GEA FARM TECHNOLOGIES
GEA Farm Technologies, Milking Digital Channels for Quality Leads
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GEA Farm Technologies, a global leader in milking systems and farm equipment, first connected with Hillsgreen through our ‘Marketing to Farmers’ report
GEA’s UK marketing had traditionally focused on activities such as events. In more recent years, they began to invest more in organic social media and partnered with one of Hillsgreen’s content creators, Tom Pemberton.
GEA tended to receive enquiries from dairy farmers only when they were ready to invest in a new milking system. However, what Simon Harper, Sales Director for GEA Farm Technologies (UK), wanted was to start that conversation much earlier. The objective was to engage farmers earlier in their buying journey and to build relationships with those who might be considering new milking equipment within the next one to five years. The campaign was designed to generate a steady flow of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), with a target of 25 leads per month.
Leads in the first 18 days
Leads progressing to purchase
Confirmed sale within first month
We developed a digital strategy to support this shift. Prior to this campaign, digital activity was minimal.
Using insights from the Marketing To Farmers Report, we proposed a Facebook-first campaign to:
Introduce farmers to GEA’s full product range, including rotary, herringbone and robotic parlours.
Engage farmers through a quiz that mirrored an early-stage sales conversation.
Capture marketing-qualified leads and feed them into GEA’s HubSpot CRM.
The campaign was simple. “Milk your cows, your way.” The campaign positioned GEA as a supplier of tailored solutions for each farm.
At the heart of the campaign was an interactive quiz, designed to create a win/win for both GEA and the farmer. For the farmer, it provided tailored advice on what type of milking system might best suit their future plans. For GEA, it delivered valuable insights to the sales team, helping them understand the farmer’s needs and buying intentions much earlier in the process.
The quiz was structured to mirror the early stages of a sales conversation. It asked practical and thought-provoking questions to help both parties clarify goals and challenges. These included:
What is your main goal with a new parlour? For example, reduce labour, increase throughput, improve milk quality, or modernise equipment.
How many cows do you plan to be milking over the next three to five years?
Are you looking to upgrade from an existing GEA system or move from a competitor’s product?
What challenges are you currently facing on your farm?
What is your timeline for investment?
Based on the answers, farmers were guided towards the most suitable solution, whether a rotary parlour, a herringbone parlour or a robotic milking system. The quiz served as a data capture tool by collecting name, email address and postcode. This helped GEA identify and segment prospects by location and stage of interest, while also building their CRM with marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) that they could begin to nurture.
A dedicated landing page was created, featuring the quiz and clear links to GEA’s product range.
Paid social media ran on Facebook and Instagram, using lookalike audiences, interest targeting and location targeting based on DEFRA data and Hillsgreen’s knowledge of UK dairy regions.
All lead data was integrated into HubSpot for full tracking and qualification.
“This has been the most successful lead generation campaign we have run. The quality and volume of leads exceeded our expectations, and it gave us the opportunity to start conversations with farmers we had not previously engaged. The campaign helped us reach new prospects earlier in their buying journey, which is exactly what we needed.” – Simon Harper, Sales Director, GEA Farm Technologies UK
