The Digital Adoption Paradox: When Farmers Using AI Are Marketed to With Printed Brochures

I was standing in a farm office last year watching a young farmer manage his 5,000-acre operation through multiple screens displaying real-time field data, weather patterns, market prices and equipment diagnostics. His smartphone buzzed with an alert from his irrigation system. His tablet showed drone footage of emerging pest pressure. His laptop ran predictive models for optimal harvest timing.

Then his seed rep walked in with a printed product brochure.

This is the Digital Adoption Paradox of agricultural marketing: our customers have embraced digital transformation in their operations while we continue marketing to them like they haven't.

The Paradox That's Hiding in Plain Sight

Here's the facts¹ that should be driving every marketing decision you make. Farmers rely on their smartphones more than most businesses. They use sophisticated software to manage their businesses. They've invested millions in agriculture technology that generates terabytes of data annually.

Yet most agricultural companies have yet to fully move to “mobile first” marketing and customer experiences. This isn't just a technology gap. It's a relevance gap. And it's widening every day our farmer audience gets more sophisticated.

The paradox becomes even more striking when you consider the contrast between internal and external digital adoption. Agricultural companies have embraced digital innovation in research, development, and operations. They use AI for molecular modeling, robotics for manufacturing and sophisticated analytics for supply chain optimization. But when it comes to customer-facing digital capabilities? They're still just scratching the service of what their MarCom stacks.

Farmers do digital. They've been doing digital for years. The question isn't whether agricultural customers are ready for digital marketing. The question is whether agricultural marketers are ready to meet customers where they already are.

Understanding the Three Levels of the Digital Paradox

The Digital Adoption Paradox operates at three distinct levels, each creating different challenges and opportunities.

The Awareness Paradox occurs when we use analog methods to create awareness among digital-native customers. Print advertisements in farm publications reach declining readerships and often fail to drive audiences to immediate and meaningful action. Radio spots miss farmers watching video content in climate-controlled cabs. Traditional trade shows still focus on booths and printed collateral, when most post-show decisions will take place on-line.

The Engagement Paradox emerges when we offer analog engagement to customers seeking digital interaction. Printed brochures can't be searched, shared or integrated into farm management systems. Phone-only customer service frustrates farmers who prefer text or chat. Paper order forms seem archaic to customers who buy everything else online.

The Transaction Paradox reaches its peak when we force digital-savvy customers through analog transaction processes. Farmers who trade commodities through sophisticated digital platforms still can't order agricultural inputs online from many suppliers. Producers who manage million-dollar operations through smartphones still receive paper invoices. Customers who expect Amazon-like convenience encounter 1990’s-style ordering processes.

The Mindset Shift That Changes Everything

The fundamental problem isn't technical. It's philosophical. Too many agricultural marketers still believe agriculture is bigger than digital, that their role is to integrate digital tactics into traditional marketing strategies.

This thinking is backwards. Digital is larger than agriculture. Our role isn't to bring digital into agrimarketing. It's to bring agrimarketing into the digital world where our customers already live.

This requires recognizing three critical truths:

First, mobile isn't just another channel. It's the primary channel. Farmers check their phones before getting out of bed, throughout the day and before going to sleep. Any digital strategy that isn't mobile-first is failing before it starts.

Second, engagement matters more than awareness. It doesn't matter how many farmers see your ads if they don't click, navigate, sign up or utilize your offerings. Performance metrics must connect to business results, not just vanity metrics.

Third, solutions trump sales messages. Digital success comes from giving audiences what they want, not trying to convince them of what they need. Knowledge, tools, and genuine value create more customer affinity than any banner ad ever could.

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Building Digital Bridges: From Paradox to Possibility

Resolving the Digital Adoption Paradox doesn't require massive budgets or technical miracles. It requires systematic commitment to meeting customers where they are rather than where we wish they were.

Start with digital presence that actually serves customer needs. Your website shouldn't be a digital brochure. It should be a problem-solving platform. Product information should be searchable, comparable and downloadable in formats customers can use. Technical specifications should integrate with farm management systems. Local inventory should be visible in real-time.

Develop content strategies that acknowledge digital consumption patterns. Farmers don't read long-form content on desktop computers during business hours. They consume content on mobile devices during breaks, in the evening and during downtime. Create content formatted for mobile screens, optimized for quick consumption and designed for easy sharing.

Create tools that solve real problems. Calculators that help optimize application rates. Comparison tools that clarify product selection and allow for integration into farm management tools. ROI models that justify purchase decisions. Planning tools that improve operational efficiency. These tools become reasons for customers to choose you beyond product features or price.

Enable digital transactions that match customer expectations. If farmers can trade hundred-thousand-dollar commodity positions on their phones, they should be able to order agricultural inputs the same way. E-commerce isn't just for consumer goods. It's for any product customers want to buy conveniently.

The Multiplication Effect of Digital Excellence

Here's what happens when you resolve the Digital Adoption Paradox: everything multiplies.

Digital excellence creates data that enables personalization. Personalization increases relevance. Relevance drives engagement. Engagement generates insights. Insights improve targeting. Better targeting increases efficiency. Higher efficiency enables more experimentation. More experimentation accelerates learning. Faster learning creates competitive advantages.

This multiplication effect is why digitally sophisticated competitors can disrupt established players so quickly. They're not just using different tactics. They're operating with fundamentally different capabilities that compound over time. This has been the strategic advantage new banking entities like Ally and Tangerine have leveraged to steal market from the traditional stalwarts over the last decade.

The Window Is Closing

The comfortable gap between farmer digital adoption and agrimarketing digital capability is closing. Not slowly, but rapidly. New entrants are arriving with digital-first mindsets. Technology companies are entering agricultural markets. Startups are solving problems that established companies haven't even acknowledged. And AI is only going to make the scope and speed of change more significant.

Thankfully, the agricultural companies that resolve the Digital Adoption Paradox now will build advantages that compound over years to come. And the opportunity for near immediate improvement will come more from shifting mindset than it will from investing significant time and dollars (when both are increasingly scarce).

And fortunately, agri-marketers already have a deep understanding of what “digital-first” marketing and experiences look and feel like because we seek them out and experience them everyday as 21st century consumers ourselves.

So let’s lean in and level up, because our customers deserve nothing but.

Sound too familiar? Contact us today to talk solutions.

David "Laz" Lazarenko is a founding partner of Think Shift Inc. and author of the upcoming book "Benchwarmers: Unlocking the True Potential of Agrimarketing." For over 25 years, he has challenged agricultural organizations to think beyond agrimarketing conventional wisdom and embrace strategic approaches that create competitive advantage.

1. USDA Technology Use (Farm Computer Usage and Ownership), August 2023