Six Strategies of Pesticide Marketing in Indonesia

Author: Yu Wei

State of agriculture and development in Indonesia
Indonesia is located around the equator, belongs to the typical tropical rainforest climate, and is affected by the monsoon in the southern and northern hemispheres, Indonesia has sufficient sunshine, warm climate, wet and rainy, and short crop growth cycle. Its territory is full of volcanoes, volcanic eruptions brought a large amount of mineral ash to make the soil is very fertile, suitable for growing a variety of crops. Rice, palm, corn, sugarcane, coconut, cassava, banana, potato, rubber, mango, chili, pepper, citrus, pineapple, scallions, beans, coffee and cocoa have become the main crops grown in the region. Agriculture (crop farming) and the pesticide market are closely related, and Indonesia is a traditional agricultural country, with agricultural output accounting for about 17% of its GDP.
Now Indonesia has become a major force in the world economy. Indonesia is now ranked among the top 16 economies in the world and is expected to rise to the top 7 by 2030.

Overview and size of the Indonesian agrochemical market
The four major agrochemical giants in the Indonesian plant protection chemicals market account for about 60% of the market share, while the remaining 40% is occupied by other multinational companies and domestic companies. International companies such as Syngenta, BASF, DowDuPont and others have tried to grab a larger market share by launching new products and acquiring business units from other companies.
The Indonesian plant protection market is segmented by pesticide type, with herbicides widely used in a variety of crops and accounting for the highest share of the country’s total sales of agrochemicals. In major crops such as rice, corn, soybeans, herbicides are often used in combination with insecticides, thus driving the demand for pesticides in the country. Indonesian biopesticides have been marketed in the market for 6-8 years, however, the demand for these products remains low due to lack of awareness and education among farmers. However, with various government initiatives and training programs by international companies to raise awareness among farmers, sales of biopesticides are expected to increase in the coming years.
With increasing demand, the Indonesian agrochemicals market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% in the future. Government support for the promotion of agricultural activities, population growth and thus increased demand for agricultural products, and the emergence of new domestic and international players in the market will be key factors for demand growth.
Indonesia agrochemical market six marketing strategies

Strategy 1: Focus on crops and precise product positioning
The economic value of crop is matched with the product positioning of pesticide. Practice has proved that the added value of crops is low, and the use of drugs by farmers is less, less frequent and may increase the economic burden of farmers. High value-added crops, high positioning; Low value-added crops, low positioning. Combine the registered object and crop, find a bright spot for the product, and refine a loud slogan. The product does not speak, but the yield increase figures do, the test reports do, and the demonstration results do. Figures are objective and have no bias. In front of farmers and customers, use fewer adjectives and more quantifiers.
Strategy two: Target customers, find the most suitable for their own business characteristics of the dealer
Large customers are not necessarily suitable for their own enterprises, focus on finding the right object, looking for excellent and suitable dealers of their own company. Big distribution is not necessarily good, small dealers are not necessarily not good, not high nor low, the key is to be suitable for eye to eye. A good horse needs a good saddle. A good product needs the right distributor.
Strategy three: Replicable model, suitable for the operation of the enterprise product marketing model
“Model” is a standard marketing method that can be replicated and reused, which can save the exploration time of marketers “crossing the river by feeling the stones” and overcome the strange phenomenon of “spending money to buy lessons and eventually going back.” Without a model, the marketing elite can certainly adapt to the situation, but the ordinary marketing people are like rushing in the dark. No marketing model is not big, no marketing manual is not fine.
Strategy four: Adhere to practice, carry out field experiments of products.
Carry out demonstration tests, go deep into the edge of the field corner, often return to the field to see, personally feel the field effect of pesticides. Stick to practice, take a spray on your own back, oppose metaphysics, rather than stay in the office and read various field trials and demonstrations. To be a doer, to solve a small problem of pests and diseases for farmers, not to be an empty theorist, who does not even know what the worm looks like, but also talks about prevention and control methods.
Go to the fields, go to the grassroots, go to the village retail stores, witness the growth of farmers and the development of agriculture. With a variety of first-hand materials of grassroots farmers in hand, the understanding of products has risen from subjective to objective, from theory to practice, and is not disturbed by various negative information from dealers. Without field practice, there is no voice in plant protection issues.

Strategy five: Comb sales confidence, establish a new marketing personnel image concept
Self-confidence, everyone loves, first to be a lovely sales representative. Marketers should establish such a philosophy: “I am the god of wealth for customers, I am the person who comes to help customers get rich, I am the customer’s trusted sales consultant and technical staff, I am the missionary of plant protection technology wealth.” I’m here for plant protection technology, not for products.”
Strategy six: Pay attention to communication, go to the front line to find customer needs
“Let others influence others”, plant protection technicians are like missionaries; Pest monitors are like photocopiers; Pest information is like a seed drill; Plant protection personnel are word-of-mouth communicators and technical marketing influencers. The demonstration report leaflet is like a manifesto. It is necessary to borrow the power of the national plant protection technology extension system (technical advantages, promotion advantages, authority advantages, information advantages), jointly with agricultural technicians, borrow the skilled hand of plant protection experts to write technical soft text, and use the golden mouth of plant protection experts to sell their own technical control programs. At the same time, in the communication to find new product research direction and solutions, so as to innovate products, innovative technology.

In conclusion, finding a marketing strategy suitable for your own enterprise is an important factor for success. The generation and design of each strategy requires painstaking efforts. In the existing pesticide product market, we need to achieve market segmentation. So that their products and peer enterprises, international enterprises to distinguish, to achieve profit growth.

Yu Wei (023202305009) from Class – A 2023-1 Masters of
Technology Management, Faculty of Business in the subject Strategic Marketing
For Prof. Dr. Jony Oktavian Haryanto at President University