The Midlands NAMA Chapter met at Water Street Solutions’ Lincoln office on March 22 to get up to speed with the latest research regarding farmers’ media use and how they’re moving forward with technology adoption.

Speakers included Ted Haller, a Marketing and Research Consultant with the NAFB, Sara Steever and Kristi Moss from Paulsen Marketing, and Curt Blades from Successful Farming.  While all had their own research, a number of pieces came to the same conclusion, for example, farmer adoption of smart phones.

Take aways:

• Marketers need to continue to offer a media mix, since there really is no silver bullet.
• We should make our web sites mobile phone friendly, because we can’t control who is linking to us through social media.
• Farmers adopt technology through a series of triggers:  how often their cell phone contract lets them get a new “free” phone, younger family members that serve as tech support on the farm, in-cab technologies, experiences outside the farm (like an off-farm job), and ag advocacy work.
• Sometimes you just can’t tell which farmers will be technology friendly.