Meet NeveName: Dr Neve Smith Age: 31

Type: Knowledge seeker

Occupation ; in-house

nutritionist, integrator

Location: Belfast, UK

“I use the internet all the time but struggle with having

to get my information from so many sources”

Favourite information sources / opptys• Interested in All About Feed, Feedinfo.com, Farmer’s Weekly

online, Pig Progress, World Poultry, Pi/Poultry International. She

favours Reed’s publications

• Mainly looking for peer-reviewed material and posters. Can never

find quickly… always having to trawl through search engines and

sites(Google Scholar, Pub Med etc) Loves Linkedin groups ,

especially Animal Health, Nutrition and Production Professionals

and follows posts regularly, also comments. She uses the

LinkedIn app on her iPAD and iPhone.

• Also uses YouTube for video, SlideShare to check presentations.

• Likes the idea of online webinars. She has attended Aviagen

• Likes graphs, charts…loved the idea of infographics and hasn’t

seen them anywhere else

• Loves the idea of having a one stop wiki for all her information

and training needs. Really liked the idea of us doing a deal with

Feedinfo.com on their news feed

Challenges in communications with Neve• Our online communication is nowhere near what it should be

to capture Neve’s attention and she is bypassing our website

in favour of others that are easier to use.

• We have no LinkedIn presence so it’s difficult to do more than

just connect with Neve on a personal level. She is following a

lot of our competitors but the DuPont and Danisco LinkediIn

sites don’t get her vote because they are not specific enough.

• When she gets information from us, it is generally good

although the matrix values are unclear . AB VISTA provides

good technical support services that are clearly

communicated

• She blanks out ads, never reads brochures.

• She would like to have posters and other technical material in

a more attractive form so she can present to farmers and

others who need complexity simplified.

• She’s busy so has a limited attention span and tends to

digest her information via mobile as well as via computer(PC

in office, iPAD at home)1

Background/role Provides technical support and advice to customers in Western and Eastern Europe, advising on quality control of feed processing and finished feed , troubleshooting in feed mill processing , conducting research, looking at effective storage methods and techniques for ingredient storage and presenting findings. Specialism is in pigs(graduated from Royal Dick as vet and then did post grad in pig health and nutrition) but strong interest in poultry

Professional association/ other group memberships Member of BSAS, WPSA , LinkedIn Animal Nutrition. Doesn’t have a lot of time to attend events in person and loves online events because of this

Main challenges/pain points? Needs to balance keeping abreast of nutritional trends, investigating nutritional disorders, maintaining an up to date knowledge of regulatory changes and supporting the business development teams. Big pressure is on her to make the right choices so she needs solid evidence . Says it is not easy to find the information I need to generate the reports and presentations I work on with colleague and partners(vets, farmers)

Thoughts on DAN/competitors offerings? As a nutritionist she has to keep an objective, scientific view of things and consider all options, so she looks at everything coming through and considers what is best for the job. Looks at all phytase competitors- DSM, AB Vista in particular. Dislikes the DAN site as she can’t find anything on it. Lost her Knowledge centre password a while back and hasn’t retrieved as she found it difficult to find anything up-to-date on there

Internal Use Only 22

Customer Journey – Dr. Neve Smith, Nutritionist (Animal Nutrition)

Evaluating informationand solution testing

Identifying needsAnd researching solutions

PurchasingSolutions

(-)

Mo

vin

g T

ow

ard

s th

e G

oal

Ba

rrie

rs to

Go

al

(+)

Annual

Planning

Cycle

Interested in some new products

but frustrated because she spends

hours searching online for the

information she needs to make

purchasing decision. Finally finds

answer on Pub Med.

Attends webinar on poultry gut

health and reads trade pubs to

find additional information and

to validate data/findings.. Has

no time to attend events in

person.

Validates research and makes

decision on purchasing

recommendation. Prepares

presentation for purchaser

using some material from DAN

website

Joins

discussion

poultry

diseases and

use of

probiotic/enzym

e combinations

on Linkedin

Animal

production ,

health and

Nutrition

Forum. Joins

DAN Linkedin

and downloads

some content

from website

Searches the internet

to see who comes up

first in probiotics and

enzymes, and poultry

gut health.

Attends a n online consultancy

session specially shaped up

for her company on the topic

of gut health and poultry

profitability

Neve finds it hard to

learn from her peers

because they have

to protect company

information and

cannot share

concerns & issues or

talk about these from

others in the

industry.

Neve wishes she had

posters and other

technical data in a

more attractive form for

use in presenting to

purchasers who need

the complexity

simplified.

Can probiotics help in light of antibiotic ban?

Needs to get best value from feed formulation

Internal Use Only 33

Questions

• What’s the headline for Neve - What keeps her up at night?

The headline for comms or the headline for her work in general(which has nothing really do with her digital choices) ? Her challenges and pain points are listed in the persona. The main work one is the pressure on her to choose the right route and to do that she needs solid evidence. The main digital one is already the headline. Also, this is not about farmers. Animal production is much bigger scale.

• Is a Feed Producer a Feed Mill? (Feed Mill not listed on the value chain)

Two main targets are integrators(who tend to have brands, e.g. Tyson chicken) and Feed Mill or producer who just get all the emenets of the feed together and sell on

• Who does Neve make the purchasing decision to and who do they buy from?

As discussed, the sales and marketing director(or purchasing director usually one and the same person)

• Does the Feed Mill runs the trial/test or does the farmer run the test (for new products)?

We don’t deal with farmers. I’d suggest you change this one to say that Neve works for an integrator

• Once Neve buys/recommends, what interaction do we continue to have with her?

Through continuous pull comms and via technical sales teams

• Do we run paid search campaigns targeted at this segment?

No, because we come top of the search engine for most key terms and we have virtually no marcomms budget

• How long does this entire process take?

What entire process? If you mean buying decisions, it really depends on the product. Trails for probiotics in broilers probably 6-12 months, depending on the scale of the operation

My comms plan PPT version – I am uploading to Dropbox. The operation keeps failing but I will keep trying