Following the successful development of the Herefords Australia Marketing Committee, the HAL Board will now work with that committee to develop a strategic marketing plan.
The Marketing Committee is comprised of HAL directors, staff, members, and young guns.
Most recently Lisa Sharp, formerly Chief Marketing Officer with MLA has been engaged as the industry expert to provide the strategic marketing strategy for HAL.
Lisa will engage with HAL Board, staff, and other stakeholders to develop the plan.
“I am looking forward to working with the Board, Committee and staff members to develop the plan.
“The planning process will enable us to better understand triggers and barriers to the breed and critically assess what types of information producers want, need and value as they make breeding and buying decisions.
“The approach will also enable Herefords Australia to establish its marketing and communications priorities, set clear objectives and identify supporting activities,” Ms. Sharp said.
In the initial stage of the plan development, Lisa plans to conduct a number of interviews with various stakeholders in order to better understand how stakeholders see the attributes and benefits of Herefords, how others perceive Herefords (relative to other regionally appropriate breeds) and to begin to gather some qualitative data on sources of information and influence.
The interviews and desktop research will be followed up with a stakeholder workshop to confirm key insights and the implications for the Strategic Marketing Plan.
The need to concentrate on marketing and the development of a strategic marketing plan has become a focal point of the current HAL board following the focus on R&D and technical development in recent years.
“Coming from a focus on R&D and Technical in recent years, there is now also an opportunity to utilise the marketing strategy to promote the findings from the R&D and Technical work.
“This will support the adoption of research, support breed productivity and profitability and give producers and others ongoing evidence as to the benefits of Herefords,” said HAL Marketing Committee chairman, Marc Greening.
There are several key goals in developing the strategic marketing plan including encouraging greater producer awareness and consideration of Herefords to help drive preference and purchase.
There is also an opportunity to promote the attributes and benefits of the breed to other value chain participants such as agents, feed lotters and processors.
It is envisaged that the formulation of the strategic marketing plan will take up to six months and will examine the attributes that matter most to producers and look at relative strengths of the breed – and all supporting evidence – to create a compelling value proposition.
The plan will also look at who to target, and how to refine the value proposition for different regions and target audiences.
Recommendations regarding the efficiency and effectiveness of different communication channels and sources of influence will also be included as part of the plan.
Following the development of the strategic marketing plan will come the implementation phase, which will occur over the next five years.
The delivery of the marketing strategy will be managed by the HAL office, with the HAL Board/Marketing Committee and Lisa available for further guidance where required.
Herefords are in a strong position to capitalise on current trends with Hereford sale prices exceeding other British breeds in the January 2021 weaner sales and strong price trends reported throughout 2020.
Herefords are a versatile breed that are adaptive to the majority of Australian beef producing regions, with a strong reputation for grass finishing which is highly desired by all processors with grass-fed beef products.
