“Gaining maximum digital market exposure for your Cattle Stud Breeding Enterprise. Rockley Brahmans achieves number one status Australia Wide, Google Key Word Search “Brahman Bull for Sale”.
It’s a common phrase that failing to plan is key in planning for failure. In reverse nothing is better than when a well- considered plan exceeds its desired results. This was the result for Mr Ashley Kirk when he engaged Stud Stock Marketing Services to assist in planning and delivering his next Rockley Brahmans digital marketing campaign and new website. Overall objectives of the engagement included:
- Increase demand for Rockley Brahman Bulls for Sale (both at sale and out of the paddock)
- Attract more leads (and ultimately buyers) to Rockley Brahmans Elite Red Brahman Product
- Increase Awareness of the Rockley Brahmans Brand and the Rockley Brahmans “7 Elite Breeding Attributes”
Knowing that marketing dollars have to be spent wisely an underlying theme also existed of using metrics to measure Return on Investment for the above-mentioned activities.
Background
Stud Stock Marketing Services (SSMS) was extremely pleased to engage Rockley Brahmans and to assist Ashley Kirk in promoting and developing the Rockley Brahmans brand. Rockley Brahmans has a long and outstanding reputation (three generations of Kirks) in the Brahman Industry and Rockley is known for producing Premium Red Brahman Bulls.
Scope of the Engagement
Stud Stock Marketing Services was engaged to:
- Reaffirm and enhance product differentiation and branding and to create and execute a digital marketing campaign
- Rebuild/ recreate the existing Rockley Brahmans website to reflect Rockley Brahmans presence as a market leader
- Undertake graphic design to improve marketing collateral
- Assist in marketing through Social Media and Email (Mail Chimp) with the majority to be performed by Rockley.
- Leverage the Stud Stock Marketing Services Social Influencer Service Offering.
Just like in stud breeding where the focus is on continuous improvement, this was also an excellent exercise for Stud Stock Marketing Services to seek feedback from Rockley Brahmans to enhance and improve SSMS process and customer satisfaction. Ashley Kirk was identified as a prime candidate for this feedback as he is fully aware of how digital marketing works (having previously engaged a number of other marketing agencies and website providers) and is clear and direct in what he desires.
Background to the engagement
Rockley Brahmans already had a website which was performing well. It was reasonably current, was integrated
(to a degree) with digital marketing and looked professional. Importantly performing a key word search on Google “Brahman bull for sale” displayed Rockley Brahmans on page one. Additionally, Rockley Brahmans had an extremely strong Social Media following (on facebook). Rockley Brahmans also uses Instagram and importantly had a significant email database of previous clients.
This is a credit to Ashley Kirk as he has invested time and money in digital marketing for a number of years (well before most other Stud Breeders even thought of it) and this is reflected in Rockley’s digital presence today. The quality of bulls sold by Rockley and Ashley’s skills and expertise in Brahman breeding and marketing is clearly demonstrated by the average sale price and clearance rates of Rockley Brahman bulls. These bulls are for sale at the Big Country Brahman Sale, Brahman Week and out of the paddock at Rockley.
KEY ACHIEVEMENTS
The holy grail of website exposure- the best performing Google Keyword Search.
As the date of this article Rockley Brahmans is the top performing Brahman Stud in Australia for a key word search on google. If a potential customer types in “Brahman Bull for Sale” Rockley Brahman stud has the first two results for a Brahman stud and places above the Australian Brahman Breeders Association of Australia. In fact today
(search results continue to change) Rockley is the only Brahman Stud listed on page one of Google using this key word search. If a buyer is looking for a Brahman Bull on the internet using that key word search- Rockley has a guaranteed lead.
How was it achieved?
The first thing is to acknowledge the excellent work already performed by Ashley in his previous digital marketing efforts and the previous investment made in this space. Without that start it would have taken longer to achieve this ranking.
In the redesign of the Rockley Brahmans website emphasis was placed on Key Words, Metadata, the user experience (making the website logical and easy to follow) and enhancing imagery/ graphics to make the website more visually appealing. This is key to search engine optimisation and obtaining a good result from a “Google” or other search.
The specification also included integrating the website with social and digital media marketing to increase traffic to the website to also increase its Google ranking. At the same time the website was a complete rebuild in a new technology (Word Press Elementor) to minimise ongoing ownership costs as the website continues to evolve.
Performance and Speed is also key in achieving a great Google ranking and the website is based on a fast, secure server based in Australia with regular maintenance to prevent viruses, hacking and other malicious threats.
Google Analytics reports now show that not only has traffic increased to the website, the duration of time spent on the website has increased dramatically and additionally Rockley Brahmans (through its website) has achieved significant international exposure. A simple analytics report is referenced below.
Social Media Exposure – Approximately 200 increased facebook followers in one month without paid ads and at low cost.
Social media is nowhere near as effective as a great email database or a high performing website. Indeed the effectiveness of Facebook for many other sectors is already on the decline. At the same when managed effectively (Social Media- including Facebook), is cheap, does create leads and importantly as part of a broader marketing plan pushes leads to a website to increase its performance. Social Media is also useful in branding.
At this point it is important to note. Stud Stock Marketing Services doesn’t measure facebook performance in post likes- they simply don’t provide any insight into leads/sales. Post shares are different and so are engagement times.
Instead SSMS efforts are concerned with metrics related to followers (more followers means a greater audience), engagement (shows as to whether individual posts are interesting to the viewer) and reach (overall exposure to the brand) and external metrics (for referral channels on analytical software/ platforms).
How it was achieved
Some of the techniques employed in this engagement are the intellectual property of SSMS but overall the approach consisted of.
- Sharpen up key imagery and graphics on the Rockley Brahmans Facebook Page
- Integration of the facebook page with the Rockley Brahmans Website
- Undertook a digital launch campaign (low cost) promoting both the Website and Facebook Page by leveraging an email out and one Facebook Group.
Use of the proprietary Stud Stock Marketing Social Influencer Model.
Valuable lessons for Stud Stock Marketing Services in the engagement with Rockley Brahmans included.
- Delivering this breadth of services relied on the use of four Stud Stock Marketing Services employees highly skilled in different areas (cattle stud operations, broader marketing and digital marketing advice, graphic design, website build, information technology infrastructure/security). Whilst overall the engagement worked well there is always room for improvement in process and changes were made to process to enhance each contact with the client. These changes were based on three distinct phases. Onboarding/Delivery/ Handover.
- Onboarding is the most important stage to minimise time and cost for both the client and Stud Stock Marketing Services. Obtaining all relevant information from previous website providers, hosting services, user credentials and passwords and creating methods used for the transfer of large files is time consuming and often difficult for most people (the Cattle Stud Producer and SSMS included). Aside from this it is necessary to identify where the cattle stud is now, where it wants to be in the future and how it is going to get there. On this basis a new onboarding process was developed and documented to minimise time spent by both the Cattle Stud Producer and Stud Stock Marketing Services and to get the engagement off to a seamless and efficient start.
- Execution of marketing campaigns by leveraging the network of external third party providers available to the Cattle Stud Stock Industry. Leveraging the database of a third party was trialled however the time spent going back and forth, maturity of measurement/ distribution in their own technology meant that the ROI just wasn’t sufficient. In the future Stud Stock Marketing Services will only use third party providers who can meet agreed parameters of time and cost and demonstrate value to our clients and this will be reflected in formal agreements.
