The BRANI ITS team won a bronze medal at the 33rd Pimnas Poster Category.

ITS Campus, ITS News – Digital marketing is crucial in driving an area’s economy and branding. Four students of the Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS) were motivated to develop agribusiness in Sumber Brantas Village, Bumiaji Village, Batu City through digital marketing in the BRANI program (Sumber Brantas Innovate).

The four students are Fiqey Indriati Eka Sari from the Informatics Engineering Department, Shinta Ulwiya from the Urban and Regional Planning Department (PWK), and Millads Anwary Fandiaz, and Yurham Afif from the Engineering Physics Department.

Millads Anwary Fandiaz, as the team leader, said that Sumber Brantas Village has 58 percent potential in agriculture. In the village, several women farmers can make processed agricultural products such as chips, fruit extracts, and vegetable nuggets.

“However, so far, they are constrained by marketing. They have never sold products widely. Products are only made when there is a village event or an order from the Batu City Government. After we confirmed, some mothers had a stigma of being afraid of online marketing, “he said

Furthermore, the young man familiarly called Miko said, in Sumber Brantas Village, there are also farmer cadets who are a group of millennial youth interested in agriculture and agribusiness. “We see that this farmer cadet has the potential to support agribusiness in Sumber Brantas Village through provisioning and digital marketing,” he explained.

The BRANI team provided Digital Design training to farmer cadets in Sumber Brantas Village, Batu City.

He explained that the BRANI program consists of several sub-programs include design training, digital marketing, how to respond to customers, long-distance delivery, website creation, and copywriting. “In this training, they not only get the material but directly carry out the practice as well as mentoring,” he said.

Miko added that the BRANI program deliberately chose an easy and straightforward support platform; pretest and posttest were also carried out to measure farmer cadets’ progress during the program. “We decided Canva.com as a design training tool, apart from being comfortable and straightforward, it can also be accessed for free. Likewise, in making our website using WordPress, “he explained.

Miko explained that the BRANI Program implements a pre-order system to find the right solution to women farmer groups’ concerns about lack of capital during online marketing. “After we confirmed the pre-order system, mothers began to dare to market online. Some even agreed to redesign the packaging to make it more attractive,” he said.

BRANI team, (from top right) Yurham Afif, Fiqey Indriati Eka Sari, Millads Anwary Fandiaz, Shinta Ulwiya, and Dyah Sawitri ST MT and Welly Herumurti ST MSc (bottom left) as co-lecturers

The program has been running for two months has at least brought a delta of change for Sumber Brantas Village. The public’s negative stigma regarding online marketing is starting to fade. Farmer cadets can also independently create visual designs and persuasive concentrations.

“Desa Sumber Brantas also now has a platform for online marketing starting from Instagram, Facebook, to the website, namely brani.id and all of this is the work of farmer cadets during the BRANI program,” said the ITS Campus Ambassador.

The Student Creativity Program (PKM) is taking place online because this pandemic can still have a promising impact on Sumber Brantas Village. The BRANI program even won a bronze medal in the PKM poster category for Community Service in the prestigious 33rd National Student Scientific Week (Pimnas) event, which also took place online.

In the future, the four students hope that this program can be a way for Sumber Brantas Village to encourage its agribusiness potential. “Besides, we also hope that the BRANI program can be adapted by similar villages in Indonesia so that it can encourage villages to go online,” he concluded. (sin / far / ITS Public Relations)