Busting Farm Marketing Myths
In this week’s episode, Janelle (Barn2Door CEO) and Cory (Farmer Success Team) discuss marketing myths (misconceptions) that can negatively impact Farmers' sales outcomes. If you are an Independent Farmer selling direct --- this is a must listen, to avoid and/or overcome marketing pitfalls! And discover GREAT tips for Farmers on successful marketing for successful, recurring sales.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Janelle, CEO of Barn2Door, and your host for today's episode. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barn2Door offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their own brand, and making sure [00:01:00] their customers can purchase from them online and in person.
In today's conversations, we're tackling marketing. As independent farmers and business owners know, if you're cutting out the middleman and selling direct, you cannot just grow food or have a farm, you need customers who regularly buy your products. Just like other business owners, from hairdressers to dentists to nail salons to gyms and restaurants, it isn't enough to build it.
You need to find customers and keep them engaged so they keep returning. While marketing may not be an independent business owner's favorite thing, it is necessary for the business to be successful. Having worked with thousands of farms across the country for over 10 years, who successfully have cut out the middleman and marketed and sold directly to retail and wholesale customers, we've watched, learned, and now recommend best practices for farmers who are marketing their brand well and products to the communities near their farms.
Today, I'm happy to welcome back Cory from our success team, an account manager. Cory has worked with hundreds of farmers, helping them implement best practices to run a successful farm [00:02:00] business, including successfully marketing their farms to grow sales and grow their customer base. Today he's gonna help us break it down.
Welcome, Cory.
Cory Hutsen: Thank you. Very excited to be back here. I love doing the podcast and love sharing our podcast with some of our farmers, so.
Janelle Maiocco: I feel like it's a cheat bringing you on because you talk to hundreds of farms and help all these farms, and now we can cut to the chase and sort of get best practices and everything that you've learned or give advice on.
So, eager to dig into it today.
Cory Hutsen: Exactly.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay, so, in terms of marketing, I think we should probably start way back at the beginning. Obviously we want to dig into some of the myths of marketing, the challenges, you and I discussed earlier, some of the overwhelm, sometimes farmers experience, but then dig into obtainable goals and small habits that can then lead to success.
But, let's start with really what is marketing? When you think about it from a general sense of when you're talking to your farmers, if you're to [00:03:00] break it down, what is it? What are sort of the basic elements of marketing?
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, it's a great question. Good place to start. Because, you know, again, we're gonna discuss this a lot, but the word marketing can be very overwhelming.
But if we're, just to break it down to the basics, marketing, especially for farms, is gonna be building your customer list, which is collecting customer information, especially email addresses. It's going to be consistency. So, whether that's posting on social media, that's sending emails, whatever course of action you take, consistency is probably the most important thing or high on that list.
It's branding, which I know the word branding, especially in today's age with social media and everybody trying to have their own brand can also be a little, uh, scary to some farms that I've spoken to, but you are building your own brand. And then, it's also convenience. So, [00:04:00] making your farm food readily available, building awareness to your customer base and letting them know that, the end of the day, you exist, and how they can access you.
Janelle Maiocco: You exist. That's fair. I appreciate that I was speaking to a farmer the other day and he was like, oh, I'm terrible at marketing. And, and then we talked about what he did. He was like, oh, you have an email list. And I email everybody regularly. I'm like, well, you're crushing it. Right? It's just you're sort of separating out the word of maybe that word is a bit of a faux pa, but, the activities are, you have to have a list of customers and their emails so that you can communicate regularly.
And I love that. I do think sometimes people miss that last point that you said, which is convenience. I mean, we can send emails and engage customers all day long. But if it's not easy for them to get your food, there has to be an element of, it's sort of like a one-two punch. Like, you have customers that email, but it also actually has to be easy to get their food, or to get your farm products.
So, does that mean a local pickup or delivery or [00:05:00] something because, consumers, interesting, and Cory, you know, this nine in 10 consumers want local food. Like the demand is just palpable. But, sometimes the missing factor, even if you have a great brand, is it's not easy enough to get your food or your product.
