Pandemic forces producers to discover ways to construct web sites, create Instagram accounts and make movies of their bulls
CAMROSE, Alta.— The annual custom of patrons gathering at a sale barn, consuming beef on a bun, presumably having a drink or two and bidding on a bull has been placed on maintain for some farms.
COVID-19 has modified many issues, together with the best way farms promote animals.
Arika Kathol has spent hours constructing a web site for the household’s Kathol Simmental Ranch of Drayton Valley, Alta., and days taking photos and movies of the bulls earlier than their upcoming bull sale.
“If you need to be real looking and nonetheless market with an unsure market, you’ve got to search out alternative ways to attach with customers,” stated Kathol, who was on the Canadian Bull Congress in Camrose displaying the farm’s bulls and connecting with clients.
When clients cease on the sales space, Kathol and her mom, Susan, chat concerning the bulls on show, choose up an iPad and present potential clients extra photos and movies of the bulls nonetheless at house.
Before the dialog ends, they add the shopper’s e mail to the mailing record and a sale catalogue is on its approach to the customer.
“You must discover a approach to make your animals stand out,” stated Kathol, who additionally created an Instagram account to characteristic the household’s bulls.
Building a web site, creating an Instagram account and making movies of bulls was not the best way the University of Saskatchewan animal science pupil deliberate to spend the winter.
But making it simpler for patrons to have a look at and purchase animals has turn out to be a crucial a part of promoting livestock throughout COVID.
“It is a approach to showcase our merchandise if they will’t are available individual.”
The sale can be a hybrid with patrons attending the bull sale in individual or shopping for online.
Kevin Wirsta of Elk Point, Alta., stated they’ve promoted their sale bulls by online video for years, however final 12 months was the primary time they held an online-only Ok-Cow bull sale.
“We made it work.”
After the sale, when Wirsta delivered the bulls, some patrons informed him they favored with the ability to purchase a bull from the consolation of their house, however others had been annoyed. The frustration was most frequently due to poor web service and the priority their computer systems would freeze and miss a bid. About 15 patrons got here to the farm and gave their bids to the auctioneer in individual.
This 12 months’s bull sale can be modified barely with a stay public sale and online bidding.
“There is an enormous inhabitants that doesn’t have web and which might be outstanding (cattle producers).”
Wirsta believes future sales can be a mix of in individual and online.
Matt Trefiak of MJT Cattle stated COVID-19 has pressured his household to put money into extra video advertising and elevated their social media presence. They employed an expert advertising firm to video their animals and inform their story by movies and an expert web site.
“You have to leverage these instruments a little bit extra.”
Attending exhibits just like the Canadian Bull Congress continues to be an essential approach to meet patrons, however having a great high quality web site, Facebook account and online promotion can be essential, he stated.
“People want to acknowledge your title. It’s essential to construct a model folks can acknowledge,” stated Trefiak.
Their coming bull sale can be in a hoop, however with out the bulls. For the previous two years, the household has taken movies of every animal and when it’s the animal’s time to promote, the movies are proven on three giant flat display screen televisions within the sale ring.
“It’s a low stress state of affairs for the animals.”
https://www.producer.com/livestock/prairie-ranches-take-bull-sales-online/
