Reach For a Green Star

Chuck Zimmerman

John Deere at NAFBAt the NAFB convention recently I spent some time in the John Deere booth. Pictured here are Seth Crawford (l), Leigh Ann Cleaver (BCS Communications) and Barry Nelson (r).

I interviewed Seth about John Deere’s new “Reach For The Stars” program they announced in conjunction with the American Soybean Association. This program is designed to provide U.S. soybean growers with opportunities to learn more about precision ag systems. It also has a contest portion in which selected growers will be able to choose from among “15 premium level precision ag systems, each with a suggested retail price of more than $20,000, for the entire 2007 U.S. growing season. After the program ends, qualified participants will be offered an opportunity to purchase the entire system, or just the components they want to own, at a greatly reduced price.”

Agribusiness, Audio, Equipment, Tractor

FEMA Past President

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionI 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.

Ag Groups, Audio, Equipment

Connect With Your End User

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionThe 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.

Ag Groups, Audio, Equipment

Your Website Should Make Sales

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionAnother 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.

Ag Groups, Audio, Equipment

Who Are Your Customers

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionOn 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.

Ag Groups, Audio, Equipment

Your Agriblogger At Work

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionWhile 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

Ag Groups, Equipment

Ready To Represent You

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionIt 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.

Ag Groups, Equipment

In Our Marketing Session

Chuck Zimmerman

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.

Ag Groups, Equipment

He’s Incoming President

Chuck Zimmerman

FEMA ConventionSo 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.

Ag Groups, Equipment