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241 ReBroadcast: My Process for Evaluating Your Year & Setting Goals for Your Farm Business

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Release Date: 12/13/2023

262 What do I SAY to attract more farm customers? show art 262 What do I SAY to attract more farm customers?

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Raise your hand if you want to find more farm clients... I often hear farmers lamenting that they can't find enough customers. Maybe the people you are attracting don't live in your local area, or they DO live in your area, but they aren't buying. You have an attraction problem. If you're a new or younger farm business, this is one of the earliest challenges you will face -- growing your audience. But even as a seasoned farm, there should be a system to make sure you're pulling in new eyeballs to your brand. In marketing, one of the first "stages" of the customer journey is the attraction...

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261 Is This Thought Holding You Back in Your Farm Business? show art 261 Is This Thought Holding You Back in Your Farm Business?

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

May 8, 2024 This week, I have two farm projects that feel like a heavy lift. And because these decisions feel hard, I'm not taking action.... (Does this sound familiar?) I feel like I need more information. I'm worried I'll make the WRONG decision that will upset clients. And finding a solution would require several hours of time that I don't have right now. I want it to be the BEST solution possible, and the current options just don't feel right. So I do nothing. Today on the show, I'm exploring something I call the "One Best Right Way" myth. This thought tells us that there is one, best,...

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260 The TLCF Marketing Formula for Farms show art 260 The TLCF Marketing Formula for Farms

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

When I first started learning about farm marketing years ago, there was SO MUCH. I felt overwhelmed. I really wanted a framework to help me stitch it all together and give it a rhyme and a reason. Then, one of my mentors shared an acronym that I found really helpful. That acronym was: TLC. Here's what it stands for: T = Traffic L = Leads C = Conversion I later added the letter "F" for Fulfillment, because I found that this element was one of the key drivers behind customer retention. Today, I'm going to teach you this TLCF method. The goal is to build a mechanism or system in your farm...

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259 If I Only Had 2 Hours to Do Farm Marketing, What Would I Do? show art 259 If I Only Had 2 Hours to Do Farm Marketing, What Would I Do?

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

April 24, 2024 As life would have it, I've been in a season of long-term illness this winter. These health issues have been so distracting, that I've had to pare down my farm marketing to the absolute bare bones. What's interesting is that I haven't noticed a huge difference! I'm often asked by farmers, "If I only have 2 hours of time a week for marketing, what should I be doing with it?" I feel like I can answer that now because I'M DOING IT. My circumstances forced me to decide what the most critical revenue-driving activities were for my business. I share them with you in this podcast. Keep...

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258 Auditing Your Online Store for Better Conversion show art 258 Auditing Your Online Store for Better Conversion

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Is your online store confusing? Last month, I was doing a one to one coaching call with one of my farmer Accelerator members. They came to me with a problem: "Help us figure out why hardly anyone is buying from the online store." They had recently received a boost in traffic to their website thanks to some free media/press. They had hoped it would translate to many new buyers and sales. Unfortunately, the conversion rate was abysmally low, and they wanted to know what was wrong. As we sat down together and reviewed their website AND store setup, I noticed a few pretty key elements that were...

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257 What is Your Farm Product's Conversion Rate? show art 257 What is Your Farm Product's Conversion Rate?

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Every one of your farm products has a conversion rate. The question is: do you know what it is? I used to scream and rail and raise my fists to the heavens in frustration, when I couldn't get more people to buy my CSA box. What was wrong with me? Maybe nothing... It just has a lower conversion rate. Today, I want to introduce you to the concept of the conversion rate, and I want you to start TRACKING what they are for your most popular (and signature) products. How can we get our conversion rates to go higher? This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for...

