How to have a Fielday every day

Some of you might be attending New Zealand National Fieldays this week.

Some of you will pull it off because you were prepared.

You’ve worked on an irresistible offer, primed and pumped your list and you know what you’re going to do post-event to follow up.

When you have a lead-generating machine that is set up a system to speak specifically the problem your customer has, you can’t fail. We’ve got close to 300 emails in 3 weeks and our list is about by 50% since we set up our automated marketing systems a few months ago. In the last week, we’ve had 5 calls and 2 conversions.

When you have an automated marketing system set up you should be having a Fielday every day.

Much like websites, I see far too many Fieldays stands including the very expensive ones, invest in vanity instead of sanity. “Look at me!” they scream rather than “Why you should buy”. You walk on stand greeted by people who are bored out of their brains with nothing to offer you in return for your email.

More often that not, those corporate stands were created by marketers who pay lip service to rural and don’t dig deep enough to work out what their market needs: classic we vs. me language that I alluded to in earlier emails.

Like anything to do with sales, it’s what you do before the sale not at the time – that time’s too late as there’s too much noise and distraction. By that time there are too many shouting for that most coveted of all currencies: attention.

You will have needed to burn a unique promise in your market’s mind. You’ll need to be on their list. You’ll need to make it easy for them to find you and your people will need to be ready. You will have needed to do your homework about their deepest motivations.

Hit n’ hope, spray and pray tactics won’t work. You will have needed to create your very own before-during and after system.

When you work out what Fieldays costs you in production (say modestly $25,000 for stand cost and artwork production/print etc.), staff/sales team time off the road (team of 12 – 3 on each day $18,750), accommodation (4 nights inc. set up $2,400), travel ($2500) and meals ($1500) it can really stack up. Let’s conservatively say Fieldays costs you all up $50,150.

So here’s my challenge to you, if you want to take me up on it:

I bet you I can generate you the same amount of leads you get at Fieldays for 1/5th of the total price you’ve paid.

The automation bit takes out the manual and monotonous so you can generate leads whilst you sleep.

Don’t rely on Fieldays alone.

Putting all your eggs in the on basket isn’t the best option and hardly diversified in terms of risk.

You wouldn’t do it with your KiwiSaver or investments so why do it with your marketing?

What happens if you blow out at Fieldays and have no marketing money left to promote yourselves for the rest of the year? You’ll be leaving your competitors to run riot.

You need many legs to your marketing stool, not one. There are 361 other days of the year you need to be there for because even if you sell in one particular season, every research study has shown why salience and top of mind ensures why the top brands command up to 80% of all sales. They burn an imprint into their market’s mind so they are always on the tip of the tongue.

Different farming customers consume marketing channels too. One size doesn’t fit all. 50+ farmer panels have taught us that. 

I will be at Fieldays walking the races taking note of who’s doing it well and not so well.

I won’t name and shame but I will be sharing the lessons I see in my email next week.

St John

PS. If you finish up fed up and frustrated with your Fieldays results, get in touch with me. We’ll show you how to you generate leads every day, not just for four days in June. I’ll even guarantee it.