Field Days That Deliver

Field day promotion: Boosting the Buzz

It’s well known that promotion can significantly influence event attendance. As you spread the word to your audience, keep in mind that you don’t want to simply talk about your field day, you want to show the importance of your field day’s value for attendees. Appeal to farmers by noting exclusive info you’ll provide. Highlight unique plots or research trials you’ll be presenting or announce a featured speaker who will deliver information they might not obtain otherwise. Kick-start your marketing strategy with the following tactics:

• Website: Create a page on your website with event details like start/end times and GPS coordinates. You can also use this page for event registration. Encouraging attendees to register, or simply RSVP, not only gives you an estimated head count, it collects their contact information in the event of a rain-out, schedule change or for follow up communications. Eventbrite or a similar registration tool works for this purpose. If your website contains a blog, use it to post more detailed updates to help build excitement.
• Social media: Create a unique, short and relevant hashtag for your field day, then use it consistently across all forms of social media — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok — when promoting your event. Posting consistently helps boost awareness. Ask employees to share your posts on their accounts for greater reach and to help spread the news.
• Text messages: Send timely text messages to attendees before, during and after your event. High open rates of up to 98% make text messaging well suited for event updates and reminders.¹
• Email: An email or e-newsletter involves little, if any, monetary cost to send, and provides an opportunity for longer-form content to build further interest in your event. You can include photos, speaker bios, event highlights, plot maps and testimonials to show attendees why they should come.
• Direct mail: Developing a personalized postcard or flyer can prove highly effective. Though there’s some expense in printing and postage, direct mail open rates are between 80%-90%, and people often find it more personal than forms of digital communication.² Be sure to include a QR code that directs them to your webpage for registration.
• Contests: Farmers love a good giveaway. Popular options include high-end coolers, barbecue grills or power tool sets. If you plan to conduct contests to encourage increased attendance, make sure to promote them often across all of your marketing channels. Studies show that social posts with giveaways get 3.5X more likes and 64X more comments than regular posts.³
• Media relations: Identify the most suitable media outlets for your audience and work with them to help promote your field day. Local news, industry publications and area farmers’ associations represent just a few of the possibilities.

Field day execution: Captivate Your Crowd

At field days, you can interact with farmers one-on-one, give them a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes and allow them to experience your products and service in action.

• Be relatable: When possible, make content relatable. When speaking on a topic, you could lead with a question such as "How many folks have experience with…?” Doing so indicates you value attendees’ input and want to address their concerns directly.
• Answer questions: The ability to get questions answered immediately remains one of the biggest benefits for attendees of an in person event. Expect attendees to take advantage of the opportunity and be ready for anything. If you don’t know the answer, open it up and ask the group, or say, “Hey, that’s a great question. Come see me after the presentation and I’ll connect you with an expert on the topic.”
• Use storytelling: Stories make things personal, and making things personal makes them memorable. Encourage your audience to share related stories if they have them. Sharing not only makes the event livelier but it also helps attendees feel engaged and included.
• Plan activities: Make your field day as active as possible — walk the fields, conduct demonstrations and share data. Statistics show that interactive components can increase learning retention, meaning your field day will be more impactful.

Field day follow-up: Extend the impact

The end of your field day doesn’t mean the end of your audience connection. Look at it as a shared experience that opens the door to continued communication. Conversations that begin around trial plots and demonstrations can turn into future field visits, phone calls and product queries. Use of the methods below encourages those future contacts, expanding the effectiveness of your field day beyond the moment the last truck pulls away.

• Thank yous: Let your audience know you appreciated their attendance with personalized thank you notes that include highlights of the event. If you choose to send these digitally, you can add links to specific product information posted on your website.
• Social media: Encourage attendees to share photos and recollections from the event through social media.
• Feedback: A survey from you or a follow up phone call shows attendees you value their opinion and helps you design future events.

Field days offer a powerful and unique way for you to strengthen relationships while showcasing your products and services. Do they require a lot of effort and resources? Yes, but getting the fundamentals right, with proper promotion, execution and follow up, can help ensure you get a worthwhile return on your investment.

¹ “Why SMS is a powerful tool for event marketing,” Mailchimp, accessed April 24, 2026, https://mailchimp.com/resources/sms-event-marketing/.
² Stephanie Love, “The Battle of Direct Mail vs. Digital Marketing – Which One Wins?,” Thryv, June 28, 2024, https://www.thryv.com/blog/direct-mail-vs-digital-marketing/.
³ Vinayak Mahajan, “69+ Giveaway Statistics That Show Exactly What Works in 2025!,” GiftAFeeling, October 2, 2025, https://www.giftafeeling.com/pages/giveaway-statistics-2025.