How agricultural products can leverage Internet Plus for good marketing
"Internet Plus" emerged in recent years amid the spread of information network technology, built on the framework of the internet and using internet information as its medium. With the rapid advances in internet application technology, "Internet Plus" has become an industry with great potential and rapid development; it is also the futuristic product of the combination of the information age and science and technology, namely the "Internet Plus" era. Rapid development, short growth cycles, tightly linked information flows, and globalization and synchronicity are the characteristics of "Internet Plus".
The necessity and urgency of innovating agricultural product marketing models in the "Internet Plus" era
Imbalance between supply and demand of agricultural products. In the era when the internet and information technology were backward, because of the particular nature of agricultural products as goods, traditional agricultural and sideline product business models almost always used offline transactions as the main sales method. This sales method is greatly affected by the limitations of time and space distribution and often cannot optimize and integrate sales information resources, causing an imbalance in the supply-demand ratio in terms of time or region. Not only can farmers fail to maximize their benefits, but from the perspective of the entire region this also causes indirect economic losses and hinders the development of local agriculture and related industries. The arrival of the "Internet Plus" era greatly weakens the impact of this drawback of traditional offline marketing. The immediacy of internet information transmission dilutes concepts such as time and distance in traditional sales thinking, making sales precise from broad areas down to points and greatly improving efficiency. Apart from the influence of the transportation factors of the sales region itself, it can basically solve the problem of balancing supply and demand.
The excessive and complex number of agricultural product brands. China's current urban and township agricultural and sideline product sales industry has good prospects. After the industry's capacity increased substantially in previous years, together with favorable policies in recent years, many young brands have entered rural areas, and agricultural products present a scene of a hundred flowers blooming. But behind this vigorous upward momentum hide defects in agricultural product management. The uneven quality of agricultural products caused by the numerous and complex brands has led to a decline in the overall quality of the agricultural product industry, which was the most notable impact on agricultural product sales before. The arrival of the "Internet Plus" era classifies agricultural products by type, price, use and so on through internet platforms, which not only makes it convenient to display all products to consumers, but also standardizes the agricultural product sales market and digitizes the physical products for easier management.
The "fragmentation" of the communication environment. Agricultural development and the production, transportation and sales of agricultural products differ from urban industrialized production. Even at the current stage of gradually entering the "Internet Plus" era, every step agricultural products go through from production to sales remains separate and independent, that is, the communication environment is fragmented. The fragmentation of this process is determined by China's current level of productivity and science and technology and will not be completely eliminated in the short term. However, integrating resources through internet platforms and amplifying agricultural product information through internet information flows is currently an effective way to solve the problems of scattered information dissemination and large energy dissipation in agricultural products. From internet crowdfunding for production financing, to advertising pushes by various portal websites during dissemination, to sales channels through various O2O-type apps, all fall within the scope of "Internet Plus".
The continuous emergence of new media. China is striding into a decentralized new media era. In a short time a large number of online platforms have appeared, and the publicity and sales directions of all industries have shifted toward the internet online, quickly seizing a large amount of internet resources. Therefore the agricultural product industry should also transform as soon as possible, shifting from offline-themed publicity and sales channels to online ones, which helps broaden the channels and scope of agricultural product transactions. Rural areas are the main producing areas of agricultural products, with large output but overly narrow sales channels, affected in time by seasonal climate and in space by the transportation conditions and distance between rural areas and cities. Therefore the transaction volume of agricultural products in rural areas fluctuates greatly under the influence of external factors. Mobile e-commerce transfers agricultural product transaction channels to the internet, expanding the scope of influence on sales targets.
Current agricultural product marketing has too many intermediary links and lacks brand awareness
The quality of agricultural products is uneven. From the perspective of production regions, China's agricultural product production areas are concentrated at the urban and rural level, with a small portion around cities, and overall scientific management is relatively backward and production efficiency is low. From the perspective of production quality, China's agricultural product production still relies only on natural land plus artificial fertilizer, with a low level of production technology, large output fluctuations and a low level of mechanization. Therefore the quality of China's current agricultural products is generally not high. This stems from the relatively low scientific nature of agricultural production, which limits improvements in agricultural product quality. In addition, the quality of agricultural products is uneven and fluctuates over a relatively large range, because the quality and output of agricultural products are affected by regional climate and environment, showing great differences.
