That's a wrap for 2022. The I Heart Farming office has closed for the holiday season, and will officially re-open on Tuesday, January 31, 2023.
We will still be tapping away on some feature articles over the coming weeks, but won't be taking on any new work during this time. We will be recharging and preparing for the new year (after harvest is finally finished of course). Thank you to our clients who have trusted us to create their long-form content this year. If you would like to discuss work to be conducted in 2023, please book an appointment through the button below.
0 Comments
I've just ticked my annual skin off my list.
There’s many reasons I make time for a skin check each November, including:
I now know that - coupled with sun smart behaviours - I’m doing everything I can to prevent skin cancer and also catch it as early as possible if it happens. Have you had your skin checked in the past year? If not, it’s time to make the booking! Natasha 22 hours ago
Here at I Heart Farming we specialise in writing long-form content ... but what exactly does that mean? We write content including, but not limited to: + articles + blogs + editorials + opinion pieces + staff profiles + product spotlights Basically all these forms of writing are "long-form", they are long (well longer than the average social media snippet many are accustomed to these days) and generally have a purpose. For example, that could be to express an opinion, explore a topic or share a person's story. This form of content usually requires one or more interviews to gather information and sometimes extra research as well. This information is condensed and written in a way so that it is easy to read and in language farmers understand. Our Founder Natasha Lobban has been a rural and regional journalist for more than 15 years and brings her well-honed skills to optimising long-form content for agribusinesses. Sometimes it's creative, sometimes its short and sharp, this all depends on a client's needs, styles and wants. We don't specialise in social media campaigns or SEO-optimised website content. We focus on long-form content because we love it and excel at it. Let us know if you need any help with your long-form content! We're excited to have just released our 2023 content packages.
In addition to our popular BEEF UP package, which delivers six articles a month, next year we will also be offering SEED SUCCESS for those wanting a little less and RAISE THE BAA for clients wanting more. I'll be sharing more details here in coming days, but I encourage you to check out the links above to find out more details if you need to beef up your long-form content. You don't want to miss out on becoming an I Heart Farming VIP client! It was a pleasure to work on this story for the Victorian Farmers Federation's magazine.
Recognising and championing the changing face of Australian farming is a passion of mine, so it was interesting to dive into the nitty gritty of it and compare the latest Census data with historic information. Thanks also to Danyel Cucinotta for providing her insights on the issue. Keep challenging the stereotypes and changing opinions one person (and midwife) at a time, Danyel. Natasha 💚 Check out the story below or the magazine in its entirety at: https://lnkd.in/gbfmpj8g More than 100mm of rain fell over the weekend here at Eldorado, in North East Victoria.
This is our creek paddock, with the water entirely covering our flats land on Reedy Creek (over some brand new fencing of course). It’s normally a trickle. We’ve had a big couple of weeks with power outages, road closures and dodgy phone and internet thanks to ongoing stormy weather. It’s a big mess, but our locality has been luckier than other areas such as Echuca and Shepparton/Mooroopna and I’m very grateful to still have our home dry and livestock safe. Many cannot say the same across the state at the moment. I’m incredibly thankful for all the hard working teams and volunteers who have been working around the clock to help however they can. If anyone is looking for feedback for how to help regions during floods my two cents worth is improve communications. Information in emergency/extreme situations should be accurate, frequent and easy to understand. People have enough to worry about in these circumstances without