AKC Marketing brought home an impressive array of honors from the National Agri-Marketing Association's (NAMA) regional awards ceremony held Jan. 16, 2025, in Minneapolis. The agency secured six distinguished awards, including a first-place recognition and five second-place honors, marking yet another strong showing at the prestigious agricultural marketing competition.
All six award-winning entries will advance to the national level, where they will compete against top agricultural marketing work from across the country. This achievement underscores AKC Marketing's commitment to delivering exceptional results for our clients in the agriculture sector.
"This recognition from NAMA validates the innovative work our team produces and the trust our clients place in us," said Kyle Webb, Content Director at AKC Marketing. "We're particularly proud that each award-winning entry represents real-world impact for our clients."
The following award-winning entries showcase the breadth and depth of AKC Marketing's capabilities in agricultural communications and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to excellence in serving our clients' diverse needs:
Pivot Bio faced the challenge of overcoming the stigma around biological nitrogen products. Farmers are generally slow to trust newer, non-synthetic solutions, which creates a barrier to entry for Pivot Bio products. To address this challenge, Pivot Bio strategically targeted a broad range of audiences, including new, non-retained, returning customers, and prospects. They used a highly localized, data-driven direct mail campaign, personalizing the content down to state and county levels with 46 variable pieces of data. This targeted approach ensured that recipients received information that felt relevant and trustworthy, strategically dispelling misconceptions about the product.
The expected outcome was to engage recipients by overwhelming them with credible, localized data, proving that Pivot Bio’s microbial nitrogen product wasn’t just a passing trend. The goal was for recipients to scan the QR code, visit the landing page, and engage with the independent university studies. The campaign was successful, as nearly 300 people visited the landing page, spending an average of almost six minutes there. Furthermore, 44% of those visitors went on to explore other pages on the Pivot Bio website. These engagement metrics, particularly the low bounce rate, indicate the campaign’s effectiveness in building trust and interest.
The target audience included new customers, non-retained customers, returning customers, and prospects. This diverse audience was specifically chosen because they represented key segments that were either unfamiliar with the product or had not yet fully bought into its value. The personalized, localized nature of the campaign aligned with the challenge of overcoming skepticism by delivering data-backed evidence tailored to each audience, making the product more relatable and credible.
Entering the fourth year of commercial availability, Pivot Bio microbial nitrogen products needed a boost. Pivot Bio was looking for a new way to attract attention without much in terms of new data or products to promote. To help attract more prospects, as well as convert Pivot Bio prospects to customers, a 0% financing offer was utilized. By offering 0% financing on top of the best pricing, farmers could not only finish their 2024 harvest, but get the product, use the product and see the results for 2025 before they ever have to make a payment.
Through a mix of paid social media, a robust email campaign, radio spots, print ads, tradeshow signage and landing pages, the campaign was able to reach farmers where they were at and plant the idea of 0% financing early in their decision-making process.
Additionally, results-based testimonials and trials were used to inform farmers of the efficacy of the product and also instill the fear of missing out on a potential game-changing crop input.
The Farm Progress Show is the largest agricultural trade show in the United States, and while that brings upwards of 100,000 farmers, it also means you are competing for their attention with every other major agricultural brand in the business. There are dozens of other booths all competing for the attention of the show attendees.
To overcome this challenge, Pivot Bio worked with the Farm Progress Show on a sweeps sponsorship. This unique opportunity provided every guest entering the Farm Progress Show with a sweeps ticket with a unique number. In addition to giving away the choice of one of three grand prize options, the sweeps gave away a $75 Visa gift card every hour during the show. This helped bring in guests at regular intervals to see if they won the drawing.
We wanted visitors to the Farm Progress Show to take their sweeps ticket and come directly to the Pivot Bio booth, ideally multiple times per day to check and see if they were one of the hourly winners. Additionally, participants had to submit their information to be eligible for any of the prizes. This gave us a large number of mostly farmer contacts to add to Pivot Bio's CRM for later use.
We know this was successful as we had 1,360 people enter their information at the booth, 885 of which were farmers. Not only did this give us more contacts, but it put them directly in an area where they could learn more about Pivot Bio, Pivot Bio products and speak directly with Pivot Bio experts, potentially paving the way for further sales opportunities in the future.
