Marketing Services For Cooperatives

MARKETING SERVICES FOR COOPERATIVES
• Collective Marketing
• Market Information
• Market Research
 We have seen that cooperatives are involved in a number of services, including

input supply services, financial services and value added services. All these services
support farmers in their activities. In this module we focus on one specific set of
services: marketing services, including collective marketing. Originally, the term
“marketing” referred to going to the marketplace to buy or sell goods. The producer
would sell his or her goods directly to the consumer. Today, the producer and
consumer do not usually meet face-to-face.
Marketing services encompass a range of activities. Examples of marketing services

are: informing the market about products available, and the other way round, informing
members about customer preferences, price information services and branding.
Collective Marketing
› Cooperatives can either support their members’ individual marketing by providing
them with marketing services, or they can buy their members’ produce and
market it themselves. The latter is called collective marketing and is a feature of
many cooperatives.
› Collective marketing therefore refers to “selling together”. In collective marketing,

the cooperative buys the members’ produce and becomes the owner of the
produce (i.e. a chain operator). The premise of collective marketing is that selling
together brings more benefits for smallholders than selling individually.
Collective Marketing of agricultural produce has some particularities. One is that

collective marketing implies that there are two different groups that have to be satisfied:
the suppliers/producers and the buyers of the produce.
ADVANTAGE OF COLLECTIVE MARKETING:
› Spreading costs over a larger crop volume
› Creating a larger presence in the marketplace
› Focusing marketing and selling efforts

MARKET INFORMATION
• Market information is the generation, processing and dissemination of all facts
regarding the marketing of different commodities
• A cooperative needs market information for collective marketing, but it can also
collect and disseminate market information as a service to its members. Market
information includes information on marketing channels, buyers, quality
standards and so on.
What market information do cooperatives and their members need?

Some examples of information that is important for marketing are:
• Actual price of agricultural and livestock commodities;
• Insights into price trends;
• Competitors and their marketing strategies;
• Requirements of consumers;
• Quality specifications by various buyers;
• Some examples of information that is important for marketing are:
• Actual price of agricultural and livestock commodities;
• Insights into price trends;
• Competitors and their marketing strategies;
• Requirements of consumers;
• Quality specifications by various buyers;
MARKET RESEARCH
• Market research involves the process of systematically gathering data related to
cooperative marketing, and the recording, interpreting and reporting of the
findings to the cooperative management in order to make informed decisions.
Market research is also about understanding competition and the success of the
current marketing strategy in place.
• Market research is used to identify and analyse the requirements and needs of
the different markets. Separating the many customers into specific groups is
referred to as market segmentation. Market segmentation is about understanding
the needs of customers and how they decide between one offer and another.
• A decisive factor in choosing a method to gather your market information is the
location of the markets that are of interest to your cooperative and its members. If
you sell on the domestic market, getting data on consumer needs is both
important and feasible. This is different if the produce is exported. In this case, it
makes more sense to question direct buyers of the products, instead of the
consumers, who are far away from your market.
• After identifying the objective and the location of the market, the process of
gathering data can start. Market research should take place regularly.
Customers’ needs change over time and the economic context is continuously
evolving.
HOW TO DISSEMINATE MARKET INFORMATION?

There are many different strategies that a cooperative can use to disseminate
market information.
- A cooperative could use different kinds of media, such as radio, newspapers, internet
or cooperative billboards. Mobile phones are increasingly used to access and distribute
information.

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MARKETING SERVICES FOR COOPERATIVES

 We have seen that cooperatives are involved in a number of services, including

Marketing services encompass a range of activities. Examples of marketing services

› Collective marketing therefore refers to “selling together”. In collective marketing,

Collective Marketing of agricultural produce has some particularities. One is that

ADVANTAGE OF COLLECTIVE MARKETING:

› Spreading costs over a larger crop volume

› Creating a larger presence in the marketplace

› Focusing marketing and selling efforts

What market information do cooperatives and their members need?

HOW TO DISSEMINATE MARKET INFORMATION?

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