240 Selling High End Berkshire Pork - Interview with Cobblestone Farm
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 12/06/2023
383 Stepping Into the Mist: How to Move Forward When You Don’t Know What Comes Next
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
There’s a place just beyond the edge of what you already know how to do. I call it the mist. As farm business owners, we find ourselves there more often than we probably realize — when an opportunity shows up, when something changes, when we take a risk, or when we find ourselves doing something we’ve never done before. And the mist can feel uncomfortable. We can’t see very far ahead. We don't know exactly how things are going to turn out. And sometimes, our first instinct is to back away and return to what we know. But what if the mist isn't something to be afraid of? What if it’s...
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382 Facebook Is Limiting Your External Links. Now What?
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
What would you do if Facebook suddenly told you that you could only share two external links per month from your farm business page? That’s exactly what happened to me while I was scheduling posts for Shared Legacy Farms—and it stopped me in my tracks. For years, one of the primary jobs of my social media has been to move people off Facebook and onto my email list. But this new restriction, which appears to be rolling out to more business pages, could affect far more than email sign-up links. Think CSA registration, online stores, blog posts, recipes, YouTube videos, event registrations...
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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...
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.
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