It is exciting and diverse. It is changing quickly. It relies on the weather, uses an incredible

Figure 11. The marketing mix

Each of these four elements of the marketing mix, the four Ps, are explored individually in this chapter. But, keep in mind that each of these elements must complement one another in order to create the intended position in the market. For example, how would the California vegetable growers respond if they were called on by a John Deere salesperson that did not understand the technical features of the high quality tractor the growers were interested in? Or how would the growers react if the salesperson was very knowledgeable, but the tractor failed three times during the first week of operation? What would these growers think about John Deere if the promotional literature they received on the tractor was sketchy and unprofessional? For an agribusiness marketing program to be successful, all elements of the marketing mix must communicate a clear and consistent story—the position—to the target market.

Value is a matter of customer perception—it is based on what the customer believes to be true. As managers, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of what customers value. Marketing games of one-upmanship can lead to a “bell-and-whistle war” with little regard for whether the customer actually wants the new feature provided. Just because a major competitor has added another service does not mean that it is time to add the same service. Failing to carefully consider the new feature from the customer’s perspective may add cost to the product for something that is not valued by the customer. Letting customer needs—current and anticipated—guide construction of the value bundle is a fundamentally important marketing concept.
In most agribusinesses, the salesperson plays an important part in the market communications process. Promoting a product through personal selling provides the most flexible and highest impact possible, since the salesperson can tailor the communication to meet the individual needs of the customer or prospect. This flexibility is especially important for complex products where usage and benefits may vary dramatically from customer to customer. For many agribusinesses, establishing a long-term relationship with priority customers is the focus of the marketing effort. And, personal selling plays a fundamentally important role in establishing such relationships. The agribusiness salesperson has the responsibility for not only taking the firm’s product/service offering to the field, they also have the responsibility for keeping the firm informed about what customers and prospects want and need.
While personal selling can provide an important impact as a market communications tool, it is also an expensive form of communications. Individual sales calls are costly, and agribusinesses have invested considerable resources in technologies such as laptop computers, cell phones, and email, etc. to make salespeople as productive as possible. In addition, considerable effort is invested in targeting accounts that will be served via a salesperson, versus those that might be served via a less costly approach such as telemarketing.
Given the importance of this form of market communications, even the smallest local agribusinesses now have an individual with the title of salesperson on their staff. And, those that don’t have a “salesperson” still rely heavily on personal contact and interpersonal communications to promote their product. Often the managers of such firms spend much of their time promoting products and services through personal contact. In larger agribusinesses, the personal selling process is far more formalized and highly structured. Management of the sales force and its organization take on great significance. Selecting, training, motivating, compensating, and territory allocation all become critically important decisions in the management of personal selling activities in the larger agribusiness.