Ag equipment dealers and home-based Pampered Chef consultants could not be more different on paper, but their common goal of achieving more sales makes them kindred marketing spirits. As allies of the agriculture equipment industry, we’re here to tell you there are several valuable insights and social media tactics that equipment dealers could implement to boost brand awareness — and profits — based on Pampered Chef’s success.

P.S. Never heard of Pampered Chef? Jump to the bottom of this article for get a quick snapshot of their business model.

4 Ideas Ag Equipment Dealers Can Steal

As a Pampered Chef party participant and a marketer, I quickly noticed there were several methods agriculture equipment marketers could benefit from. The kitchen company’s focus on strong relationships, social media and content planning and consistency, provides an approach worth looking at.

 

1. Leverage social media to build potential sales relationships.

This is not a new tactic, but a lot of channel marketers tend to discount the power a good social media presence can provide as a sales tool. According to the shopper-first retailing report by Salesforce and Publicis. Sapient, 87% of shoppers begin product searches online before they even visit a brick and mortar store or make a purchase.

Pampered Chef consultants are taught to create social media pages to boost their personal sales, and your dealership should do the same. Local customers can and will follow along for news, promotions and announcements, but there’s a caveat. Local agriculture equipment marketers must keep content current and provide relative images of interest. There are other lead generating opportunities as well — check out this article: “Rev up your digital marketing with these 3 lead generation strategies.”

I suggest starting with one platform, like a Facebook Page, to test the waters — then expanding from there.

 

2. Define a pre-planned content calendar.

We hear the same concern from many ag equipment dealers that we work with every day: Social media takes too much time. While it’s true it can, but if you pre-plan your content or “posts” you’d be surprised how hands-off it can be.

One Pampered Chef consultant I observed, used a rinse-and-repeat social media blueprint with evergreen content for all of their online streaming parties. This consultant had 60 pre-written posts that deployed via a social media scheduler tool (e.g., Hootsuite, Sprout, Sendible, etc.). The quantity was certainly too much, especially for agriculture equipment marketers, but the idea of scheduling and consistency were on point.

Dealers can start small with 1-3 social media posts per week, per channel (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and scale from there. Pre-schedule everything using a scheduler tool and then monitor your accounts for questions/comments daily to ensure you are addressing questions when needed.

 

3. Social media content shouldn’t always be about the next sale.

After I signed up to host an online Pampered Chef party, the consultant was sending 8-10 pre-scheduled posts per day, checking in nightly to engage and answer questions. Her posts were overwhelming and excessive, but the thing she got right was making sure her topics and posts were constantly changing and it wasn’t all self-serving topics.

She would include engagement style posts asking party-goers questions, how-to-style product videos or provide recipes she liked to use.  Engagement is key, and something agriculture equipment marketers need to focus on. Plus, the mixture of topics, style, and use of images, articles and videos really kept things interesting.

Don’t simply discuss your own products or features. Post photos or videos of customers with their newly purchased equipment, ask your followers what they think about timely agriculture industry trends or share newsworthy articles or information that impact their operation. Customers want to hear about your deals and products for sure, but being constantly “sold to” can get old.

 

4. Ag equipment dealers should be consistent (not annoying) online.

One pattern you may have already picked up on, is excess. While my Pampered Chef consultant did a great job of keeping her network engaged, she also smothered us to death with content. Sending 10 posts a day is insane — do not do that.

In the social media world, moderation is just as important as consistency. Give your followers a chance to miss you without bombarding their feeds. I would strongly advise just a few posts per week to start.

Posts should be spread out and sent at varied times. Using a pre-schedule tool will make this much easier to track and many times these tools (see point 2) will suggest the optimum post times based on your followers’ preferences.

For eager agriculture equipment marketers and their customers, a great social media strategy is truly a win-win. Getting started is the hardest part! If you are overwhelmed or have questions, reach out to the team at Lessing-Flynn to develop a strong, consistent and impactful social media plan to grow your audience.

 

What is Pampered Chef?

Pampered Chef is often thought of as the cooking tool brand of suburbia. If you’ve never heard of it—ask the cook of the household. The company is a direct seller of kitchen tools and employs a 40,000+ salesforce of Independent consultants that sell their products. Just like Tupperware and Mary Kay, the company is a love-em-or-hate-em multi-level marketing company.

They’ve nailed down a successful, basic selling formula:

  1. Secure a party host who invites a number of friends to their home.
  2. The consultant performs a cooking demo using Pampered Chef products.
  3. Everyone eats the free food made before their eyes and orders items from the catalog.