And so, then people just don't bother. And so, convenience to shop and get your food is actually, truly an element of marketing, right? It's access and convenience, and sort of meeting the customers where they're at.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, that's extremely true. And it's probably the biggest challenge facing most of the farms I speak with. You know, a lot of farms, that convenience factor may be something they haven't put a ton of thought into, or maybe it's just they're at the first point in their business where they're trying to expand their reach and access more customers. Well, if you are looking to access more customers, making that convenience outside of just pickup on your farm is essential.
Like, unless you're [00:06:00] looking to specifically just market to your neighbors, you're probably gonna need to look at some different fulfillment options than just on farm pickup.
Janelle Maiocco: I was gonna say, that reminds me because we did a survey once, we sent it out to I think 30,000 buyers, and we were asking, Hey, how far would you drive for farm food? And, the more proximate that the food was to the person, the more likely they were to buy. And so, if it was delivered to their door, they would buy, right?
And then, you know, still maybe eight out of 10, if it was within five miles, like they had to pick it up, and then the further the buyer had to travel, the less likely they were to purchase. It was a really interesting survey, so I do appreciate that. Okay. I wanna dig into a little bit of your experience talking to so many farms.
You did mention that in some cases it feels like farmers might be allergic to a marketing, or overwhelmed at that concept. What does that look like? I mean, are they overwhelmed to find customers? And you, you mentioned convenience too, but what about the whole, like where do I begin piece?
Cory Hutsen: [00:07:00] Yeah, I mean, I think the word marketing, can just mean so many different things. Like for a farm, it just may not mean the same thing as it would to, you know, like another major corporation. Right? Because a lot of times, and for the majority of times, our farms are most successful concentrating on their local loop on, you know, areas within an hour, maybe two hours of driving distance.
Right? Most of our farms are not trying to cast nationwide nets, because at the end of the day, the buzzword is local. That's the whole deal with the people who want to buy from farms. The benefits is knowing where your food came from. So, I mean, that's just the huge part of it is not getting overwhelmed by just the word marketing and knowing that there's some very basic tactics that you can take to expand your reach.
But, you know, this is gonna be the theme for me and the theme of so many of my conversations with farmers is, the best news for you and the great [00:08:00] news is, especially where we're at today, people want your products and what you're providing. People want to purchase directly from farms. There's a growing education as to all the benefits that come with buying from a farm.
And, you know, if all things were the same, 99 out of a hundred people, if you ask them, would you rather purchase from a farm than a grocery store? Those people are gonna say, well, yeah, I would rather purchase from a farm. I'd rather go to a farm to table restaurant. Right? The issue is, they just don't know how to access that food.
If you ask them the same question of, Hey, where would you go to get that farm food?
Janelle Maiocco: Well, and if you're a farmer, Cory, how do I tap into all that demand? If I'm near a city, even if it's 20 minutes or an hour away, clearly there's an untapped market opportunity. If nine plus outta 10 people want to buy farm food, then if I'm a farmer, how do I tap into that?
Cory Hutsen: So, there's a number of ways, and if you ask some of our farm advisors and [00:09:00] connect, which is a very common question, and even Alex who leads our Grassroots Marketing Academy, he will always start at, you know, the simplest option is the farmer's market, right? The farmer's market allows you an opportunity not just to generate sales, of course, but the farmer's market allows you to meet people face to face.
It allows you the ability to collect email addresses, educate people to the fact that you do have a farm store, and, you know, continually grow that email list and build your brand. Like people are able to see that you exist. They're able to meet you, interact, and get a sampling of your farm food.
