UNS — Rural Community Empowerment Program (P2MD) Team from the student association of Diploma Program (D-3) in Agribusiness (Gamagrita) Vocational School (SV) Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta held a digital marketing training for the local community in the Segorogunung Village on Friday (1/10/2021). The training was conducted based on the observation results made by the team that the local community in the village sells their products conventionally while the village has abundant agricultural potential. Therefore, the P2MD Gamarita SV UNS wanted to introduce the digital technology to the villagers in Ngargoyoso Subdistrict, Karanganyar District, so that they could market their products digitally.
The P2MD Gamagrita SV UNS Team leader, Hilda Sekar Wulandari, stated that through the “Digital Marketing Training in Building Business in 4.0 Era,” her team wanted to improve the creativity and innovation from Segorogunung villagers in processing their agricultural yields. Hilda also explained that the existing sales method in which farmers sell their fresh vegetables to a middleman resulted in a low margin for farmers. “To increase this margin, (farmers) could perform processing and marketing,” she explained.
Hilda also stated that in training, her team invited Salma Aulya Putri to deliver materials on digital marketing, followed by a practice to take product pictures based on the materials they received. The training was held in Segorogunung village hall with Women Farmers Group (Mawar) and PKK Segorogunung as participants. The training also equipped its participants with knowledge on farming yields processed products marketing to reacher greater markets. A participant of the training, Sugiyatno, stated that the material he received is very beneficial because it can be applied in their farming business development.
“Hopefully, this event could continue and does not stop middle way. Success for Segorogunung Village,” Sugiyatno from Segorogunung Field Agricultural Extension (PPL) Officer stated.
P2MD Gamagrita SV UNS Team Roles
This digital marketing training is only one of the P2MD Gamagrita SV UNS Team community service programs. Before this training, the team has conducted “Scale Up Rural Products in Supporting Segorogunung Tourism Destination” training on 13-14 August 2021. Hilda Sekar Wulandari stated that the training aims to train Segorogunung villagers to process local products from chayote. The villagers were also taught about packaging, marketing, business legality, and branding.
“This program provided new knowledge for the community. Hopefully, in the future, Segorogunung people could use their local potential into excellent products to support their tourism sector,” Hilda Sekar Wulandari added.
The supervisor of P2MD Gamagrita SV UNS Team, Rysca Indreswari, S.Pt., M.Si explained that her students want to increase Segorogunung people income-generating and had participated in establishing Sentra Agrilawu MSMEs center as a center for incubation of rural local products. Built on the village planned as a new tourism destination, this center for MSMEs is expected to be the center for local products to achieve sustainable development goals and attract visitors to Segorogunung village.
“This program was funded with IDR 28.5 million from Rural Community Empowerment Program (P2MD) Directorate General of Vocational Education Kemendikbudristek RI. The team also received supported funding from APBDes quarter 2 with IDR 10 million,” Rysca Indreswari, S.Pt., M.Si., explained. Humas UNS
Reporter: Yefta Christopherus AS
Editor: Dwi Hastuti