This agricultural marketing course will help you get your produce to market and get the right price!  The core activity of any farm is producing animals or crops, but if the produce is not marketed at the right time for the right price, the whole financial viability of the farm is at best unstable. This agricultural marketing course develops your ability to analyse and manage marketing problems in an agricultural enterprise.

Course Aims:

• Explain the role of marketing in agricultural business and the importance of marketing in the business plan.
• Assess the relative importance of marketing planning and to determine marketing strategies in relation to farming.
• Identify target markets to select suitable marketing methods.
• Explain the physical handling of products in the marketing process including packaging, labeling, presentation and transportation.
• Plan to maintain sound customer relations in an agricultural business.
• Conduct market research into a product or service in the agricultural industry.
• Plan to manage the promotional program for an agricultural business.
• Develop strategies to manage the marketing of an agricultural enterprise.

Detailed Course Outline

There are 8 lessons in this course:

1. Agricultural Marketing Concepts

• • Marketing
  • Goods and Services
  • The Marketing Concept
  • Managing the Marketing Process
  • The Role of Marketing
  • Approaches to Marketing
  • The Goals of Marketing
  • Organising, analysing, selecting target markets
  • Developing the Marketing Mix
  • Managing the Market Effort

2. Farm Marketing Objectives and Strategies

• • Supply and Demand
  • Developing the Farm Marketing Plan
  • Organising the Planning process
  • Reviewing the Business’s Situation
  • Establishing Marketing Objectives
  • Developing Strategies
  • Market Penetration
  • Price Advantages

3. Target Marketing

• • Preliminary Research
  • Target Markets in Agriculture
  • Defining the Target
  • Resources
  • Analysing Market Opportunities
  • External Influences
  • General Economic Conditions
  • Government Policy and Regulations
  • Overseas influences
  • Demographic Patterns
  • Technological Change
  • Customer Values and Attitudes
  • Alternative Marketing Methods
  • Internal Influences
  • Selecting Target Markets
  • Market Segmentation

4. Handling Produce

• • Developing the Marketing Mix
  • The “Product” element of the Marketing Mix
  • Logos, packaging, positioning and image etc
  • The “Price” Element of the Marketing Mix
  • Pricing objectives and methods
  • The “Promotion” element of the marketing Mix
  • Publicity and Public Relations
  • Advertising, sales and personal selling
  • The “Place” element of the Marketing Mix
  • Market coverage
  • Determining Emphasis with the Marketing Mix
  • Impact of Product Life-cycle

5. Customer Relations

• • Customer Care Policy
  • Levels of Involvement
  • Effective Communication
  • Becoming an effective communicator
  • Dealing with complaints
  • Self evaluation
  • Maximising customer service

6. Market Research

• • The Importance Of Market Research
  • What to Research?
  • The Research process
  • Analysing Costs and Benefits

7. Promotions

• • Promoting Product
  • Creating customer awareness
  • Promotional Campaign Strategy
  • The Promotional Message
  • Promotional Material
  • Making Promotions Cost Effective
  • Channels of Communication
  • Publicity Marketing
  • Advertising
  • Structuring an Advertisement or Promotion

8. Managing Marketing

• • Market Retention
  • Balancing Strategy
  • Market Development
  • Market Growth
  • Managing the Marketing Plan
  • Sales and the Market

When you have completed the lessons of your Certificate course, you will be given the option of taking the optional exam. It’s okay if you don’t want the exam, we still issue your Careerline Certificate. For Advanced Certificates however, the exam is compulsory (per module) and are included in the course fee.