I thought I would share what was written by John Anderson for marketing magazine Total Grain in December 2010 ( I thought it was worth sharing because I think it is worth taking a few minutes to read and think about as we make our plans for the new year. I hope you find it as thought-provoking as I did.
If you want to understand the whole purpose of a grain marketing program, you need to understand the entire grain marketing program (GMP). It’s a well-defined, carefully managed program that’s designed to drive sales of high-quality grain. In essence, this program is designed to keep the costs of buying grain down so that farmers can still make a profit. The GMP ensures that farmers have enough money for their next crop and that the price of grain stays low.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the marketing tactics that are used in these grain marketing programs that we could easily spend months reading every grain marketing article out there. However, many of them are so complex that they don’t really give you the full picture when it comes to the purpose behind a grain marketing program.
We have been involved with grain marketing for the past 5 years and have created an entirely new marketing program called Vantage. Vantage has no hidden agendas other than helping farmers to grow and sell more grain. In fact, one of Vantage’s main purposes is making grain marketing simple for farmers. If you are interested in learning more about Vantage or our overall grain marketing strategy feel free to contact us.
To say grain marketing is important to our business is an understatement. We run a national group that promotes grain marketing nationwide and have many other successful programs that include grain marketing, marketing programs, and grain sales. We are a leading organization in the grain marketing space. When it comes to grain marketing, we are extremely effective. Our grain marketing initiatives have helped grow our crop and sold more grain than ever before.
We’ve done grain marketing for over 30 years, and many of the strategies we use are still in use today. We’ve introduced many new ideas into the grain marketing scene, such as the old saying, “In a grain basket, you don’t have a choice.” Our grain sales team has been in business for as long as anyone, and our grain marketing team is a little younger than most – we were just babies when we started.
The problem with this is the grain market is so fluid, so fluid that its almost impossible to predict how many people will buy a specific variety. The trick is to keep a keen eye on what varieties are available now, and how many they are likely to increase in the future, so you can maximize your profits in any given year. There is a lot of room to play with here, and if you know your markets, you can make huge profits.
As it turns out, the grain market has been incredibly fluid and unpredictable. What you can depend on is whether it’s going to be hot or cold. This is going to vary from year to year, but since the first few years of total grain marketing, we’ve seen a jump in the total number of people buying grains. The first year was about the same, but by the third year, we were up to 100,000 people buying barley.
This year we think it may be a little higher, but its still up around 70% per year. It makes sense given the low interest rates and more and more people buying all the grains.
Theres a lot of people asking if what we did this year was hot and cold, and no, it wasn’t. We were hot in the sense that we were up almost 20%, but this was because of the big jump in the price of grain. It was also a little bit cold since we were selling at a premium. There were some years when we were selling at a premium, but generally, we were selling at a discount, which meant that people were buying at a premium.
