283 CSA Early Renewal Promotions: My Process
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 10/16/2024
366 What Farmers Can Learn from Aldi's "Shop First" Strategy
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
I got this podcast episode idea in the middle of Aldi. Seriously. I was walking down the grocery aisle when a sign stopped me in my tracks. It said: "Shop Aldi First." And I remember thinking: "Dang. That's good." Buried inside that simple phrase was a powerful marketing lesson that applies to almost every direct-to-consumer farm business. Aldi isn't trying to convince customers to buy everything from them. They're trying to become the first stop. In this episode, I unpack the marketing strategy behind Aldi's campaign and show how farmers can apply the same thinking to become the first place...
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365 Build Your Farm’s "Dream 25" List
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What if the fastest way to grow your farm business wasn’t finding more customers… but finding the people who already HAVE your customers’ attention? In this episode, I’m introducing the concept of the “Dream 25 List” -- a simplified version of the famous Dream 100 marketing strategy -- and showing farmers how to identify partnership opportunities hiding all around them. We’re talking about: what's a Dream 25 list? why partnerships can accelerate trust faster than social media how to identify 25 businesses and influencers that already serve your ideal customer examples of...
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364 CSA Buy Down Offers: Marketing Case Study with Thirsty Fruit Farm
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
In this episode, I sit down with Krista Barzen-Hansen of Thirsty Fruit Farm (one of my students from Farm Marketing School!) to break down how her farm marketing has evolved and strengthened over the past year. In this farm marketing case study, we unpack: how customers discover her farm, how she nurtures leads, how she's constantly optimizing her "gateway" product what content she creates, how she thinks about onboarding, the systems she’s building, and how she’s learning to approach marketing with confidence and experimentation instead of overwhelm. Krista’s primary sales model...
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363 Find Your Farm’s Proof Sentence (That Helps Customers Say Yes Faster)
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What if one sentence could help your customers trust you faster? In this episode, I’m introducing a powerful marketing tool called a proof sentence — a simple line that helps your customer think, “Yeah… this is probably going to work for me, too.” A proof sentence doesn’t just describe your product. It shows what happens after someone buys it. We’ll talk about why promises are so powerful in marketing, how to identify the transformation your farm product creates, and how to build your own proof sentence using a simple formula. Because your customers aren’t just buying...
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362 How to Groom Your Farm Website During the Season
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Is your farm website reflecting what’s happening on your farm RIGHT NOW… or is it stuck in last season? A few weeks ago, our farm was featured in the Toledo Blade newspaper during asparagus season, and suddenly we had a wave of new people discovering our business online. There was just one problem… Our website wasn’t ready for them. The homepage wasn’t talking about asparagus. There was no mention of the newspaper feature. And there wasn’t a clear next step for new visitors trying to figure out how to buy from us. That experience sparked a huge realization for me: Farm websites are...
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361 The Missing Piece in Your Farm Business: The Success Path
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
May 13, 2026 There’s a missing piece in most farm marketing funnels, and it lives after the sale. If your customers feel overwhelmed, unsure what to do, or like they’re “failing” with your product… they don’t come back. In this episode, I’m breaking down the concept of a Success Path -- the intentional roadmap you build to guide your customer from confusion → confidence → transformation. When you build this well, you don’t just create repeat buyers… you create loyal fans who trust you, stick with you, and tell others. What You’ll Learn: What a Success Path actually...
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360 What to Do with Your Farm's Greatest Hits
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
I own every single album by the Indigo Girls. I’m a true fan. I know the deep cuts. The obscure songs. The ones most people have never heard of. But the album I reach for the most?...Their greatest hits. The one with all the favorites. The songs I already know I love. And it got me thinking… What if your farm had a “greatest hits album”? Most farmers are sitting on their most powerful sales tool… and not using it. Your best sellers—the products your customers already love—are doing more work than you think. But if you’re not intentionally leveraging them? You’re leaving...
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359 Are You Tracking This Number in Your Farm Business?
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What if the growth you’ve been chasing… isn’t actually about getting more customers? In this episode, I’m introducing a simple (but incredibly powerful) metric called Customer Value. And once you understand it, it will completely change how you think about your farm’s revenue, your marketing, and your growth strategy. Most farmers are focused on the wrong lever. They’re trying to bring in more people… when the real opportunity might already be sitting inside their current customer base. Inside this episode, I’m going to show you: What Customer Value actually is (and how to...
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358 Timing is Everything: The Best Time to Sell Your Farm Products
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
I walked into the grocery store this week… and it felt like Easter punched me in the face. Everywhere I turned, there were Easter baskets, chocolate bunnies, pastel packaging, even M&M’s rebranded as “eggs.” It wasn’t just a reminder that Easter was coming—it was a full-on invitation to buy like it was Easter. And here’s the weird part… I found myself wanting things I didn’t even plan to buy. If your farm products aren’t selling, it might not be your pricing… your offer… or even your marketing. It might be your timing. In this episode, I’m breaking down the 5...
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357 How I Built a Spring Plant Sale Launch That Sold Out in 48 Hours
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
We just sold out our entire Spring Plant Sale in 48 hours… and I had to shut the store down five days early. I don't think it was luck. This year, I approached the plant sale differently. I built it like a launch. And in the process, I uncovered a few new strategies (and a few surprising insights) that I haven’t shared before. If you’ve ever run a promotion and thought, “Why didn’t this sell as well as I hoped?”... this episode is your behind-the-scenes look at what actually moves the needle. I’m walking you through the anatomy of this year’s Spring Plant Sale launch -- what I...
info_outlineAre you a CSA farmer that has to get their members to "renew" every year and it always feels like a STRUGGLE? I've got you, my friend, because in this episode, I share my process for setting up my CSA early sign "renewal" promotion every fall in the final week of my CSA. I give them only 7 days to make up their minds. I've used the same sales system for the last 7 years, and I consistently get 75-85% of them to renew.
Here is an overview of the steps that I walk through in more detail in the episode. Use this as your checklist for running your own campaign:
- Set the three key dates.
- Review any changes you might want to make to next year's products/sites/fulfillment. Confirm with vendors and site hosts.
- Build your irresistible offer.
- Set up your online store/POS -- the tech!
- Build the content strategy map. Map out the key messaging points on a calendar, day by day.
- Write the email onboarding sequence.
- Build social media post graphics.
- Write the email marketing sequence.
- Schedule the emails and social posts.
- Build the "master checklist".
- Test the funnel on 1-2 customers who are let in early to find any bugs.
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
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
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, acquiring and deploying testimonials, 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 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.
Join my CSA Academy Library -- this is my digital cooking resource library that I provide for my CSA members to help them learn how to become a better home chef and cook the CSA way. It includes a Beginner's Guide to CSA mini-course, Vegetable University (A to Z video tutorials for every veggie); Canning Club (canning videos); Exit Strategy videos; Instant Pot tutorial, and my Recipes and Resources pages (with weekly CSA box recipes and unboxing videos). Farmers can subscribe for a monthly fee to have access to these resources to help them support their own CSA members.
Early Bird Campaigns that Convert -- In this episode, I mentioned how I would be building my CSA Early Bird Renewal Promo campaign this month. IF you want to learn my system for how I do this every year, I offer my step by step online course to help you get it done. This course will teach you how to build a compelling offer that gets your current members to decide to renew during your promo campaign. I show you the emails to write, the posts to create, and the ENERGY you need to generate in the week before you launch.
Find my marketing Facebook group for CSA farmers! You'll find my video trainings for the Early Bird Challenge inside here for a few more days.
Follow me on Instagram for a daily IG story tip on marketing! @mydigitalfarmer