Purina Animal Nutrition provides feed, supplements, minerals, and nutrition products for livestock and other animals. Since Purina serves many different types of customers, we are going to focus specifically on a beef cattle producer who purchases cattle nutrition products. First, we will look at the customer profile of a typical beef producer and then create a fictional customer persona to represent this type of customer.
Customer Profile
Demographic Information
Age: Beef producers can be a wide range of ages, but the average age of a U.S. beef producer is around 58 years old.
Gender: Both men and women are involved in beef production, although USDA data shows that beef producers are more commonly male.
Location: Beef producers are located throughout the United States, with many living in rural areas where they have access to pasture and land for cattle.
Education: There is no specific education required to become a beef producer. Some producers may have a high school education while others have college degrees or agricultural training.
Occupation: A beef producer manages and cares for cattle while making decisions about nutrition, breeding, herd health, and the overall operation. Many beef producers also work another job outside of the farm or ranch.
Psychographic Information
Values & Beliefs: Beef producers often value animal health, profitability, hard work, family, and maintaining their operation for future generations. They also value products that are dependable and produce proven results.
Lifestyle: Beef producers have a busy and hands-on lifestyle that revolves around caring for cattle, feeding, breeding, calving, pasture management, and other responsibilities. Some also balance these responsibilities with an off-farm job.
Personality Traits: Producers are often hardworking, independent, practical, and responsible. They may be cautious about changing products unless they believe the change will improve their operation.
Motivations: Producers are motivated by keeping their cattle healthy while improving herd performance and profitability. Better nutrition can help improve body condition, reproduction, weight gain, and overall cattle performance.
Challenges & Pain Points: High feed costs, weather, forage availability, cattle prices, and maintaining herd health can all create challenges for beef producers.
Behavioral Information
Buying Behavior: Beef producers purchase feed, mineral, and supplements throughout the year depending on their cattle’s needs. Price, animal performance, product availability, past experience, and recommendations can influence their decisions.
Product/Service Usage: A cow-calf producer may use Purina cattle mineral, supplements, complete feeds, or other nutrition products to help meet the nutritional needs of the herd.
Online Behavior: Producers may use agricultural websites, Facebook, YouTube, weather apps, and company websites to find information. Local feed dealers, veterinarians, nutritionists, and other cattle producers can also be important sources of information.
Goals and Objectives
How Purina Helps: Purina provides cattle producers with feed, minerals, supplements, nutrition research, and access to local dealers and nutrition experts. These products and services can help producers improve cattle health and performance while working toward a more profitable operation.
Objections and Concerns
Potential Barriers: Price can be a major concern when choosing feed or mineral products. Producers may also prefer another brand because of availability, previous experience, or relationships with their local feed dealer.
Common Questions: Producers may ask about price, feeding rates, ingredients, expected results, product availability, and whether the benefits of a product will be worth the additional cost.
Using this information, we can create a fictional customer persona representing a typical beef producer who may purchase cattle nutrition products from Purina.
Customer Persona
Name: Jake Anderson
Age: 42
Occupation: Beef cattle producer with an off-farm agricultural job.
Goals: Jake wants to maintain a healthy and productive cow herd while improving cattle performance and profitability. His long-term goal is to keep improving the operation so it can continue for future generations.
Challenges: Jake faces changing feed costs, weather conditions, and forage availability. He also has to decide whether more expensive nutrition products will provide enough improvement in cattle performance to justify their cost.
Personality: Jake is hardworking, practical, and independent. He values recommendations from people he trusts and wants to see proven results before making major changes to his cattle nutrition program.
Sources
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service – 2022 Census of Agriculture: Beef Producers Snapshot
https://data.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2024/Census22_HL_Cattle%20and%20Cattle%20on%20Feed_final.pdf
USDA Economic Research Service – Majority of Farms with Beef Cows Have Fewer Than 50 Cows
https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/109597
Purina Animal Nutrition – Cattle Nutrition and Breeding Q&A
https://www.purinamills.com/cattle-feed/education/detail/cattle-nutrition-and-breeding-q-a
Purina Animal Nutrition – Building a Dream Cowherd at Rafter 4R Ranch
https://www.purinamills.com/cattle-feed/education/detail/building-a-dream-cowherd-at-rafter-4r-ranch
Purina Animal Nutrition – A Complete Cattle Mineral Program
https://www.purinamills.com/campaigns-and-events/salesforce/cattle-feed/cattle-trace-mineral
Purina Animal Nutrition – Proof Pays Cattle Feed Trials
https://www.purinamills.com/Campaigns-and-Events/Salesforce/Cattle-Feed/proof-pays