trying to make decisions without facts. There is much to improve in this space - for example while I appreciate road closure data is always changing, it’s of utmost importance that it’s correct. This has been a major failing across the state in recent months and must be addressed. And telcos must ensure that adequate communication services, both phone and internet, are in place so these messages can be received. As our weather keeps throwing more and more challenges our way, we must have the tools to stay safe and informed. I've starting the day pondering: What does a farmer look like? It's dress like a farmer day at my daughter's school, so it was a topic I had to negotiate with a five-year-old this morning. In her mind farmers are just people (✅) but that to dress up like a farmer you need a straw hat (❌). Considering how many straw hats I saw at drop off this morning I think there may have been some discussion about straw hat costumes in the playground yesterday. As you can see, my daughter wore gumboots (because it's muddy and they're easy to clean - think biosecurity), jeans with unicorns on them, her RB Sellars shirt with our farm logo and a jumper and jacket because it's cold. It's fairly standard farm attire for her. You may notice she's not wearing a straw hat. That was my win for the morning. A broad-brimmed hat is certainly part of our "farm uniform" in summer, but it wasn't happening just to perpetuate a stereotype. In the past she's worn a lot of tutus in the cattle yards, pyjamas in tractors and dresses on hot days. I reminded her of this. Mum and Dad and Nan and Pop are farmers and they all wear different clothes. Farmers can look like anyone. When they're working their clothes must be safe and protect them from hazards - but that's the only rule. The "little farmers" I saw today all had plaits, flannies, straw hats and I even saw one child with drawn-on freckles. I never thought I could be offended by primary school children's dress ups, but I was. Is this really how the world sees us? Farmers are often highly educated multitasking geniuses. They care for animals, operate, maintain and repair machinery, they're vets, chemists, mechanics and accountants. They're so much more. They also sometimes have careers outside of the farm - doctors, engineers, lawyers, politicians, business owners, the list goes on. Farmers are men, women, young, old, all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds. I say this as a freckled, fair skinned, straw-hat-wearing farmer that is happy the school had an opportunity to raise money for its agriculture department - that's important. There's nothing wrong with a day to highlight farmers. The problem is how farmers are seen. As a society I would have thought that we had moved beyond the stereotype of wheat stalk chewing, flannie wearing hicks. This shouldn't be happening, especially in regional Australia. Children dressing up like this aren't responsible for their actions. Their parents - and the society who informed those parents - are. Importantly if kids think this is what a farmer looks like and behaves like - that farmers talk slow, with a twang, or only want to ride horses and throw chook food on the ground - why would they ever want to be one? Getting the message out that farming is a diverse, satisfying and important career, is crucial. The future of farming depends on it. Natasha 💚🌱 I Heart Farming Founder Natasha Lobban will be presenting at the Regional and Rural Business Blitz on August 16.
Natasha will be speaking about: why style guides will never go out of fashion. Essentially this will cover why having a style guide for language is as important as it is for logos, colour section and brand assets. Her love and appreciation of style guides comes from her many years of experience working as a journalist and sub-editor in rural and regional newsrooms. Natasha now shares the value of style guides with her clients as well and will be sharing some of the advantages during her presentation. Grab your ticket for the virtual event: https://lnkd.in/deYk4pSg The end of the financial year is just around the corner. It’s not just the time to be consulting your accountant about minimising your tax bill - it’s also a great time to think about your marketing and content for the year ahead.
