285 Boost Your Farm's Revenue with Value-Added Products: Insights from Kendall Ballantine
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 10/30/2024
342 The 12 Day of Christmas Song - Farm Marketing Edition
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Every December, I love to pull out something fun, festive, and just a little bit cheeky to celebrate the season… and this year, we’re doing it farm-style. Today’s episode is a playful spin on the classic song The 12 Days of Christmas — but instead of partridges and pear trees, we’re singing our way through 12 foundational marketing must-haves every farm business needs to grow, thrive, and sell consistently. You’ll laugh. You’ll nod your head. And you’ll walk away with a massive checklist of the exact pieces you need to build a truly functional farm marketing system. Whether...
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341 Should You Join Farm Marketing School? ALL the Details!
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
When I first started teaching farm marketing, I noticed something right away: most farmers weren’t struggling because they were “bad at marketing” — they were struggling because they had never been taught how to do it. They were winging it, trying to piece things together from YouTube videos and Instagram posts, and feeling defeated when sales didn’t budge. Farm Marketing School was born out of that gap — a place where farmers could learn the skills, systems, and confidence they need to market their farms well. And since enrollment for next year is now open, I wanted to...
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340 Farm Marketing School Success Story: Patty from Lonely Lane Farms
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
In this week’s episode, I sit down with Farm Marketing School member Patty Kloft of Lonely Lane Farms in Oregon — a long-established, family-run operation producing grass-fed beef, pork, lamb, and goat. Patty’s story is one of evolution: from a wholesale-focused farm to a thriving direct-to-consumer and retail business with more than 200 value-added meat products. We unpack how Patty scaled her farm while balancing family life, managing a USDA-certified processing facility, and developing consistent marketing systems to support a growing brand. 💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode: ...
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339 How I Got 234 CSA Members to Sign Up in One Day
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What would it feel like to generate $250,000 in revenue from your farm in just one week? In this episode, I take you behind the scenes of our biggest—and most important—promotion of the year: our CSA Early Bird Renewal Campaign. We just wrapped up the 2026 launch, and the numbers are in: ➡️ 265 shares sold in 7 days ➡️ 234 of them sold in the first 24 hours 🤯 ➡️ Average order value: ~$950 ➡️ Platform: Local Line (and nope—no crashes!) If you're wondering how we got hundreds of customers to show up, click, and commit on Day One, you're going to want to listen to this. ...
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BONUS Quick Tips for Selling More Farm Products for the Holidays
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and you might be thinking, “It’s too late to pull off a holiday promo.” But guess what? It’s not. This time of year, your customers are already in buying mode -- planning meals, prepping for gatherings, and looking for unique local gifts. Which means there’s money sitting on the table right now for your farm. In this episode, I’m showing you how to grab it. In this week’s episode, I’m giving you plug-and-play ideas for last-minute Thanksgiving offers you can launch this week -- even if you feel behind. You’ll learn: 🥕 How to...
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338 How to Manage Your Farm Facebook Group Between Seasons
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
This week’s episode was inspired by an email from a listener named Jenna, who wrote in with a fantastic question: “As our season ends in December and the next CSA won’t begin until spring, I’m wondering how you handle your private CSA Facebook group between seasons. Do you create a new group each year, or do you maintain the same group and remove members who don’t continue?” If you run a CSA, you’ve probably wrestled with this too. What do you do with your private Facebook group when the season ends? Do you close it? Keep it open? Kick people out who don’t renew? In this...
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337 How to Build a Simple Referral Engine for Your Farm
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What’s the best way to get new customers for your farm? Answer: Word of mouth. And the best part? You already have a loyal fanbase! You just need to activate it. Okay so how do you do that? In this episode, I show you how to build a simple referral system that runs quietly in the background and brings in your dream customers—the ones who are already pre-sold by someone they trust. You’ll learn: Why referrals work better than ads (and cost you way less) 5 ingredients of an irresistible referral offer When and how to ask for a referral (timing is everything) Real farm examples by...
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When Your Best-Selling Farm Product Disappears - Inside a FMS Coaching Call
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What would you do if the product your customers loved the most—the one they buy first, talk about the most, and happily pay premium prices for—was suddenly GONE… and you knew it would be two years before you could sell it again? This happened to one of my Farm Marketing School members, Stacie. She raises meat and sells a monthly membership that gives her customers first access to everything. But as of this month… her freezers are completely out of beef. Zero inventory. And she won’t have more until 2027. She came to our group coaching call in full-on panic mode: “How do I keep...
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335 Rinse and Repeat — This Simple Farm Marketing Hack Will Save You Time
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
As farmers, we live and breathe systems. We know when to seed, when to transplant, when to harvest. It's all about rhythm and routine. So why do we make our marketing so much harder than it needs to be? When I finally embraced this one simple mindset shift in my marketing — rinse and repeat — everything changed. Suddenly I wasn’t recreating the wheel every season. I was building campaigns that got easier, faster, and more effective with time. I wish I’d adopted this sooner. In this episode, I unpack the powerful (and often overlooked) marketing hack of repeating what worked — instead...
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334 The Anatomy of a Great Email Offer — A Deep Dive Audit
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Every once in a while, an email offer lands in my inbox that stops me in my tracks. It's not just well-written... it's strategic. It makes me want to forward it. Study it. Steal from it. In today’s episode, I’m auditing one of those unicorn emails — and I’m showing you why it worked so well. This email (from Function Health) was a masterclass in offer psychology. It played multiple sales motivators all at once, had brilliant positioning, and used subtle language that made it feel like a gift — not a pitch. It’s rare to find something this clean, so I knew I had to share it with...
info_outlineAre you creating value-added products and selling them in your farm business? After hearing this episode, you may decide to get started!
"Value-added" refers to any agricultural products that have been processed or enhanced in a way that increases their market value. This could involve transforming raw farm products into something more convenient, shelf-stable, or unique, thus making them more appealing to customers. For example, turning fresh vegetables into pickles, making jams from fruit, or creating bone broth from animal by-products are all considered value-added because they offer more convenience, flavor, or functionality compared to their raw form. These products often allow farmers to increase their profit margins and diversify their income streams.
In this episode, Kendall Ballantine from Central Park Farms dives into the world of value-added products and how they transformed her direct-to-consumer farm business into a thriving operation. Discover how these simple innovations can create new revenue streams, support business growth, and help farms stay afloat during the off-season.
Tune in to learn:
- How Kendall turned chicken bones into bone broth, chicken pot pie, and over 40 other freezer meals for her online store.
- Where to start with value-added products.
- How to come up with value added product ideas.
- Creative marketing tips to entice buyers to buy your value added products.
- Common mistakes farmers make when they first start out with value-added.
- How to price your value added so you remain profitable.
This conversation is packed with actionable insights to inspire your own farm business!
Today's Guest: Meet Kendall Ballantine.
Follow Kendall's marketing tips at www.instagram.com/
Her website: www.onlinemarketingforfarmers.com
Workshop: Increasing Revenue with Value Added Products
Workhorse Collective, Kendall's Coaching Program
Podcast Sponsor:
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:
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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 parts of your marketing system: 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, writing great weekly email promotions, nurture emails, onboarding emails, 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.
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