Often when we start working with a company, we find that they either have no custom personas, or they’re “using” one that they borrowed from another source. This is true of established agriculture brands and agtech startups. Their team knows they need personas, but they weren’t sure where to start to build their own.
A Google search for “farm customer persona templates” returns almost 3 million results. It might seem like this is a simple solution. Using a template and some existing personas, surely you can develop your own, right?
Wrong.
Generic personas are useless. Here’s why.
If you know one farmer, you know one farmer. And really, you know one farmer in that specific point in time – with those exact market conditions, consumer pressures, financial concerns, etc. The experience of that farmer will not be the same as their neighbour’s, and it may not be the same next year or even next month.
Even in two farm customers who appear similar to each other – for example, they are in the same demographic, geography, or they farm the same types of crops – there are likely to be distinct differences in their motivations, pain points, or challenges. These are influenced by sometimes subtle or small differences, like the decision-making hierarchy within their operation.
Identifying the “difference which makes a difference” (Gregory Bateson) will allow you to clearly segment even those customers that seem identical at first glance.
Strong personas address a particular topic for a specific situation. This means that you will almost certainly need to develop more than one, and you’ll need to understand what information will be most insightful for how you plan to use them. A good persona is designed to solve a particular business problem. If it’s too generic, it may be leading you astray.
A single, generic persona cannot possibly address every product or service in your portfolio, especially if you’ve got an expansive lineup. It gets even harder to apply a single persona to different use cases. For example, the motivations for a farmer applying a crop protection product to a crop that faces high levels of pressure from pests will be quite different from a farmer with a crop that has low or no pressure from pests, but who applies it because of promised yield increase or quality benefits.
Like many B2B buyers, farmers are often influenced by a variety of other individuals during their buying journey.
Dealers, retailers, and agronomic professionals are the ultimate influencers. They can make or break a sale, and you need to understand their motivations, pain points, and challenges as well. Many ag brands are marketing to these individuals as well as to the farmer.
Ensuring they understand the product or service is only the beginning. You must also understand why they might choose to sell or recommend your competitor’s product over yours.
Dealers, retailers, and agronomists are also invaluable sources of insight into your customers. For example, maybe they’re recommending your competitor because they have received numerous poor reviews of your service department, or because their customers find your product difficult to use. Make sure to look to them for deeper insights.
Anti-personas are those buyers who think they’re part of your target audience, but they aren’t. They’re also the ones who make more service requests and file more complaints. At the end of the day, anti-personas are usually more expensive and contribute far less long-term value. Understanding who your customer isn’t can help you to define who they are.
Anti-personas provide clarity, especially when it comes to your marketing messaging. They make it easier to identify what your customers need to know, and what your non-customers need to see to weed themselves out, leaving only high-value leads.
Developing personas can be a big undertaking, requiring large amounts of research to get the best possible insights that you can apply to your marketing strategy. They’re worth the effort and will offer far more value than any templated persona you dig up online.
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Generic personas do have their place. You may find them to be a helpful jumping-off point for defining the questions you’d like to ask during your research, or for determining what information is useful (and what isn’t) in the personas you develop. They may also give you an idea of how to best visually lay out the personas you land on. Just don’t take them at face value.
Maurice has spent over 30 years in and around farming, including stints as an ag extension specialist, a management consultant with a global consulting firm, an agency strategist and owner of CentricEngine (a consultancy focused on bringing customer-centric thinking to agriculture).
