Rounding Up Spindustry’s Spring Agriculture and Equipment Show Visits

Every year, Spindustry visits our current clients, future clients and other friends at a few agriculture and manufacturing related shows. This spring, we traveled "all the way" to downtown Des Moines to the Iowa Ag Expo and saw many of our local friends there to start the year off right.

In March, we attended the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association (FEMA) Spring Supply Summit in Florida. While the goal of this conference is for manufacturing members to meet with current or potential suppliers, several made time to visit with us about their increasing digital needs and shared their goals for 2023 and beyond.

Some of the trends we noticed when speaking with manufacturers and from other discussions at the show are:

1. Manufacturers are looking at digital commerce and marketing to grow their businesses.
2. Everyone is excited, post-COVID, to be able to see each other again in person (and in-person events aren't going away any time soon!).

We had a lot of great discussions about how these trends are not mutually exclusive, and that digital can be used at physical shows and to connect between shows, leaving shows for deep dive in person discussions.

A week later, we returned to the opposite end of Florida — Islamorada to be exact — where we attended and presented at EMDA's (Equipment Marketing & Distribution Association) Spring Management Workshop. This meeting is purposefully smaller than FEMA's show, so that left us with more time to speak with members and to take in other presenters' content as well.

Our message to the EMDA members was one of urgency on the digital front. As supply chain concerns diminish, it is time to return to offense vs. defense and focus on growth. There is a lot of opportunity from just doing the digital basics to getting aggressive with digital marketing to see strong growth. We again talked about the integration of digital and traditional marketing at intersection points such as farm shows and other topics that were very interesting.

We see a bright 2023 ahead for the members of both associations and hope to be a part of it!

Where are we headed next? Spindustry's Michael Bird is presenting in Canada! Yes, Spindustry's speaking engagements are going international. We will be speaking at the AMC (Agricultural Manufacturers of Canada) EXPO 2023 – Inspire Conference on April 26 and 27, 2023. If you happen to be in the London, Ontario area, we'd love to see you there!

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