253 How to Build a Spring Plant Sale Promo Campaign
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 03/13/2024
381 The Nostalgia Effect: Why Memories Make Customers Buy
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Sometimes customers aren't just buying the product in front of them. They're buying access to a memory. I recently bought two boxes of sugary cereal I hadn't eaten in decades—even though I don't normally buy the stuff and can't really eat it anymore. Why? Nostalgia got me. In this episode, we're digging into the psychology behind this surprisingly powerful buying trigger and why farm products are uniquely positioned to tap into it. We'll explore how taste, smell, sight, touch, and sound can bring old memories rushing back—and how you can use those sensory connections in your marketing. But...
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380 Can You Actually CREATE More Demand for Your Farm Products?
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Can You Actually CREATE More Demand for Your Farm Products? Demand for your farm product often feels like it has a ceiling — but what if that ceiling can actually MOVE? This is part 2 of a two-part series all about Market Demand -- an important element in the sales/marketing formula. In the last episode, I talked about the danger of scaling production before you have enough demand to support it. But that raises an important question: What if you check the demand…and there simply isn't enough yet? Are you stuck with the demand you've got? Marketing can't magically make everyone want what...
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379 Got Demand? The 6 Questions to Ask Before You Grow More Farm Products
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What happens when you’re really good at growing something… but you don’t have enough people to buy it? I learned that lesson the expensive way this summer when we ended up renting a refrigerated semi-trailer to hold thousands of pounds of watermelons we suddenly didn’t have a market for. We had successfully grown the crop, but growing it and selling it turned out to be two very different things. In this episode of My Digital Farmer, we’re exploring an important piece of the revenue equation that farmers don’t always spend enough time thinking about: demand. Before you add another...
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378 Who Should NOT Buy Your Farm Product? (A Worthy Thought Exercise)
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
We spend a lot of time defining our ideal customer, but here's a question we don't ask nearly enough: Who should NOT buy your product? If you're spending too much time answering questions, overcoming objections, or trying to convince people to buy (only to have them walk away!) you may not have a sales problem. You may have a qualification problem. In this episode, I'm sharing a recent encounter that made me realize how valuable it is to recognize our “no signals” -- the clues that someone simply isn't a good fit for what we're selling. And even better: What if our marketing could...
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377 Practical Ways to Get More Referrals From Your Farm Customers
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Most farmers will tell you that word-of-mouth is one of their best sources of new customers. But there's a big difference between being grateful for referrals, and intentionally creating more of them. In this episode, we're talking about how to put an engine behind word-of-mouth. I'll share a whole bunch of practical ways farms can make referrals easier, more natural, and more likely to happen—without needing complicated software or some fancy loyalty program. More importantly, I'll show you how to think strategically about who you ask, when you ask, what you give customers to share, and...
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376 What Should I Call This? How to Name Farm Products (So That They Sell)
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Could changing one word on a sign or product listing make a product sell better? Last week at our Farmer's Bag Toledo pickup, I noticed something strange happening with two kinds of onions sitting right next to each other. Customers kept choosing one—and passing over the other. Then one of our volunteers made an observation: “I wonder if it's the name.” That comment made me think, "Oh I've got to do a podcast about this!" Because as farmers, we often name our products based on what we call them -- i.e. the variety in the seed catalog, the technical name of the cut, or whatever makes...
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375 The Five Transformations Farmers Really Sell
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What if your customers aren't actually buying your vegetables? In this episode, Corinna shares a personal story from her son's Air Force Basic Training that reinforced a key marketing principle, and it has nothing to do with farming. If you've ever struggled to know what to say in your emails, on your website, or in your social media posts, this episode will help you uncover the deeper reason people choose to buy from your farm. Eventually all business owners realize that customers don't buy products... they buy the life those products help create. You'll learn how to identify the...
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374 Behind the Launch: How Farmer's Bag Toledo Went From Idea to Sold Out
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
How do you go from a random idea... to selling out a brand-new food access program in just a few days? In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on the complete behind-the-scenes story of launching The Farmer's Bag Toledo. You'll hear how one unexpected meeting planted the seed, how the right partnership changed everything, why we chose to beta test instead of trying to make it perfect, and all the practical work that happened behind the scenes -- from pricing and logistics to technology, funding, naming, messaging, and launch strategy. If you've ever had an idea sitting in your notebook...
