Another Big Night for AKC at Region 3 Best of NAMA Awards Celebration

The Region 3 Best of National Agri-Marketing Association (NAMA) Awards Celebration was held January 19, 2023, at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. A total of 246 submitted entries competed for recognition in the competition. Submissions were from marketing agencies and businesses throughout the Corn Belt, including Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota.

Hard work, creativity and exceptional attention to detail were on display, as the AKC Team took home 10 awards from the event (6 first place and 4 second place, or merit, awards). We’re proud to showcase the work that received recognition during the celebration:

Pivot Bio – It’s ON: The Nitrogen You Need! Now On-Seed!
New Product Introduction – 2nd Place
Spreads, single or series – 2nd Place

In previous sales seasons, Pivot Bio only had one product to offer corn farmers, Pivot Bio PROVEN® 40. The only way a grower could use this product was if they had in-furrow capabilities. For the 2023 growing season, Pivot Bio launched a new product that puts the nitrogen a grower needs directly to the seed. The new product is called Pivot Bio PROVEN® 40 On-Seed, PROVEN® 40 OS for short.

Through print ads, digital banners, t-shirts, booth designs, social media campaigns, emails and radio, the idea of On-Seed was presented to the grower, not as a defensive product as seed treatments generally are, but as an entirely new “On-Seed” product, one that was more kind in nature. With this product, which can be added to farmer’s corn seed, not only can farmers eliminate field passes and extra equipment, but also replace anhydrous, UAN and UREA applications. In fact, one pro box of Pivot Bio PROVEN® 40 OS can replace as much as 1,200 gallons of anhydrous, 1,500 gallons of UAN or five tons of UREA, all of which is highlighted across these communications.

Twenty-one days into this Sales Launch, Pivot Bio’s sales exceeded all previous years’ sales combined. This was a 65% increase from 2022 total sales. This new product launch contributed greatly to this sales increase.

Pivot Bio – Pivot Bio Originals Bring the “Agri-Tainment”
Integrated Campaign - National – 2nd Place
Audio/Video Broadcast News – 1st Place

Pivot Bio is changing the way that farmers think about nitrogen and needed content that did the same.

Heading into the fourth full commercial sales season of Pivot Bio, AKC Marketing was tasked to drastically increase the number of known farmer contacts in the CRM to help the sales team reach its lofty goals during sales launch. The idea behind Pivot Bio Originals was to create a series of original shows made with the farmer in mind. Or, as we like to call it, “Agri-tainment.”

At the time, Pivot Bio Originals was a collection of four shows (The Ultimate Farm Truck, The Farmers’ Table, Farm Next and Ag States of America) with two more planned for release this fall airing on RFD-TV. Each show was advertised through digital ads, social media and CTV. Each show had its own landing page and could be viewed on YouTube.  The shows cover agricultural content that farmers care about, and each show features a unique conversion opportunity for known farmers to enter the CRM.

• The Ultimate Farm Truck follows the build and giveaway of the Ultimate Farm Truck.
• The Farmers’ Table is a roundtable discussion amongst farmers where they cover the most pressing issues in agriculture.
• Farm Next is a Shark Tank-style show that connects ag innovators with industry experts.
• Ag States of America takes viewers on a tour of what makes each state unique when it comes to working the land and producing the food Americans love.

Overall, new farmer contacts added in a 90-day window increased by 656% compared to the same period last year.

Pivot Bio Originals also works extremely well as social media content and is especially effective in paid mediums. When you look at the combined effort of all Pivot Bio Originals (Ultimate Farm Truck, Farmers’ Table, Farm Next and Ag States of America) promotions on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google, the numbers are staggering. The shows combined for 3,935,967 impressions resulting in 53,184 link clicks.

Lely North America – A Better Dairy Solution: World Dairy Expo 2022 Dairy Star Ad
Single-page Ads, series – 1st Place

The two major challenges with running ads in Dairy Star magazine are a smaller, regional audience and the noise of many other companies advertising for World Dairy as well. This means we must make sure our ads stand out from the rest and catch the attention of the reader who will then hopefully search Lely or come visit their booth at World Dairy.

