midwest row crop collaborative and trust in food
midwest row crop collaborative and trust in food

5

Assess Impact

Evaluating the impact of your outreach on a regular basis is vital for measuring its success, identifying areas for improvement, and pacing towards the achievement of the ultimate goal.

By looking closely at performance of each form of outreach, from platform to messaging theme, trends emerge that allow outreach stakeholders to hone a formula and identify subsets of producers who are most likely to support goal achievement.

What We Did

By using tracking codes, user engagement software, Google Analytics, email client data and other Farm Journal data sources, we monitored and measured more than 30 outreach tactics to understand what worked best and how each part of our campaign strategy played out in real life. We compared each tactic’s performance with readily available industry benchmarks to better understand what worked well and what did not. Then we looked across that information to see what type of themes emerged.

For example, we deployed 12 different visual advertisements. Each aligned with a different preference of the producers in the project area.

These 12 creative styles were grouped into three sets, including a classic visual style, a relaxed visual style, and a progressive visual style.

Throughout the campaign, we measured the performance of all creatives and found that the progressive style was outperforming the relaxed and classic style by nearly double. In order to maximize outreach funds and increase impact, we redeployed the progressive material as shown below.

Make it Happen

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Campaign Analysis Model

An important part of shaping your goals is planning and communicating your methods of measurement. Attaching numbers to your goals helps track how far you’ve gone and how far you need to go.

Each set of campaign visuals had its own unique style. For comparison, we included an example graphic from each group.
Trust In Food tagged groups of producers by their dominant set of values, including legacy/leadership and asset protection. The material most strongly featuring that value was most likely to inspire action amongst the correlated producer set.
Trust In Food tagged groups of producers by their dominant set of values, including legacy/leadership and asset protection. The material most strongly featuring that value was most likely to inspire action amongst the correlated producer set.
The tactic that is most traditionally informational – native advertising – performed at a click-through rate of 1.1%. The click-through rate for native placements across agriculture is benchmarked at 0.31%, which means MRCC’s placements engaged farmers at a rate more than triple the industry average.
Providing what producers need accelerates engagement. There was a measurable move from the consideration/understanding phase to expressed interest in program enrollment.
Providing what producers need accelerates engagement. There was a measurable move from the consideration/understanding phase to expressed interest in program enrollment.
The MRCC Priority Producer is best made aware of an initiative early in the day. Campaign data across thousands of impressions shows that the farmers in this project area may benefit more from materials delivered at 3-6 a.m.
Data shows that farmers in this project area are more likely to engage later in the week. It’s possible that sending to-do lists at the beginning of the week prohibits best-case performance.
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Insights from Sustainability Engagement Leaders

Driving Change With Transparent and Practical Farmer Outreach

“The insights and interactive playbook offer a level of transparency and accountability that is crucial to drive meaningful change. The case study examples and downloadable worksheets provide practical guidance for others to replicate this effective communications process and reach more farmers.”

Josh VanDeWalle
Bayer