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373: The 7 Essential Offers Every Farm Business Needs
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Imagine asking the first runner in a relay race to carry the baton from the starting line all the way to the finish. No winning team would do that. Yet many farm businesses unknowingly expect one offer to do exactly that. In this episode, I introduce a simple framework that completely changed the way I think about marketing: The Offer Portfolio. Instead of relying on one offer to attract new customers, create first-time buyers, build loyalty, increase order value, and generate referrals, you'll discover the 7 essential offers every farm business should consider -- and the unique role each one...
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372 Dealing with Dread: The Hidden Marketing Obstacle That's Keeping Farmers Stuck
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Have you ever found yourself putting off the very marketing task that could help your farm grow? Writing the email. Launching the promotion. Recording the video. Raising your prices. Building the sales page. You know it needs to get done... but every time you think about it, you feel that heavy sense of dread. In this episode, I share a personal discovery that is challenging the the way I think about procrastination, marketing, and business growth. After catching myself avoiding two important projects this month, I realized something surprising: I wasn't avoiding the work. I was avoiding the...
info_outlineHave you ever thought about offering a Spring Plant Sale to your customers? You grow veggie startup plants for them for their garden. They pre-order them in early March, you get the revenue in the bag, and then deliver them when they're ready?
This has been one of our most popular promotions and offers every year. I've gotten several requests from farmers to "show them how we do it." So this episode is a deep dive into our step by step process. How we set up the offer. What we charge. How to get a higher Average Order Value. What veggies to sell. How we promote it to get lots of buying on the first day.
One of the resources I offer in this episode is my Canva file for my Plant Sale Price List. <== Grab it here! This is the "plant catalog" I created in Canva to show my customers the plants we offer, as well as how it all works. I link this up in my promo email to my buyers. You can grab a copy of this Canva design for FREE, and use it when you build your own Price List. It will serve as a great starter template. Subscribe here to get the Canva template link for free: https://shared-legacy-farms.ck.page/f49a438962
This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy to use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise, Local Line should definitely be one of the e-commerce solutions you consider as you switch. Local Line is offering a free premium feature for free for one year on top of your paid subscription. Claim your discount by signing up for a Local Line account today and using the coupon code: MDF2024. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline
This podcast was sponsored by Farm Marketing School - my monthly online marketing school membership just for farmers. Farm Marketing School is an on-demand library of marketing workshops and project plans that will help you build some of the most important marketing elements in your farm business like: building a promotion calendar, setting up your Google Business Profile, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, and practicing different types of offers. You get to chose what you want to study and build each month. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. Use the step by step project planner and resource folder to help you jumpstart your work.Take advantage of my new marketing crash course inside, watch my new Email Marketing Course, or take the onboarding assessment tool to help you identify where your funnel is broken and what project to do first. To see what courses are currently inside of FMS, or to try out Farm Marketing School for a month at mydigitalfarmer.com/fms Start and cancel your membership anytime.
Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:
Join my free email list! I have a great "Crash Course in farm marketing" that will guide you through the marketing jungle over the course of several months. Each week, you'll get a new email with suggestions and tips to make your marketing better. Subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe
Subscribe to the I Spy an Offer Challenge. Learn how to get better at making offers in your business by playing along with me! Dates: March 18-22, 2024. To be successful in sales, you need to get good at making offers. This is a skill that takes practice and learning the "formulas" of offers that will appeal to your customer. To help you learn, I'm hosting a 5 day "I Spy an Offer" Challenge. It's easy to play. Just subscribe below and every day starting March 18-22, I want you to put your eyes on and LOOK for a type of offer in the big wide world. It can be anything in any industry or media. For example: "Kids eat free on Tuesdays..." Each day, I'll send you an email with an offer I spied, and what I learned from it. Once you train your eye to see offers, you'll get better and incorporating some of them into your own marketing. If you see this after the challenge is over, you can still play! Subscribe and I'll send you the offers I spied each day for 5 days after the fact. You can still play along in your own time. Subscribe at: https://shared-legacy-farms.ck.page/b8eb611e7d
One of the resources I offer in this episode is my Canva file for my Plant Sale Price List. <== Grab it here! This is the "plant catalog" I created in Canva to show them the plants we offer, as well as how it all works. You can grab a copy of this Canva design for FREE, and use it when you build your own Price List. It will serve as a great starter template. Subscribe here to get the Canva template link for free: https://shared-legacy-farms.ck.page/f49a438962
My Digital Farmer Podcast Episode 236 How to Raise Your Prices (and Make More $) Using Price Anchoring -- This is SO SO good! Make sure you learn about this powerful pricing strategy used EVERYWHERE, because it will help you make more sales!
Find my marketing Facebook group for CSA farmers!
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