A total of five ads covered robotic milking and dairy automation and how each benefits the farmer. Each ad has a testimonial from an actual Lely customer who has benefited from Lely products. Depending on the ad, readers are directed to Lely.com, a video or a brochure. They are also encouraged to visit both Lely booths at World Dairy.

By having multiple ads, there is a better chance that an ad or testimonial will resonate with a reader. Maybe they are struggling to find farm help, or maybe they are wanting to expand their herd size and milking capabilities – there is an ad for each!

While we wanted people to go to Lely’s website and scan the QR code, we also wanted those attending the 2022 World Dairy Expo to stop by Lely’s booth and talk with Lely’s experts. Hundreds of dairy enthusiasts stopped by both booths throughout the week, inquiring about products, new barn layouts and robotic milking.

Drawing individuals to the booth resulted in more than 100 new contacts interested in Lely products and services. Representatives of local Lely Centers were working the booth, so many new contacts will be working with people they met there.

Pivot Bio – The Farmers’ Table
Audiovisual Presentations directed at farmers, ranchers and growers – 1st Place

The Farmers’ Table is a Pivot Bio Original series featuring real farmers exchanging ideas over coffee, covering everything from the latest trends to the looming challenges facing the industry. This original show shines a spotlight on the issues in the agricultural industry. Each episode consists of a panel of farmers participating in lively, engaging conversations centered around where the best discussions happen – around the table. Unlike other programs that are dependent on industry analysts and media personalities, The Farmers’ Table highlights growers from your own backyard.

To help communicate this new show, we utilized eye-catching digital ads and gave away coffee gift cards to the first 200 people who submitted their names on The Farmers’ Table website.

Promotions of the shows ranged from social media tactics, emails, direct mail, merchandise, paid media, print ads and much more. The results were nothing short of spectacular.  Web traffic to the Pivot Bio domain went up 144% year-over-year and this traffic directly resulted in an exponential increase in known farmer contacts added to the CRM. Forms across all Pivot Bio pages over a 90-day window averaged a 9.17% conversion rate for submissions. The Farmers’ Table nomination form surpassed that at 10.27%.

Lely Norther America – Lely Vector Owner Virtual Roundtable
Events - Virtual – 1st Place

Survey after survey, poll after poll – each result shows the people farmers trust most are other farmers. Lely wanted to capture the authenticity that comes from word-of-mouth endorsements with an exclusive event held by dairy farmers for dairy farmers. So, just how do you bring that authenticity to farmers while still being a brand? A live panel discussion. The Lely Vector Virtual Roundtable event featured dairy farmers who utilize the Lely Vector automatic feeding system.

Virtual attendees heard first-hand how Lely's automated feeding has impacted four dairies’ production, labor requirements, reproduction, ROI and more. Attendees also had the opportunity to ask the dairy producer guests questions during a live Q & A.

To reach our objectives, we used a multi-faceted campaign of direct mail, email, social media and communications from Lely Centers. Materials highlighted the Vector product, the speakers and customers participating in the roundtable, and the benefits to the attendees. Three of the attendees were large dairy operators with many years’ experience utilizing a Vector. One other farmer on the panel was not only a Vector owner, but a social media influencer.

We also made the Virtual Roundtable virtually painless for attendees to participate. With everything being virtual, those invited to or wanting to attend only had to fill out a form and login at the right times.

We were able to measure and record several metrics to know that we achieved our expected outcome. The event had over 250 registrants and garnered 72 new contacts for Lely North America. During the event, nearly 150 live virtual attendees joined throughout the week. Over 50 questions were submitted to be answered by the customer panel. The event attributed to 13 closed deals.

Lely North America – 2022 June Dairy Month Social Campaign
Social Community Building and Engagement – 1st Place

Each June, many in agriculture take the time to celebrate Dairy Month. As a company making products for dairy farmers and enthusiasts alike, Lely tries to one-up itself each June. This year was no different, from a grand opening to working with an influencer, Lely’s June Dairy Month social campaign was larger than life.

