How Does Your Company Advertise?

Top 50 Questions about Farmland

 Hey, it's the Iowa land guy. And here's the top 50 questions that I get asked about farmland. How do you advertise million dollar question here? And every company is going to do this one different, um, ways that we advertise. We do new school advertising and old school advertising. I'm going to call it. So one of our most successful advertising is actually putting a sign on the yard.

Number one reason when I asked people at an auction, how did you hear about it? The signs. So we use bigger signs. So I try to put four foot signs on your property to draw attention. Um, works amazing. And also we put wayfinding signs to the farm. So from every paved road, we bring wayfinding signs in to your farm.

Okay. That's maybe an old school way of doing it. Another old school way is a direct mail. You think, man, that that's antiquated, but I'm telling you what, um, it's disruptive marketing where we put your farm right in front of everybody's hand, even if they're going to throw the post. Don't scarred away.

They got to throw it away and they got to look at it. So, we send out, uh, uh, to every farmer around the area. Most of the time we send it to every farmer or every person who owns farmland in the county. One thing that we do, uh, uh, better than most is marketing. So, let's just take a simple postcard and, uh, turn up the juice a little bit.

So, not only are we just sending a postcard to everybody. I'm going to find all the people, geospatially, so most farmers farm within 50 miles. I'm going to find all the farmers that farm within 50 miles of you, using USDA records or, uh, farm ID records, and I'm going to make sure that they get your postcard.

Also, who buys farmland? Arguably, People that already own farmland. So I'm going to hit every other farmer or every other landowner rather that owns farmland near you, they probably want to keep their portfolio somewhere close together. So I'm going to make sure that they get direct mail as well. That it's not where it stops.

It keeps going from there. One thing that we pride ourself in is digital marketing. So I'm sure you've shopped for something on the internet. And then for like the next week you see like, man, I was just shopping for that up here in the upper right side. We do that. Those are called remarketing ads. So social media wise, from Instagram to Facebook to tick talk to, uh, um, any platform that.

Uh, we're seeing, uh, traffic in, we're going to have your farm on that platform just to get more eyes on it. Now, maybe those people don't have the money to buy your farm, but I bet you they know somebody that does. So social media is awesome because they're going to say, Hey, I know Brent was looking for a farm like that.

Hey Brent, check this out. And they will automatically send it to him. So that works really good. So, digital marketing that way, where we'll, in a sense, follow you around the internet, um, if you've clicked on something before. So if you've come to our website, if you've typed in farmland, we target market those keywords.

Looking to buy farmland. Looking to buy a farm near me. Uh, keywords that people are searching the internet with. We want to make sure your farm's in front of them to get the highest and best, most successful outcome. So other things that we do, uh, I'm a part 107 drone pilot. I love to go out and fly the farm.

It lets me get good eyes on your farm and helps make a promotional video. And we know that the number one thing people do on the internet is watch videos. So we want them to watch videos about your farm. Now, do we use newspapers? We sure do. So we'll use local newspapers. And we'll also use regional newspapers, uh, if it's warranted.

Uh, do you do radio ads? We sure do. Um, we'll do a radio ad. We have all the ability to record those ads ourselves. We can customize it to your farm and put it out to the masses. So what I'm telling you is we don't want to leave any rock unturned. We're going to do radio ads. We're going to do, uh, TV ads. If warranted, we're going to do a newspaper ads, drone video, social media.

We're going to do search engine optimization ads. We are going to do direct mail marketing. We're going to put signs on the property and then there's just the good old coffee shop. I like to go to the coffee shop. Our agents walk around. We go to the co op and the elevators, the grain elevators and make sure that we're talking with the local farmers.

One advantage that we have is that we, uh, have local guys, uh, mixed all over the state. And so if they're all over the state, they arguably know the local farmers, and that is a huge asset. Uh, uh, more of a national reach, but with a local feel, uh, people like to do business with people that are local and they trust them more.

One of the other things we do is hang flyers. So while we're going around to talk with all the local farmers, we want to make sure that we have professionally made booklets that, uh, showcase your family farm, your heritage, and we post them around, uh, at banks, law offices. We talk with attorneys and bankers and we talk with, local business owners.

Stop at the coffee shop. Stop at the co ops and make sure that, uh, there's no, uh, um, no place that they didn't see your farm. No argument not to. There's other places to list your farm that maybe you haven't thought about yet. What about the investor buyer? And that investor buyer tends to search the internet on specific websites like LandWatch.

com, LandsOfAmerica. com, LandAndFarm. com, LandBrokerMLS. There are a lot of syndicate sites out there. LandSearch, kind of like the Zillow for farmland. Of course we're on those websites as well and we post all of your marketing on those websites and bring traffic back to our website. Once they come back to our website, then we know who they are and we make sure that they keep seeing the ad so that they have, uh, all the opportunity to potentially, uh, put their mind at ease that they're buying the right farm and the right location for the right price and make sure that they're prepared when they come to the farmland auction.

David Whitaker | Iowa Land Guy