Janelle Maiocco: That's a great piece of advice. Start at the farmer's market. It's just sort of a low hanging fruit in terms of engaging a local community, gathering their emails. I know we hound that whenever you're at a farmer's market, don't waste the time that you're there. Double up, make sure you're gathering email the entire time.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: Because that email list is gold. It [00:10:00] literally becomes your customer list. And then, Cory, I know that you also work with farmers who don't go to a farmer's markets, and you have had some great recommendations around partner opportunities. Can you share a little bit about that? Again, tapping into that massive demand for local food in nearby cities, how a farmer might go about that if they're not going to a farmer market.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And there's a lot of farms who come to us who are working full-time jobs. You know, outside they have families, they have little kids, they're busy with sports on the weekends, they're working full-time jobs. Committing to eight hours of a farmer's market on a Saturday might not be in the cards, even if they're absolutely, they wanna do it.
They understand the benefits, but maybe that's not in the cards. Okay. Let's look at other ways to collect email addresses, which Janelle, you mentioned, email addresses are like gold, right? And if you start thinking out about it, that there's a monetary value. Like Tom Bennett, another one of our farm advisors will pay his employees at farmer's markets, a dollar for every email [00:11:00] address they've collected, which I've had a number of farms start to...
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Cory Hutsen: Starting to implement.
Janelle Maiocco: So worth it.
Cory Hutsen: But, so farmer's market's off the table for you, maybe in the future, but right now you're juggling other things. So, one thing I've talked to a number of farms about, let's identify businesses that could be great partnerships, but more specifically businesses where you would have the best chance of identifying customers who would be ideal customers for your farm food.
One huge example of that that I talk about quite a bit is gyms. Gyms where, and specifically, I want to be clear here, there's a big difference between like your big chain gyms or local gyms, independently owned, where you have a better chance of actually talking to the decision maker. You have that point of contact, but also a place where you have a consistent customer base who, you know, are spending a lot because they care about taking care of their bodies [00:12:00] and in turn, they're probably more likely to want to spend extra dollars than your average customer on the food. So, I've had farms that as simple as putting your QR code, making a nice flyer, just a little outline of who you are, what you guys do, maybe some of your products available. Have a QR code to go to your signup form, within MailChimp, which, you know, sign up form, ask to enter name and email address, which will immediately go into your Barn2Door account.
Janelle Maiocco: Mm-hmm.
Cory Hutsen: But even, I've had farms reach for deeper opportunities within those gyms as well, where they're all of a sudden they're talking to that point of contact and they get equally excited. That gym owner, they're excited to be able to offer this new partnership to their customers.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. You just had a farmer the other day you were telling me about, tell us a little bit about that fun, very recent story.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah. I brought up the gym conversation with one of my farms and he was intrigued, which a lot of farms. Oh, you know, start to think about that and we'll even [00:13:00] pull up Google Maps in my meeting and start to look at, you know, all the gyms in your area, 'cause you'll be shocked at how many gyms generally there are.
But, he ended up meeting with a local gym owner and this guy was so excited to have this farm who is supplying farm fresh, grass fed beef. And, he got so excited. Not only did he offer to have the gym as a pickup location, but he's even going to install refrigerator space, so the farmer can leave their bundle box orders.
So, there's gonna be a shop online button, included in that gym's newsletters, on their website. So, when you're going in, 'cause you know those customers are already making if not daily, at least weekly trips to that gym. They can pick up their order, knock out, eliminate a trip to the grocery store, and now they've got the best quality protein that their money can buy.
Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I have so many questions, but in that same vein, when you and I were talking before, you talked a bit about what we call here at Barn2Door, ICPs, which is your ideal [00:14:00] customer profile. Really what we're talking about is, when you're talking about a gym, you've just locked in on a pretty obvious buyer example of somebody who wants to eat healthy local meat, right?
And so, tapping into g like farmer's markets are the same thing, right? You know that people go to a farmer's market 'cause they really want to support local farmers and eat healthy. Gyms, same thing. People are trying to work out. They're being sensitive about what they're putting in their body.
So, that's just another great example of, hey, these are pretty likely buyers. So, it's a good target audience. You wanna add to that in terms of farmers thinking about where are my buyers that I can then tap into?
Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And it's a really powerful exercise to take the time to go through that ideal customer profile. Who has been historically my best customer, who do I think would be my best customer. And so, the gym person, that's a very obvious example that we've already hit on. Another one that's very [00:15:00] common is what we refer to as your suburban Sally, your mom with kids who enjoys cooking and providing the best possible nutrition for her family, is willing to spend, you know, maybe that extra dollars to buy directly from a farm.
But, most importantly with that is that's the kind of customer who wants to share with other people that they're purchasing from a farm, which, that word of mouth can be the strongest marketing a farm can have. If you have other people who have experienced your products and really enjoyed it, they're gonna be excited.
I mean, I know from my own conversations with friends, family, if people buy food directly from a farm, like no one, you know, says they got great steaks from the grocery store. Right. But, if they get great steaks from a farmer's market or directly from a farm, they want to tell everyone about that.
Janelle Maiocco: Agreed.
Cory Hutsen: Right? So, that can just be an awesome exercise. Okay. Or maybe I'm going after allergy Allen, right? You know, the folks who have to [00:16:00] eat a certain way, you know, they're on a high protein carnivore diet, keto, which is becoming increasingly more common. So, they want the best quality of protein available to them.
How do I identify them? So, it's not just gyms, but you know, where does Suburban Sally go? Schools, churches, coffee shops, bakeries. These are all businesses kind of in your local loop, that you can start to identify.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, and I think, well, you've said so many rich things there. I think, you mentioned, if there are particular trends or buzzwords in sort of the dietary health conscious eating realm, whether it's keto, paleo, whether people want non GMO or whether they are soy free, corn free. We definitely have farmers that are promoting soy free, corn free eggs, and being able to charge a premium for that. So, thinking of trends is kind of a whole other layer.
But, when we're getting back to, you said, sort of the profiles of people, we have people who go to the farmer market. We have people who go to the [00:17:00] gym. I loved your local loop, you know, people that are going to the bakery, the coffee shop, the school. Can you say a little more about what you mean when you say the word local loop in terms of accessing local buyers?
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, so local loop meaning places where customers who again, would be ideal customers for you would likely also visit, right? And so, identifying those and what we talked about, getting a QR code, a signup form, and again, by QR code. This is a QR code that will go directly to a signup form. So, all someone would have to do is pull out their phone, scan that QR code, they're entering in their name and email address, and you are immediately getting notified that you have that information.
And then you can, you know, follow up with marketing emails. But yes, like your local loop, I named those examples, schools, churches. Another big one is, all right, who else would be a sufficient partner? Local grocery stores and not, you know, chain grocery [00:18:00] stores, but we have a lot of farms who have identified like independently owned grocery stores that maybe have a bigger focus on health or organic products or sustainably raised and produced products that have a similar customer base. So, there is a partnership there where we've had farms who have used refrigerator space that may be an independent grocery store for drop-offs of their bundle boxes or CSAs and exchange for that refrigerator space, you're bringing in customers and foot traffic through the door, that already making this decision to buy from you, they're probably more likely to want to shop at that grocery store than versus, you know, your big chain Walmart or something like that.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's a really good reminder if you're thinking through potential local partnerships to have as pick up locations or drop sites or meet up locations to think about the smaller businesses that are similar to a farm running a business, but who can make a more [00:19:00] thoughtful, quick decision to support and partner.
Sometimes if you're doing the big box, like huge national gyms or national chains or whatnot, there's so many hoops to go through for them to even potentially get permission for something like that. And, you know, in many cases, sometimes they'll have different priorities as well. So, it's good to be thinking about those ideal partners.
It's funny you say that, Cory, you just made me remember, but, probably a decade or two ago, I used to pick up farm boxes, bundle boxes at a local urban farm store. Because, I had backyard chickens and I bought my feed there. But that didn't mean I had grass fed beef or pork or produce, et cetera.
