244 Sales Funnel Audit of Shady Brook Farm - Beef and Chicken
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Release Date: 12/13/2023
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...
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333 Finding Your Farm's Gateway Offer
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Most farmers try to push the “big sale” first… but what if your smallest product was actually the secret to long-term customer loyalty? In this episode, I break down the concept of the gateway offer—a key piece of your sales funnel that many farms overlook. You’ll learn what it is, why it matters, how to identify yours, and how to use it to grow your customer base on purpose. You’ll discover: What a gateway offer is (with examples for veggie, meat, flower, and value-added farms) Why small, low-risk products are often your most powerful marketing tool How to position and...
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332 Quick Tip - How to Get Your First Farm Testimonials
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
One of the biggest struggles for new farm businesses? No testimonials. When you're just starting out, you know your product is amazing—but your customers don’t. And without social proof, it's hard for new buyers to feel confident putting your food in their cart (or their bodies). In this episode, I share a simple, repeatable strategy to jumpstart your testimonials—even with zero reviews. And yes, it involves giving away product strategically to build the kind of trust that drives sales. You’ll learn: Why testimonials are one of your biggest marketing levers The catch-22 most...
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331 Coaching Call: Advice for a Farmer in their First Year
My Digital Farmer | Marketing Strategies for Farmers
Ever wonder what it’s really like inside one of my monthly FMS coaching calls? In this episode, you’ll listen in on a real strategy session with a first-year chicken & egg farm business. We dig into their sales funnel, troubleshoot the sticking points, and uncover where the energy (and growth potential) really lives. Inside this call, we cover: What’s clogging the sales pipeline in their direct-to-consumer model How to build a product ladder that bridges the pricing gap Why their quirky Chicken Bingo event is a marketing goldmine Why the fear of running out of product can...
info_outlineJanuary 10, 2024
Today we do one of my favorite things: we interview a farmer and audit their sales funnel.
In today's episode, you'll hear from Adam Henson of Shady Brook Farm. Adam joined my Accelerator program this fall to build out his email nurture sequence and sales sequence for his meat sales. As you listen, I want you to hear how simple his sales funnel is. Sometimes we think that we have to have a lot of irons in the fire, but in reality, in the early years of setting up your business sales flow, you're just layering in the main players: the website, the weekly email, the nurture sequence, the product ladder, the attraction strategy and message.
Although Adam will tell you he isn't at his finish line yet, I wanted to show you a farm that is well on its way. Listen for some of the strategies that are working well for him. Notice the importance of the buyer's journey at the point of sale, and knowing your customer's pain points. I'm sure you'll find some marketing gems in this episode!
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/
Today's Podcast Guest:
Today’s podcast guest is Adam Henson of Shady Brook Farm in Canton, NC.
Adam is a fourth generation cattle farmer running a cow/calf operation in a grass based production model along side his wife Jada. his dad and grandmother are stake holders in the operation as land owners and in having a small interest in the cow herd. In 2012 Adam made the switch from the commodity system to a direct to consumer model offering grass fed and finished beef under their own label. Since then they have added pasture raised eggs in 2013 and pasture raised chickens in 2015. In 2022 they switched their laying hens and meat chickens to an organic/soy free feed.
They sell at a local farmer’s market on Saturdays, maintain an online store connected to their website, publish a weekly email to push customers to the online store and farmer’s market, as well as offer some small scale subscription services.
Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:
Join my free email list! https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe 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.
Sign up for Farm Marketing School at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms - 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, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, and practicing different types of offers. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. 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.