The brief

We were approached by BASIS in 2017, to raise awareness of the training body as a thought-leader in the ag sector. Our role is to develop and implement a strategic campaign across PESO, using BASIS’ people including staff, the board, committees and members as KOLs in their sectors, to promote the organisation’s expertise

The comms work has two audiences – the current BASIS membership, and the wider agri-food industry.

The results

In the last four years, a large focus of our communications campaign has been on earned editorial outputs – encompassing a mixture of timely press releases with technical, thought-leadership features, hitting an annual audience reach of over 1.3 million across all the identified target media.

We’ve also managed press briefings, both at events and virtually, and hosted one-to-one editor meetings with core members of the press. Since our press liaison work began in 2017, we’ve developed a strong relationship with the media, who now approach us to get BASIS to comment on key industry issues and topics, a great outcome of our work to-date.

To ensure BASIS members are kept informed and updated, we compile the BASIS e-newsletter, averaging a 35% open rate – 19% higher than the industry average.

Why a podcast is a valuable communications channel

Podcasts play a pivotal part in an integrated PESO communications campaign. Audio communication has stood the test of time, engaging target audiences across each sector, especially agriculture, which has seen a rapid rise in offerings for the farming industry.

At Pinstone, our Agri-Food comms cast explores the story behind the story; Farmers Guardian’s Over The Farm Gate discusses the hot topics of the week; and The Farmers Weekly Podcast uses the platform to delve into more detail on the going’s on from the field and shed.

For BASIS, we recommended launching and producing a regular monthly podcast under their own brand and using this audio platform as a training tool, offering CPD points as well as involving the wider industry as guests. In 2020, we launched and produced the Agronomy Matters Podcast – which has consistently achieved approx. 1,000 listens per episode each month.