ACRES - One year and growing strong

By GARY BROCK

gbrock@civitasmedia.com

It began as an idea more than two years ago as a spe­cial pub­li­ca­tion serv­ing the needs of Ohio farm­ers, agri­cul­ture com­pa­nies and those work­ing with farm­ers and agri­cul­ture businesses.

Civ­i­tas Media Group Pub­lisher Pam Stricker, pub­lisher of the Wilm­ing­ton News-Journal, had believed for many years that a monthly news­pa­per or mag­a­zine pub­li­ca­tion was badly needed for Ohio’s farm­ers. News­pa­pers in the then-Ohio Com­mu­nity Media South­west Group were already pub­lish­ing suc­cess­ful a quar­terly lifestyle-living mag­a­zine, “SALT”, a travel mag­a­zine, “TRIP”, and many other so-called “niche” pub­li­ca­tions aimed at spe­cific seg­ments of the community.

That is how the idea of ACRES of South­west Ohio started, to serve Ohio farm­ers, and last month ACRES of South­west Ohio pub­lished its 12th monthly suc­cess­ful issue. This March edi­tion begins our sec­ond year.

In a Decem­ber, 2011 meet­ing of pub­lish­ers and Adver­tis­ing Direc­tors at Wilm­ing­ton, Wash­ing­ton Court House, Hills­boro, West Union and George­town, the deci­sion was made to launch “ACRES” in March of 2012.

What then grew from a direct mail that first 2012 issue of about 10,000 copies has grown to what is now — a year later — more than 55,000 issues dis­trib­uted across more than 44 Ohio coun­ties, along with coun­ties in Indi­ana and Kentucky.

Each month, ACRES has focused on issues impor­tant to Ohio farm­ers, plus lots of fun fea­tures about Ohio farm­ers, sup­pli­ers, upcom­ing events and con­fer­ences and the lat­est on the “high tech” advances in agriculture.

So far, reac­tion to ACRES has been very positive.

“I think this is a great prod­uct,” said Wilma Coul­ter, Vice-President of Merchant’s National Bank and Chair­man of Bank Mar­ket­ing. “It reaches a tar­get audi­ence that we at Merchant’s National Bank value and find very impor­tant to us.”

When asked about ACRES, she said it is very infor­ma­tive. “This is agri­cul­ture coun­try,” she pointed out, adding that ACRES reaches peo­ple in all the mar­kets they serve, includ­ing Clark, Madi­son, Fayette, High­land, Brown and Cler­mont Coun­ties. “We are very pleased with it.”

“We received a copy of the new Acres and loved it. My hus­band was very upset when he found out RFD (a for­mer rural farm pub­li­ca­tion) was no longer print­ing, but you sure sur­prised us. Keep up the good sto­ries,” said David Gompf, of Mt. Gilead.

After ACRES of South­west Ohio started a year ago — in 11 Ohio and one Ken­tucky County with about 10,000 house­holds — other news­pa­pers in the then-Ohio Com­mu­nity Media fam­ily joined in the suc­cess­ful monthly prod­uct. There are now a total of five unique “ACRES” monthly farm­ing pub­li­ca­tions, with a total dis­tri­b­u­tion of just over 55,000 mailed directly of farm­ers and agri­cul­ture providers.

There is ACRES of North­west­ern Ohio, in 10 Ohio coun­ties serv­ing 12,006 house­holds. There is ACRES of North Cen­tral Ohio, in nine Ohio coun­ties serv­ing 12,215 house­holds. These were fol­lowed by ACRES of West­ern Ohio, cov­er­ing four Ohio and three Indi­ana coun­ties, serv­ing 10,612 house­holds. The newest addi­tion, started last sum­mer, is ACRES of West Cen­tral Ohio, cov­er­ing six Ohio coun­ties serv­ing 10,603 households.

ACRES also launched a web­site fea­tur­ing the arti­cles and edi­tions from all five ACRES pub­li­ca­tions. Read­ers can go to www.acresmidwest.com to read all the arti­cles and fea­tures from all the editions.

Jay Har­mount, Dis­trict Sales man­ager for Brod­beck Seeds, said: “What I really like about ACRES is the local touch. It is dif­fer­ent than the other Ohio agri­cul­ture pub­li­ca­tions that have a statewide focus.”

For his busi­ness that adver­tises in ACRES, he said he likes that it gets his busi­ness in front of the audi­ence that he tar­gets. “It gives us the oppor­tu­nity to get our name out there so peo­ple can get to know us.”

He said there is “def­i­nitely a need for what you are doing, focus­ing on the local communities.”

Fayette County farmer Jeff Fet­ters says that what he likes about ACRES is the fact that ACRES is all agriculture-oriented. “That grabs my atten­tion. I also enjoy look­ing at all the ads,” he said.

One of the fac­tors that has entered into the suc­cess of the ACRES pub­li­ca­tions has been the growth and “good times” for agri­cul­ture here in Ohio over the last few years. Farm­ing is boom­ing in Ohio. Fet­ters agrees. “These are the best times in all my years of farm­ing,” he pointed out.

Fet­ters has been farm­ing since he grad­u­ated from Ohio State in 1975, grow­ing corn and soy­beans on his 800-acre farm.

His advice for ACRES in the future? “Just keep focus­ing on the local farm fea­tures,” he said.

Civ­i­tas Media Group Pub­lisher Frank Bee­son, who is in charge of two of the ACRES prod­ucts in the West and West Cen­tral areas, said that reac­tion to ACRES has been very pos­i­tive. “This past sum­mer, while work­ing at The Daily Advo­cate booth at the Darke County fair, many vis­i­tors came up to our booth to express per­son­ally express their appre­ci­a­tion for such an out­stand­ing agri­cul­tural pub­li­ca­tion. Peo­ple would say: ‘We are Ohio’s largest eco­nomic resource and it’s great to see a pub­li­ca­tion that specif­i­cally addresses the ag industry.’”

Here is what one agri­cul­ture edu­ca­tor said not long after ACRES started last year: “Mr. Brock: I want to express my thanks for the ACRES news­pa­per I received today. As a retired Agri­cul­tural Edu­ca­tor and part-time farmer, it is good to see arti­cles about peo­ple and busi­nesses located in the imme­di­ate area. Also, I notice a num­ber of adver­tis­ers that are famil­iar, and hope they con­tinue their sup­port. …..Keep up the good work, I will be sub­scrib­ing to get ACRES on a reg­u­lar basis….” said Den­nis Swartz, retired Vo-Ag teacher and Voca­tional Admin­is­tra­tor, in Mar­ion County.

What are the plans for the sec­ond year of “ACRES of South­west Ohio?” There will be a num­ber of fea­tures to help local farm­ers deal with their finances, ways to save money on equip­ment, and trends in yield and pro­duc­tiv­ity over the next 10 years and beyond.

In other words, we will con­tinue to focus on what farm­ers need to know and to grow their business.

(Gary Brock, publisher-editor of the Record-Herald in Wash­ing­ton CH, is Edi­tor of ACRES of South­west Ohio and Editor-in-Chief of all five ACRES pub­li­ca­tions statewide.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Mar 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.