Get reconciling and run a report on how much you have spent on marketing and content creation in the past 12 months. Make sure you factor in wages paid to staff who undertake marketing work, even if that’s not their primary role. What leads did it generate? Did your content work for you this year or was it an expense that took a lot of time and effort with little reward? How can you change that? If your research shows your content didn’t perform well, it’s time to seriously assess what can be done to fix that. Here are our top tips for planning for successful content for the 2022-23 financial year. Understand your audience Tailoring the content of your website, blogs and newsletters will attract a certain demographic or interest group. For example when trying to capture a rural or farming market, it’s important to deliver authentic content that appeals to this specialised group. Think more Bulka Bags and less handbags. Change what you are delivering Content creation is not all about sales, it can also be a great opportunity to share your insights and experiences. Clients and prospective clients find this information valuable and they will keep coming back for more. Convert, don’t infect Going viral is a colloquial term used when content on social media attracts a huge amount of attention which garners thousands of likes, shares and new connections. Let’s look at two scenarios. Your page has thousands of likes from one video that attracted lots of attention (but not from your ideal clients) or your page has a good amount of likes and they’re all interested in your product or service and are likely to purchase/contract you in the near future. Work to serve your clients, not the internet masses who have no need or intention to support your business. Plan for success Content should be planned well in advance and ideally scheduled for publication for optimum use of resources. Brainstorming sessions with a professional can improve your outcomes as well as removing the brain drain that can come with marketing on the fly. In-house or outsource? Now you know who you want to target and what content will attract them, it’s time to work out how to achieve the workload. If you or your staff members won’t be able to do the work it may be time to outsource. Work out how much content you need, how much time it will take and how much work it will generate you. You may be surprised to find that outsourcing long-form content works for many businesses. That’s where I Heart Farming comes in. We support rural businesses with long-form content such as blogs, websites, newsletters and articles. We turn around quality words with little effort and time from business, so business owners and staff can do what they do best, while we do too. We would love to hear from you if you have any questions about planning content for the new financial year and how we can make it easy and cost-effective for you. THERE'S a reason we use a stock agent, an accountant and a mechanic in our farm business.
Actually there’s many reasons: it saves us money, we get better results, it’s more time efficient, ensures we’re meeting regulations and then there’s the fact we don’t like doing all these tasks. The same reasons apply when businesses and organisations are considering outsourcing their content creation. Reduce costs At first glance the price of outsourcing can scare business owners away. However, when you dig a little deeper and do the sums, outsourcing is often good value. A contractor’s hourly rate may seem high to you, but have you accounted for the fact the work will be completed quicker than your in-house staff because they are experts at this role? Or that there are no hidden costs for you such as holiday/sick pay and superannuation? You don’t even need to buy them a cake on their birthday or provide a computer, desk and internet. Before dismissing outsourcing as being too expensive, run some sums for your individual situation and you may be surprised what you discover. Better results Content creators are only creating content, so they are experts in getting messages across. The results from a dedicated content writer can not be compared to having your receptionist fill in or what you can produce in short snippets between doing the rest of your demanding job. Content creation is an artform and shouldn’t be handled by just anyone. Afterall, we don’t create content for the sake of it. Content should be working for you. You want your content marketing machine powered by as much horsepower as possible. Time efficiency Expert consultants can focus on content creation while the rest of the team focuses on what they do best. That’s all they’re working on. There’s no keeping up with messages and emails from colleagues, long lunches, marketing plans, social uploads, and other random tasks set by managers. They write the content your business needs to grow and they’ll likely do it faster than in-house staff. Regulations An experienced content creator, such as I Heart Farming, will have training in media law covering defamation and reporting on legal matters. They will also have honed sensitivity skills, which allow them to avoid upsetting clients and the wider public with improper use of inflammatory language. When it comes to putting your best forward forward with the public, you want to make sure the content is not doing more harm than good. Support your team Marketing teams are flat out with bigger picture strategising and daily problem solving. Content can often be what fits in around meetings and spreadsheets. Let them focus on taking care of your company’s marketing, without having to take out large chunks of time for content creation. Get a content creator on board to be the workhorse who focuses on writing the best content possible to get your messages across. Content creators become a tool that helps the marketing team work most efficiently and effectively. If you’ve been considering outsourcing your content creation, now is a great time to take the next step. If you would like to talk to I Heart Farming about your content needs, book a free 30-minute discovery call by clicking the link below. We look forward to growing your business. |
I Heart FarmingWe take the pulse of rural Australia and share valuable marketing tips to help your business speak to farmers Archives
August 2023
Categories |
CONTACThello@iheartfarming.com.au
|
WEBSITE |
LOCATIONAlbury-Wodonga region,
on the border of NSW and Victoria Servicing clients from across Australia |
SOCIALS |
COPYRIGHT I Heart Farming 2023
All rights reserved
All rights reserved