Meet the New Western Growers MarCom Team! In 2024 we restructured our Marketing and Communications efforts under the leadership of VP, External Affairs Cory Lunde to provide a new era of agility and responsiveness to the needs of our members and our industry. The MarCom team is led by Ann Donahue, Director of Marketing and Communications; her reports are Michelle Rivera, Senior Communications Manager, Kara Timmins, Senior Marketing Manager, and Brittany Thomas, Event Manager. The team’s top-notch talent is rounded out with Creative Design Manager Joel Young and Marketing Manager Anna Ramirez-Castro. Marketing Our marketing focus in 2024 was to make our outreach to members even more efficient and valuable. Our four legacy newsletters — Spotlight, Legal Insights, Financial Insights and Produce Insights — have been redesigned with an emphasis on readability; in tandem, we are closely tracking clickthrough rates to make sure we’re bringing you information about the news and events that are of the most interest. In addition, we launched a new newsletter, Ag Science Insider, to keep members informed of developments in that rapidly changing space. We closed out the year with the 98th Western Growers Annual Meeting, which set a record for attendees and sponsorship dollars. Media Relations Western Growers, its executives and its board members reached a potential audience of more than 7 billion in 2024, thanks to extensive earned media placements in ag industry trade outlets including The Packer, Agri-Pulse, And Now U Know and the AgNet West Radio Network. Key topics for Western Growers that were highlighted by the mainstream media included the Farm Bill, PAGA, CARB regulations, water supply and the impact of President Donald J. Trump’s election on the industry.
Social Media The MarCom department realignment allowed us to redefine our approach to social media to focus exclusively on WG policy priorities and member collaborations. (A special thank you to Braga Fresh, Westside Produce and Turlock Fruit Company for all the help!) As a result, we saw 15 percent follower growth on Instagram and 10 percent follower growth on LinkedIn. We also soft-launched a TikTok account, @western_growers, and the kids tell us we’re pretty funny. @western_growers Communications In 2024 we redesigned and relaunched two of our most popular communications platforms. The Voices of the Valley podcast now focuses on a broad spectrum of agriculture topics for a consumer audience; it is now also available to stream on YouTube. Western Grower & Shipper Magazine received a complete redesign with a greater emphasis on photography and graphic design to make the way we tell our industry’s stories more compelling. This change resonated with the advertising community, and we set a revenue record for the year.
Scan the QR code to listen to the latest Voices of the Valley podcast episodes or visit hubs.ly/Q02S-NCr0
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