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256 Customer Onboarding Ideas for Your Farm Products show art 256 Customer Onboarding Ideas for Your Farm Products

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

April 3, 2024 Do you have a customer retention problem? If so, I bet I know one of the major factors behind it. In this podcast, we take a deep look at the critical customer management system that should be firiing RIGHT AFTER a person buys. It's called "customer onboarding." I know. Not very sexy. But if you're missing this piece, a lot of confusion is happening for your customer as they get your product. How do I get it? What do I need to do to prepare? What do I watch out for? What do I do first? You need to be ready with answers to questions like these, to help them get results. You need...

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255 The 8 Step Farm Marketing Framework show art 255 The 8 Step Farm Marketing Framework

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Today it's time to review the marketing basics. When I was a volleyball coach years ago, I used to say, "We spend 80% of our time focusing on the basics." If you can't serve a ball over the net, you'll never score points. If you can't bump the serve into the air to pass to the setter, you'll never score a point. The basics matter. The same is true in farm marketing. There is a FRAMEWORK on which ALL of marketing is based, and you need to know what it is! If you don't have the basics in place, you will lose points! In today's episode, I'm going back to the basics to share with you the 8 stages...

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254 How to Market a Flower CSA - with the Dirt on Flowers Podcast show art 254 How to Market a Flower CSA - with the Dirt on Flowers Podcast

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

How do you market a flower subscription CSA? That's the topic of today's podcast, which is actually a recording from ANOTHER show I was on last week. I was interviewed for and the episode turned out SO good that I asked if I could share the recording of the episode with MY podcast audience.  Tune in as co-hosts Shannon Allen from Bloomfield Farm and Lyndsay Biehl of Wildroot Flower Co. grill me on how to find the perfect customer avatar for a flower farm, what kind of marketing content to make to attract leads into your farm business, and how to pitch your offer so that people want to...

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253 How to Build a Spring Plant Sale Promo Campaign show art 253 How to Build a Spring Plant Sale Promo Campaign

My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers

Have 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...

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More Episodes

It’s the end of the year, and that means it’s time for the end of year evaluation and goal setting retreat!

This is a rebroadcast of Episode 191 -- because it's THAT good, and I want you to repeat the process again!

I used to avoid this process — partly because I didn’t have a good process that worked for me.

That all changed when I found these evaluation questions. And in today’s podcast, I’m going to share them with you. I spend two separate days working through them for about two hours each time. That’s a total of 4 hours. 

In this episode, I walk you through 9 questions and flesh out examples of what kinds of answers you’re looking for. By the time you’ve really worked through these, I PROMISE YOU that the answers to question #7 “What are your goals for next year” will be pretty clear to you. I love how these questions bring up so many discoveries, limiting beliefs, desires, direction, and clarity for me.

I hope it works for you too.

I encourage you to listen to my episode in its entirety. Then book some time this week to work through the questions — make the process your own. See what comes up for you. Then tell me what you came up with! I’d love to hear one idea… email me or shoot me a DM @mydigitalfarmer on Instagram.

Here are the questions I journal through:

PART 1 – do these on day 1

  1. List everything that has happened to you in the last 12 months related to your business?
  2. What are the lessons from those experiences that you can take into next year?
  3. What do you want to do more of? What do you want to do less of?
  4. What are you still holding onto from last year that is taking up space? And what will there be room for when you let that go? (Think physically, relationally, feelings, possessions, time sucks, mindsets and limiting beliefs)
  5. What are your 5% revenue generating activities?

PART 2 — do these on day 2

  1. What do you want? (Think outside your business. What else do you want for your life?)
  2. What are your goals for next year? What results do you want to produce? (This could include elements of your personal life too).
  3. What specific measure will you use to know that your objective has been realized?
  4. What new habits will you have to adopt to win your game? (Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?)

Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:

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 this special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Join my free email list! I have a great “email onboarding sequence” 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.

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.

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!

Register for my webinar called “The 3 Mistakes CSA Rookie Farmers Make (And How to Avoid Them).” You can register at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/rookie — and select from the time options available each week. This is a free webinar, designed to help “new” CSA farmers learn the framework for a profitable and resilient CSA.