Not long ago we had a graphics guru evaluate our magazine design and he had one big fat criticism. “Your magazine is all about corn and soybeans,” he said, “but your logo emphasizes the word Digest. You've got it backwards.”
He was absolutely right.
Hopefully with this issue you'll notice a completely different cover look and a logo that clearly — in big fat letters — tells you you're going to be reading about corn and soybeans…and that's pretty much it.
Our mission is to provide you with production and marketing information to help you maximize profits. You won't see stories in Corn & Soybean Digest about the demise of rural churches or how to bake better rye bread. We leave that up to other farm magazines and stick with our objective.
Now you'll get that information, along with unique perspectives from our regular columnists, all wrapped in a new package. We hope you like it.
After almost a year's worth of trading and learning the ins and outs of marketing, we're announcing the winners of our MarketMaxx 2007 fantasy grain marketing contest. You can read a brief overview of how the winners did it in “And The Winners Are…,” page 10. In subsequent issues, we'll give you more details on just what their strategies were and how they used the MarketMaxx Web site and game to hone their skills.
MarketMaxx 2008, in its fourth year, is up and running at www.marketmaxx.net. You can sign up now and begin trading 100,000 bu. of corn and 50,000 bu. of soybeans without losing any of your own hard-earned money. Last year, almost 7,000 played the game.
The contest continues to grow by offering players help on how to develop a marketing plan, how to use futures and options, and how to become a crackerjack marketer.
As one of our 2007 winners put it: “MarketMaxx is a good teaching tool. My son wanted to learn about marketing and this was an easy way to teach him.”
Another winner says: “Marketing is fun, especially with this game where it's not my own money.”
There's no financial risk to playing MarketMaxx so you have nothing to lose and every-thing to gain. Plus, the site features links to tips on writing a marketing plan, a marketing term library and up-to-the-minute CBOT prices. So go to www.marketmaxx.net and sign up now — you could win.