240 Selling High End Berkshire Pork - Interview with Cobblestone Farm
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 12/06/2023
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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: ...
info_outline
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. ...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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_outlineHow do you sell a rare breed pig in a community who's never heard of it? This was a problem faced by today's podcast guest. Joanna Shepherd from Cobblestone Farm had moved from the UK on a mission to save the Berkshire pig breed!
The problem: not many people in Saskatchewan, Canada knew what they were, or why they deserved her luxury-level price point.
How do you market a product no one has heard of and create desire for it? Joanna has spent the last 5 years trying to figure it out. In today's episode, we'll hear some of the issues she has had to work through to help her find her way. Now she's guiding other Berkshire pork farmers and helping them learn how to market this rare breed of pig. You'll hear her rather simple strategy which is a mix of email marketing funnels, social media, and SEO that is slowly building an audience of super-fans who become repeat buyers. She's building a marketing machine "slow and steady" that will serve as a strong foundation as she scales her production.
This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, the leading e-commerce platform for the local food system. Try Local Line for your farm today! 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: MDF2023. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline
This podcast was sponsored by: The Thriving Farmer Podcast. In this top-rated farm podcast, you'll learn the latest tricks and strategies of successful farmers, strategize with in-depth interviews with leaders in the industry, and connect with stories of farmers just like you. In our interviews, we focus on building farms that last, on setting up systems, knowing your customers, building your team, and creating a work/family/life balance. With over 15 years of farming background, your host Michael Kilpatrick has the experience and authority to bring you practical advice, ask the hard questions, tease out the gold nuggets, and help share what it’s really like to build a profitable, sustainable farm.
Subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts or visit: https://www.thrivingfarmerpodcast.com/
Meet Our Guest ~ Who is Joanna Shepherd:
Joanna Shepherd is the co-owner of Cobblestone Farm in Saskaketchewan, Canada, that specializes in raising Berkshire pigs. She and her husband Carl are a couple of Brits from the North Of England, and you’ll definitely hear her fun accent!
Joanna was raised in UK on mixed livestock farm, meaning beef, sheep, and pigs. She met her husband at an abattoir they both worked at and decided to move to Canada to see where the adventure would take them. They started out working in abattoirs and ended up buying acreage and raising registered Berkshire pigs.
Joanna’s mission is the save the rare Berkshire breed, selling her "genetics" to breeders, as well as weanlings and processed pork to local buyers. Her small herd of Berkshire pigs free ranges on 27 acres of pasture year round. She’s committed to allowing her pigs live a stress-free life -- one that allows them to breathe fresh air, wallow, root, sunbathe and play. Blunt, bold, a risk taker, she says what she thinks and goes after what she wants.
Learn more about CobbleStone Farm at www.berkshirepigs.net
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.
Take My 5-Day FREE CSA Startup Challenge - Looking to start your first veggie CSA, but not sure how to get started? Subscribe to my 5 day challenge. Each day, I'll walk you through one of the 5 key steps to getting your CSA framework in place. You'll do the homework assignment each day, and by the end, you'll have your basic roadmap!
Sign up for Farm Marketing School - my monthly online membership. 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 you business like: auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, creating a promo calendar, practicing different types of offers. And new content is being added every month. As the DIY version of my Accelerator Group Coaching program, you get to chose what you want to study each month. I’ve taken the recordings of just the teaching sessions of each project inside of my high-end coaching program (Accelerator) and made them available to everyone. 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 Cancel your membership anytime.
Find my Facebook group for farmers!
Follow me on Instagram for a daily IG story tip on marketing! @mydigitalfarmer