{"id":3816,"date":"2011-09-12T11:03:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T18:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/?p=3816"},"modified":"2011-09-12T11:11:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T18:11:38","slug":"biggest-boot-camp-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/?p=3816","title":{"rendered":"Biggest Boot Camp Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Attendance reaches an all-time high at this signature NAMA event \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a record-setting year for Boot Camp\u00e2\u20ac\u201dattendance reached the highest level in NAMA history!<\/p>\n

Conversations were lively and attendees not only learned from panelists and presenters, but from each other as well. An opening keynote session on networking encouraged Boot Campers to make the effort to get to know new people and expand their networks.<\/p>\n

Dan Greers of the Scoular Company had this to say about his first time at Boot Camp:<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I really enjoyed Boot Camp.\u00c2\u00a0Even though my dad grew up on a farm, I was a city kid, so being able to hear from many different agricultural aspects<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201cdairy cows, hogs, row crop farming<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u201creally helped fill in the gaps and gave me a better understanding of the whole industry.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The famous Boot Camp panels ranged from producers and growers sharing their thoughts on communication and marketing preferences to seasoned agri-marketers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 words of career wisdom. A \u00e2\u20ac\u0153generations\u00e2\u20ac\u009d panel also discussed the challenges and rewards of working on a family farm. (Visit YouTube<\/a> to see how panel members work across generations in this excerpt from the generations panel.)<\/p>\n

Producers on the panel emphasized how smart phones and texting make their lives easier. Especially when it comes to immediate access of market information and legislation updates. But they also stressed that well-timed direct mail, smart premiums and local testimonials in traditional advertising still work.<\/p>\n

The generations panel shared lessons learned and each speaker agreed it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to let the next generation bear their own financial risk and be given the freedom to make\u00e2\u20ac\u201cand learn\u00e2\u20ac\u201cfrom mistakes.<\/p>\n

A constant thread throughout the entire two-day conference was the need for farmers and those within the industry to tell the real story of American agriculture. Sessions on social media, building customer relationships and consumers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 true perceptions of technology in ag shared some great ideas for how to get those conversations started.<\/p>\n

Randa Zalman, Online Strategist, Sr. Account Supervisor for Redstone gave tips for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Making Social Media Simple.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Randa emphasized the benefit of social media is ROR\u00e2\u20ac\u201creturn on relationships<\/em>, and urged not to get too caught up in ROI. She shared excellent strategies for pitching a social media plan and other ideas for overcoming internal objections to adding social media to more traditional marketing plans.<\/p>\n

Left Field Creative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brand whiz, Bill Shelton led the charge for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Creating Lasting Emotional Bonds With Your Customers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in his fast-paced presentation. Making good on the claim that he could \u00e2\u20ac\u0153take one look at you and tell what kind of beer you drink,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bill explained how to use emotional triggers and positioning statements to make brands stand out and gain loyal followers.<\/p>\n

Another take-away from this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Boot Camp is that a magic marketing bullet doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exist. Agri-marketers need to test and ask questions to land on the right mix of face-to-face contact, direct marketing, radio and digital.<\/p>\n

Check out NAMA’s Flickr<\/a> page for photos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attendance reaches an all-time high at this signature NAMA event \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 It was a record-setting year for Boot Camp\u00e2\u20ac\u201dattendance reached the highest level in NAMA history! Conversations were lively and attendees not only learned from panelists and presenters, but from each other as well. An opening keynote session on networking encouraged Boot Campers to make […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[280,36,276],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-activities","category-general","category-nama-boot-camp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3816"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3857,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3816\/revisions\/3857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.namablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}