, Hemisphere GPS. Jim got introduced at the beginning of today’s general session here at the FEMA convention.
Later this afternoon I’m on the panel of a breakout session on “Marketing Communications Strategies & Tactics.” I’m going to be using these posts in my presentation. Hey, they’re even better than PowerPoint slides don’t you think?
I’m sure all the folks here will want to be in the Ramsey Room here at the Hilton at 2pm to see what we’ve got to say. It should be interesting.
Jim Wessing, Kondex Corporation, is the president of the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association. At least until the end of the day.
Jim got the morning general session started today. I’m hoping to catch up with him later today for a short interview.
By the way, the FEMA convention also has members of FEWA, Farm Equipment Wholesalers Association and AIMRA, Agricultural & Industrial Manufacturers Representatives Association here with them.
The final day general session is in progress.
In the early part of the session attendees will hear from David Goldsmith.
His presentation is “You Can’t Begin Without A Product: New Product and Service Development.” The room was pretty full by the time it started.
From what I’ve learned there’s about 425 members here at the convention.
