Digital marketing in agribusiness in Zimbabwe – Part 2

Engineer Tapuwa Justice Mashangwa,

Imagine an agricultural world without technological advancement. Where nothing improves, stuck in monotonous systems characterised by tedious and frustrating functioning. An agricultural world following routines not yielding optimum results, not creating more efficient and effective solutions and without realistic quantitative and qualitative performance benchmarks. This will be the cost of not adopting new technology and procedures in digital marketing.

Agricultural digital marketing is developing at a steady pace and the impractical will wonder, how and when they were left out. Our current digital marketing era is exploiting hyper-personalisation through artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning; immersive and interactive experiences (augmented reality (AR) / virtual reality (VR) / mixed reality); new search and interaction modes – voice, visual and conversational; data privacy, first-party data and ethical marketing; blockchain, tokenisation and new loyalty ecosystems plus omnichannel and seamless customer journeys.

Digital force optimises the agricultural marketing function. AI and machine learning improve precision marketing targeting and predictive promotions. AR / VR can be used to create immersive product demonstrations and virtual field days. To garner rural customer acquisition and support voice and visual AI can be used. First-party data ensures that ethical and trust-based segmentation of databases is executed. Blockchain and tokenisation promote trust marketing, loyalty and traceability and omnichannels help create seamless digital and physical digital marketing experiences.

The integrated use of these technologies lowers customer acquisition costs, elevates farmers to have a higher farmer lifetime value, they promote stronger brand trust in rural markets, reduces counterfeit competition, places producers to participate in premium exports, farmer ecosystems are optimally monetisable and there is improvement of data-driven cross-selling of finance, insurance and logistics.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning activate hyper-personalisation in digital marketing for farmer-specific ads which can be based on: crop type (maize, tobacco, horticulture, livestock); soil data; historical purchases and weather patterns; they also promote the creation of personalised input bundles for example “this exact fertiliser + seed + chemical pack is designed for your two-hectare maize field.” More micro-segmented SMS and WhatsApp campaigns can be broadcast for example: tobacco farmers can receive curing barn solutions and horticulture growers can receive pest alerts for tomatoes only. Lastly timing of promotions can be AI-driven such that promotions are launched exactly when pest risk or planting window peaks.

The marketing impact with the use of artificial intelligence and machine are that Ad conversion rates increase significantly, marketing waste is reduced and strong brand attachment is created due to “farm-by-farm relevance”.

Immersive and interactive experiences (AR/VR/mixed reality) can be utilised to conduct virtual farm training through which farmers can learn disease diagnosis, pesticide application and machinery use through simulated farms.

The technologies promote remote agronomist support where a farmer can point a phone camera at a crop and the AR overlays show nutrient deficiencies or diseases. Machinery demonstrations can be done without one’s physical presence. Assessment of land for investors and insurers can also be done virtually.

The positive business impact are reduced training costs, faster adoption of new technologies and lower crop losses due to early diagnosis.

New search and interaction modes through voice, visual and conversational AI have practical uses in agribusiness which can allow: voice-based advisory in local languages (critical for rural Zimbabwe); execution of visual crop diagnosis; provide conversational AI extension officers available 24/7 to provide reliable advice on the go and smart input ordering via voice can be done.

Such technology promotes massive inclusivity of illiterate and semi-literate farmers, allows for faster decision-making and aids in the higher adoption of digital platforms.

The full exploitation of data is still relatively slow in sub-Saharan Africa thus issues to do with data privacy, first-party data and ethical marketing should not be overlooked. The strategic role these play in agribusiness are that: farmers can now become data owners, not just data subjects; agribusinesses rely on directly collected farm data instead of dependency on brokers and ethical marketing builds long-term trust with rural communities. Clean datasets can be utilised for credit scoring, insurance underwriting and carbon farming verification.

Stronger trust leads to higher data sharing which in turn encourages more accurate risk models for banks and insurers and improves regulatory compliance for global export markets.

Blockchain, tokenisation and new technology drive loyalty ecosystems which create higher export trust thus allowing farmers to attain premium prices. They enable faster farmer payments, which lead to better agribusiness cash flows whilst simultaneously reducing fraud in agro-input supply chains.

Blockchain can also be used in core agricultural applications such as: farm-to-fork traceability (meat, grains, horticulture, tobacco, coffee); in the promotion of anti-counterfeit agrochemicals and seeds utilisation and allows for the creation of smart contracts for contract farming (automatic payment upon delivery).

Tokenised produce helps farmers through: future crops and animals being represented as tradeable digital assets. It also allows for carbon credit tokenisation for conservation farmers. Farmer loyalty tokens can be easily created which are redeemable for inputs, fuel, insurance and training.

The integrated farming future is through omnichannels and seamless customer journeys, which means that farmers can interact with agribusinesses all connected into one continuous experience through physical agro-dealer shops, mobile apps, USSD, call centres, WhatsApp commerce, field agents and digital wallets banks.

The practical outcomes of this are that a farmer can view a product on their mobile, buy in-store, get goods delivered, pay digitally and earn loyalty tokens. An all in one channel promotes a unified farmer profile across sales, credit, insurance and advisory services. The seamless integration encompasses input supply, output markets, logistics and finance.

What does this do for the agribusiness? There’s higher lifetime customer value, a reduced drop-off in supply chains and stronger rural market penetration.

All these new digital technologies are transforming agribusinesses from a manual, fragmented, high-risk sector into a digitally intelligent, precision-targeted, financially inclusive, globally trusted and highly profitable ecosystem.

Like Greek philosopher Heraclitus said: “The only thing constant is change”, words which echo loudly in 21st century agribusiness.

The writer is Eng. Tapuwa Justice Mashangwa, GCEO Emerald Investments, CEO DataFarm, CEO Emerald Agribusiness and CEO TranslateZW. He can be contacted on +263771641714 and email: [email protected] or [email protected].

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