Livestock Digital sits down with Chris Beutler, its founder, to discuss the business, marketing livestock and what to expect from the company’s expanded efforts.
Tell us about yourself.
Chris: I grew up in northeast Nebraska on a homesteaded farm next to my great grandfather’s original homestead. We had cattle, hogs, sheep and horses, including two Quarter Horse stallions purchased by my grandfather in 1961.
I played sports through high school, enjoyed hunting and fishing, and I had my own cow herd that eventually grew into a purebred herd.
What experiences inspired your interests in marketing livestock?
Chris: My dad worked and managed a hub station for the Omaha Stockyards market in Pender, Nebraska. In the 1950s these stations were used to move cattle by trains and get them into areas closer to corn and feeders to relieve some congestion of livestock. In 1969 he purchased the facility and held weekly sales.
I grew up working at the sale barn and learning about livestock, but most importantly I learned business. I often reflect on what I felt was the hardest part of the auction business and what I watched my dad do so well — satisfying both the buyer and the seller.
This created my interests in marketing, and I attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, majoring in agriculture and advertising. As my purebred herd increased in numbers and quality honed my marketing skills, and this took off in a consulting and sale management business.
Why did you create Livestock Digital?
Chris: In 2005 I went to work as a salesman and ring man for a corporate publishing company. It was a great fit for my background and my education, and I was soon attending more than 100 sales per year.
In 2019 I started studying and selling digital advertising. I soon developed methods of utilizing this type of advertising for my clients. I realized that my clients were much different than other businesses, and the corporate world, especially entities in the digital world, knew little about agriculture and livestock.
After a few years of dealing with implementation issues, lack of understanding and corporate greed, I started thinking about starting my own company. Livestock Digital went from an idea to a business almost overnight.
In spring 2021, I was driving to a sale, and I thought about names for a company. Livestock Digital surfaced, I Googled it and found a domain for sale, so I bought it. A week later I left my job of 18 years, and with the help of Jason Hansen and Stefanie Emrich, we implemented our first campaign as Livestock Digital.
Tell us about Livestock Digital. What does it do, and how is it different than other companies?
Chris: In 18 months Livestock Digital has implemented over 250 successful campaigns for clients in 20 states and Canada. We understand our customers’ needs, and we know the marketing and digital business. Our ability to create custom videos and start a campaign in 24 hours is something few companies can or will do.
We are a small company, which allows us to better utilize your budget. We don’t have allocations and divisions like many companies. You get more for your dollar with us.
The Livestock Digital website is also very unique to the industry. Its content, from news stories to producer spotlights, create the environment of an online publication, and the Customer Marketing Pages (CMPs) offer each of our customers their own page within our site for an ad, a catalog or video.
CMPs allow us to track visitor traffic, and their chronological order creates search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities they cannot get on their own websites. This website will be highly visited due to its content and the platform on which it was built.
We hope to create a supersite that people in many industries will visit to find stories, news, markets, weather and, of course, sales. One way we will do this is our Progressive Web App. This app, available on the site once launched, will be similar to other apps people use and further elevate the ease of getting to our site.
What does it take to successfully market livestock in 2022?
Chris: Marketing livestock in these times is much different. People have adapted to using their phones and computers to view agricultural products and purchase them. With digital advertising, the costs for reaching thousands of potential customers anywhere are very low.
One of our mottos is, “Our circulation is unlimited.” We can implement campaigns in states or regions, as well as Canada and the entire U.S. Nearly all my customers use a website and an online auction site to market their livestock. If you expect to sell livestock online, it makes sense to advertise online.
What can people expect from Livestock Digital?
Chris: This business is a “people business.” Relationships are formed and we offer a variety of professional services to meet your needs. We work one on one with our customers to budget and implement a campaign to advertise their products. Our transparency provides them with real time, analytical results of that campaign.
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Want to learn more or begin your marketing venture with Livestock Digital? Contact Chris Beutler today.