This Feeder-Calf Marketing Guide is completely dedicated to enhancing your success as commercial cattlemen and improving the profitability of your operation. I’d also like to point out that it is intentionally not named the Feeder-Calf Selling Guide. While sometimes subtle, the differences between marketing and selling can mean the difference between a profitable ranch and one that is not.

Dialing in on those differences is important.

If I took a brand new, loaded diesel truck and listed it for sale on the internet as: “New black truck for sale. Will accept best offer,” I would probably get it sold pretty quickly. However, with that description and effort, I likely would not receive a price anywhere close to the truck’s value. While somewhat of a ridiculous example, it illustrates the difference between selling and marketing.

Selling is a part of the marketing process, but marketing is more than just selling. Let’s look at some of the other key elements to consider as you prepare your calves for the marketplace.

 Start with a product in high demand.

Creative or slick promotion of a subpar product can yield short-term success, but that success is rarely sustained over time. It probably goes without saying, but it’s important to produce a calf buyers want.

The surveys summarized in Industry Insights Powered by Angus Media & CattleFax give us some pretty good indication of what that is. In general, feeders said they “highly value” health and vaccination history, breed and genetic description, and information about management background. Of course, there are more specialty or niche markets that seek calves that fit natural or non-hormone export programs, for example.

 The difference between features and benefits.

With any product, lots of bells and whistles don’t always translate to value for the buyer. For a feedlot operator, features that directly translate to improved cattle health, feedlot performance and carcass merit are most important. The Industry Insights data clearly illustrate feeders want weaned, correctly vaccinated calves that stay healthy. They want Angus genetics that perform in the feedlot and hang up high-valued carcasses, qualify for the Certified Angus Beef^® (CAB^®) brand and bring back more dollars on grids.

 Document and communicate the value.

Back to my truck example, conveying the full value of your product is key. In feeder cattle, a description of “black steer” isn’t all that informative these days, considering more than 70% of the feeder cattle are black-hided. The AngusLink^SM program is specifically designed as your tool to verify your use of registered Angus bulls and quantify the performance and carcass merit potential of your calf crop through the Genetic Merit Scorecard^SM (GMS).

 Exposure to potential buyers and price discovery.

The cattle industry spends a lot of time discussing and debating price discovery. I won’t attempt to tackle that topic beyond saying a successful marketing program involves getting your cattle in front of multiple buyers who want what you have. There are many different marketing platforms and options for cattlemen to consider and find the one that best fits their operation. Again, in an effort to help with buyer exposure, the AngusLink program elevates visibility of enrolled cattle to prospective buyers around the country.