Too many intermediary links. The production process of agricultural products is like the assembly line of industrial production, with every link from seed selection to sales closely connected. The chain itself is already too numerous and too long, and in this process problems of wasted resources and wasted efficiency arise. Moreover, the production and sales model of agricultural products cannot be analogized to industrial products. The production cycles of agricultural products are all relatively long, measured in months or years, and long-term sustained production necessarily involves the consumption of manpower, material resources and so on. In addition, at the current stage, agricultural products pass through too many hands from farmers to consumers in the sales process, and the links are too complex, which also causes agricultural products to depreciate through repeated transfers and is not conducive to expanding production in the agricultural product industry.
Lack of brand awareness. For a long time, the main force of China's agricultural product operators has been farmers. Their educational level is relatively low, and their concept of agricultural product operation is limited to obtaining gross profit through buying and selling products and completing their own interest chain. As long as income and expenditure balance, they no longer consider more. Therefore the overall agricultural product market appears sluggish. Farmers are scattered like stars in the sky, each fighting alone and unable to form a sales system. On the one hand, this is not conducive to forming a certain scale in China's agricultural product market, which will remain in a small-scale situation. On the other hand, in today's era that values intellectual property and patents, agricultural products lack brand awareness and cannot form advantageous brands in the market to drive industry development or establish an industry image.
Small differences among agricultural product categories. At present, China's wealth gap is relatively large, the pace of urbanization is far greater than the level of township urbanization, and the level of urban-rural integration is relatively low. This leads the agricultural product industry also to aim at obtaining maximum benefits rather than focusing on expanding the market. In order to obtain maximum economic returns, farmers still plant the cash crops with the greatest economic profit even when natural conditions barely permit or do not permit it, and crop varieties are single and product types are monotonous, which is not conducive to the diversified development of the agricultural product market. This problem of small differences among agricultural product categories will affect the healthy development of the agricultural product industry for a long time.
The realistic path for innovation and construction of agricultural product marketing models in the "Internet Plus" era
First, attach importance to upfront investment in rural network information technology. Internet platforms are the most basic element for containing and circulating agricultural product information. Their construction requires specialized network engineers, and their normal operation in the future requires a professional team for maintenance, regular updating and supplementation. Covering agricultural product producing areas with the internet lays the foundation for agricultural products to go directly from production to sales without being affected by time and space.
Second, conduct on-site research on the agricultural product market in a planned and purposeful manner. China has a vast territory and a wide span of longitude and latitude. The advantageous agricultural products of each region are also closely related to geographical latitude and climatic temperature. It is necessary to conduct on-site research in a planned and purposeful manner on the scale, sales types and peak-off season intervals of the agricultural product market, and use this as feedback information to build an internet sales platform.
Third, provide farmers with various important guarantees they need. The internet sales platform is an innovation in agricultural product marketing models in the "Internet Plus" era, and its fundamental source still starts from the agricultural products harvested by farmers as the starting point of the chain. It is necessary to provide farmers with various important guarantees they need, such as funding guarantees, paying farmers according to market wholesale prices for agricultural products purchased from them; and loan guarantees, where farmers facing production difficulties can first be provided with loans and then deliver products, achieving a win-win result.
Fourth, strengthen investment in logistics equipment and improve the distribution capacity of agricultural product logistics. Although some agricultural product producing areas in China have rich natural land resources, because of remote geographical locations, relatively backward economies and relatively backward transportation infrastructure construction, there are great restrictive factors for the transportation of agricultural products, resulting in products being unable to be shipped out or taking a long time. It is necessary not only to improve the network platform well, but also to guide the local transportation and logistics industries so that they gradually improve, that is, strengthen investment in logistics equipment and improve the distribution capacity of agricultural product logistics.
Fifth, establish and improve a safe and reliable credit payment system. Because internet sales platforms are hidden and non-material, and because payment methods are digitized, their credibility among the public is not high. Therefore what urgently needs to be solved now is to establish and improve a safe and reliable credit payment system so that consumers dare to pay and pay with peace of mind. For example, establish a security system in which multiple secure payment mechanisms work together, and improve the credit payment system with advanced identity recognition methods such as real-name authentication with ID cards, mobile phone binding with bank cards, and fingerprints or irises.
The "Internet Plus" era has already arrived. Some traditional industries have begun to cut part of their offline business and vigorously open up online markets, and agricultural product marketing is no exception. Agricultural product internet marketing should increase innovation efforts, seize the current favorable opportunities in internet development, recognize the necessity of agricultural product marketing innovation in the "Internet Plus" era, and at the same time, through measures suited to local realities, by increasing upfront investment in rural network information technology, conducting planned and purposeful on-site research on the agricultural product market, providing farmers with various important guarantees they need, strengthening investment in logistics equipment, improving the distribution capacity of agricultural product logistics, and building a new "Internet Plus" agricultural product marketing model.