The social campaign had three facets: #DIDJUNO? Lely facts with @IowaDairyFarmer, Ruby Red Cow Trivia and special blogs, starting with the story of Lely and its founder. The #DIDJUNO? posts with @IowaDairyFarmer garnered nearly 1 million views, hundreds of comments and many shares.

Each week, Lely’s official unofficial mascot, Ruby the Red Cow would feature a new Lely-focused trivia question. Participants could win Lely gifts and swag. Weekly posts featured a digital video of milk filling up the glass, revealing the question, and helped grow Lely’s social media followers.

The third aspect of the campaign was a weekly blog post. Many of the blogs focused on a dairy farmer and how Lely is helping them keep their farm in the family for generations to come. On social media, these weekly blogs reached more than 10,000 people with hundreds of engagements and blog page visits.

All three tactics helped educate individuals about June Dairy Month, Lely and Robotic Milking. The trivia questions encouraged viewers to find the answer on Lely’s website, learning more about the company and products along the way. The blogs also showcased Lely products and the importance of dairy farming. The videos from @IowaDairyFarmer educated the masses, reaching non-dairy farmers and even people not associated with agriculture in any capacity.

Collectively, our blogs, videos and posts received over 1 million views, tens of thousands of interactions and hundreds of comments and shares.

Pivot Bio – Farm Truck with the Diesel Brothers
Other Digital Tools – 2nd Place

Heading into the fourth full commercial sales season of Pivot Bio, AKC Marketing was tasked with drastically increasing the number of known farmer contacts in the CRM to help the sales team reach its lofty goals during sales launch.

The Ultimate Farm Truck follows the construction and giveaway of the ultimate farm truck. The show stars Diesel Power Gear, the cast of the reality television series Diesel Brothers, a show that has aired on the Discovery Channel since 2016 and follows a group of friends in Utah who repair and customize pickup trucks.

The Ultimate Farm Truck quickly became the most viewed page on the Pivot bio site with 53,631 visits in just 90 days, besting the #2 spot — the Pivot Bio home page — by nearly 20,000.

Visitors to the Ultimate Farm Truck page spent an average of 17.9 minutes reading and watching content. These page visits have directly resulted in an exponential increase in known farmer contacts added to the CRM.

The Ultimate Farm Truck social media ads also performed well and were greatly supported by organic efforts. Within that, ads featuring the Diesel Brothers were the best performing and generated the largest number of contacts from paid Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google ads. The average cost per result cost across these platforms is $0.21, garnering 26,000 link clicks. Diesel Power Gear were great partners for this show, regularly sharing content on their feed and stories to an audience of over 1.5 million followers across Facebook and Instagram.

Lely North America – DIDJUNO? IowaDairyFarmer Videos
Social Media campaign direct to consumers – 1st Place

Each June in the U.S. we observe and celebrate June Dairy Month. This year, Lely kicked off the month by opening its brand-new Lely Park Campus. Which meant everything about June Dairy Month had to be HUGE. How do we keep the momentum going from the grand opening? By enlisting the help of an agricultural influencer - @IowaDairyFarmer. Dan, the @IowaDairyFarmer on TikTok and Instagram, has more than 690,000 followers and 16 million likes on his videos. To his audience, Dan talks about farm life, and more specifically, dairy life, dairy facts and dairy FAQs.

We worked with Dan to create four educational videos, opening with the explainer DIDJUNO? The Juno is one of Lely’s products – so a perfect opening to utilize when asking the audience if they know what we’re about to talk about.

Dan covered four topics in his four videos: Dairy farmers automating their feeding with the Lely Vector, the benefits of the Lely Calm, keeping barns clean with the Lely Discovery Collector and how different dairy farmers lay out their milking barns.

With Dan’s following, we expected a solid response. One video, educating viewers on the Lely Calm, had 337,000 views across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Another video, highlighting different milking barns, had over 216,000 views across the same three platforms. Together, the four videos received almost 1 million views, 1,000 comments and 500 shares.

Lely social media gained followers and visibility with dairy and non-dairy social media accounts. To date, it was the most successful campaign Lely has run on social media.