This Week: What Has The Beef Checkoff Program's PRODUCER COMMUNICATIONS Program Area Done For Me Lately?PRODUCER COMMUNICATIONS means expenditures made to communicate about other checkoff programs – promotion, research, consumer information, industry information and foreign marketing – to producers who pay for them. This includes management of a paid information outreach, production of a Beef Board Annual Report and other program updates to producers, trade media news releases, maintenance of MyBeefCheckoff.com, participation in agricultural trade shows, and a producer attitude survey. Maintaining State/National Coordination – The checkoff’s national producer communications team recently hosted a conference call with producer members of the Joint Producer Communications Committee and a Webinar with staff from state beef councils to get their early input about paid-media tactics to propose for Fiscal 2013. Topics covered included a review of paid-media efforts in the current fiscal year; the proposed “Request for Proposals” (RFP) process to seek new and innovative ideas for next year; and a review and expansion of the media recipient list for the RFP. After collecting and applying input from the two groups, the checkoff issued the producer communications RFP to media representatives and will host a joint conference call or webinar with states and committee members again in mid-June to review media responses to the request. For more, visit Producer Communications. Getting to Know Clay Burtrum – Clay Burtrum and his family own Burtrum Cattle LLC, a cow-calf and stocker operation near Stillwater, Okla. Clay understands that the Beef Checkoff Program provides the tools and training for producers to deliver safe, wholesome beef to consumers. Click here to read and hear more from Clay in a video from his farm. Preparing for Summer Appearances – Are you wondering where your Beef Board officers and staff are representing you this summer? That's right – it's the summer ag-show season, and that means hitting the road for industry meetings, trade shows and/or conferences. These are all regular duties of your officer team, who often are invited to speak to organizations’ members about the checkoff during those meetings. For a complete calendar of events, visit MyBeefCheckoff.com, but here's a quick look at a few of the 2012 stops on the agenda:
Getting Face-to-Face With Producers – The My Beef Checkoff Facebook page surpassed 4,000 followers this week, and is getting growing participation by producers in checkoff discussions. Part of the integrated producer communications program to keep checkoff investors informed about the results of their checkoff programs, the Facebook page is an opportunity to communicate directly and in real-time with producers who are savvy with social-media networks. If you have a Facebook page, be sure you “Like” the My Beef Checkoff page and join the conversation! Checking in with Ag Media – Every opportunity we have to communicate with ag trade media – be it via a press release, e-newsletter or survey – is an opportunity to educate more producers about the checkoff, including information about checkoff structure, program areas, and management. So, as part of the national producer communications efforts, we perform an annual media survey to maintain regular communications with trade media. The purposes are to expose them to services/resources they might not be aware of; encourage them to use checkoff leadership and staff as go-to resources for story ideas and general checkoff information; and to find out where media folks think we might be able to improve our checkoff communications to them. This year's annual survey distributed this week in three versions: print, broadcast and, new this year, video. Results of the survey will be presented to the Joint Producer Communications Committee during Summer Conference. Blogging Checkoff Meeting Details – Do you want up-to-the-minute information from national checkoff meetings and committees, especially when you are unable to attend directly? Did you know you can sign up for the RSS feed from the My Beef Checkoff meeting blog? As summer tradeshows, meetings and the Cattle Industry Summer Conference approaches, be sure you’re on the list to get the latest news and information direct from the checkoff via the blog RSS feed. Sign up here. |