Entering the fourth year of commercial availability, Pivot Bio microbial nitrogen products needed a boost. The company was looking for a new way to attract attention and more prospects, as well as convert current prospects to customers. The solution was to offer 0% financing through December of 2025.
By offering 0% financing, farmers could not only finish their 2024 harvest, but get the product, use the product and see the results for 2025 before making a payment.
Through a series of print advertising spreads in Iowa Farmer Today, we were able to encourage farmers to talk to their local sales representative about the offer and the advantages of Pivot Bio products.
Pivot Bio’s selling season doesn’t align with the traditional input decision-making timeline. The best price of the season for Pivot Bio products happens during the harvest months, but farmers usually make input decisions in the winter months. By offering 0% financing on top of the best pricing, farmers were encouraged to act earlier while maintaining their financial flexibility.
We wanted farmers to see the offer and use the QR code to visit the landing page to learn more about the 0% financing offer. From there, farmers had the option to select which lender they wanted to use and go off-site to apply for financing. However, because these lenders operate independently, we could only track the farmer journey to the landing page and through the link click. We can extrapolate that number from the number of customer deals closed during that time period to determine its successfulness.
During this campaign, we had 5,543 visits to the financing landing page, resulting in more than 100 clicks to apply for financing. We estimate that those clicks turned into more than a dozen new deals.
For years, Pivot Bio has produced different guides related to products and offerings. However, these have largely been internal or internal-adjacent print pieces. They were made for the regional sales leaders and the independent sales reps.
With this being the first year of Pivot Bio products being offered through retailers, we needed a way to get these businesses up to speed on everything involving Pivot Bio and its products.
To do this, we created a 35-page and 39-page playbook designed to be a one-stop-shop for all their Pivot Bio-related questions. The longer version was for retailers who were also selling Pivot Bio RETURN® for small grain crops.
We wanted to not only provide them with background information on who Pivot Bio is and what they stand for, but also information about the products, how they work (with the data to back it up), the best approach to selling and information on the various programs available.
Additionally, we needed a place that retailers could refer to with questions about how to order product, best practices for handling the products and the brand guidelines for promoting Pivot Bio.
We wanted to provide as much information as possible to the retailers prior to their first year selling Pivot Bio products. By creating this playbook, complete with brand guidelines and sales techniques, we were able to get ahead of the questions and turning the conversation more toward sales techniques rather than questions about the company, products and efficacy.
Overall, nearly 650 playbooks were printed and distributed to retailers throughout the country.
Pivot Bio's National Sales Conference represented a bold reimagining of the company's sales enablement strategy, delivering exceptional results through a carefully orchestrated three-day event that brought together 175 top-performing sales representatives at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville. This strategic pivot from the previous multi-stop tour format to a single, high-impact national conference created an exclusive, energizing atmosphere that effectively prepared the sales force for the 2025 season while optimizing cost efficiency.
What set this event apart was its comprehensive communication strategy and meticulous attention to detail. The conference utilized a sophisticated registration platform and created a sales representative directory to facilitate networking. The selection of the Gaylord Opryland Resort provided an ideal setting for both professional development and relationship building, with carefully planned networking events including an exclusive evening at Redneck Riviera.
To ensure broader impact, the event was recorded and made available to those unable to attend, while additional regional meetings were funded to cascade key messages throughout the organization.
The program's effectiveness was amplified by its family-friendly approach, which included a VIP experience for top performers and their families, helping to drive engagement and attendance.
This reimagined approach to sales enablement delivered superior engagement compared to previous years, as evidenced by post-event survey results, establishing a new benchmark for sales conference excellence.
Ready to transform your next marketing initiative into an award-winning success story? AKC Marketing's expertise in strategic planning and execution can help your organization achieve similar results.
No matter your industry or goal, we bring decades of experience in crafting memorable campaigns that align with your organizational objectives and resonate with your audience. From comprehensive planning and sophisticated communication strategies to meticulous execution and post-campaign analysis, we partner with you at every step to ensure exceptional results.
Contact us today to explore how we can help you design and implement your next award-worthy marketing campaign. Email us at content@akcmarketing.com to schedule a consultation with our experienced team. Together, we can create impactful experiences that elevate your brand and drive sustainable business growth.