So, I was happy to pick up additional farm food from an eating perspective beyond my own backyard chicken. So yeah, all of those are great opportunities. And, we sometimes say local loop when we're hanging around talking about marketing and farmers at Barn2Door, because it's sort of synonymous with, hey, if you were gonna go drive a loop in your neighborhood, you know, or in a neighborhood in a [00:20:00] city near you, in order to deliver and offer pickups, et cetera, where could that loop be that works for you as a farmer, and create some efficiency from a delivery and pickup perspective, but that is made up of these ideal partners to meet your ideal customers.
So really, really powerful. I have to double click on, you mentioned Suburban Sally. It's kind of a way to help farmers. I know in many of our academy classes, or if you're meeting with Cory or one of our other account managers, they might speak about, you know, who are your ideal customers?
Is it, you know, the mom that lives in the suburb, you know, a suburban enclave? Is it people in a high rise in a city? Is it the folks who are going to the jam or church, et cetera. But in the case of Suburban Sally, Cory's, right. If you have moms with children, who are often the decision maker when it comes to food in a family, you can hook into their school sometimes.
Or if you hook into deliveries in a really tight, specific neighborhood, you can be really efficient with your deliveries and [00:21:00] they will talk about food. I mean, if you go to Instagram. What are you gonna see pictures of? People are taking photos of food. Like if food is the most, I think pictured or photographed or shared item through social media, like talk about an advantage for an industry and sharing to other friends in the neighborhood, et cetera, like there's a real opportunity for that sort of online word of mouth that can be really rapid fire.
Do you see some of that, Cory?
Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Those are my interests. I'm involved in that world. I'm, you know, huge on looking at food content. But again, and that word of mouth is probably the most powerful marketing tactic you have because it's one thing for me to just read a flyer or you know, see an advertisement.
But, if someone I trust is directly telling me, you have to try this. I ordered this bundle box I got, it was the freshest, you know, most tender steaks or the best chicken or man, you buy eggs [00:22:00] directly from a farm, you can tell the difference. I'm telling you, right? When you hear that directly from someone you trust, that's a much more powerful marketing tactic, and way more persuasive than any other form of advertising.
And so, that's something I also encourage farms to do is, you know, 'cause all this comes down to like, especially a lot of the newer farms, like I'm not giving you all these tactics where you're gonna have to spend, you know, thousands of dollars on marketing. So let's look at some low cost or even free ways we can spread that word. So, when someone does order from you, ask them, you know, Hey, it would mean a ton if you posted your order on social media. Or, you know, maybe if you cooked with it and shared that content. 'Cause again, people wanna support you as a farmer. No one has a negative perception of farmers.
They're purchasing from you because they value all those things we've talked about, the sustainability, the care for animals, the quality. So, it's not gonna hurt, [00:23:00] like asking for that support. Hey, it means so much that you order from us, if you could tell a friend or post your order on social media, it'd mean the world, and people generally respond to that.
I've seen farms have a lot of success with just asking things from their customers and those customers showing their appreciation for their farmer and responding in that way.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, totally agree. And then, tagging the farmer when they're doing that, and then people do that naturally. And I know when farmers get set up on Barn2Door, the onboarding manager makes sure that they have their Instagram like, so you can click and go shop from them, whether they're going to Instagram or Facebook or through a newsletter. You even mentioned, uh, MailChimp once. So, Barn2Door, for those of those who might not know who are listening, Barn2Door has a full integration with MailChimp, which means, to Cory's point, if you have a QR code or you're gathering emails online, that's both populating into MailChimp and to your Barn2Door account.
Which also includes every customer who's ever purchased from you. ,So, really powerful to just you. If you [00:24:00] just set these things up once, then sort of all roads lead to Rome, right? They all lead to that farm store, including through all those digital pathways. So, really important to do that.
Yeah, those moms, those suburban moms wanna feed their kids chemical free food last I checked. And so, they get excited and guess what? Then they have their neighbors over for dinner, and then they're putting a steak on the grill and they're like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And then what are they gonna say every single time?
It's from the farmer, right? Because it's so good. And so, it just is a natural part of sharing and conversation. And really, once you start with those door to door deliveries or local pickups, and people start to share, that's where we have farmers come in all the time. Like, wow, you know, I got this going.
You know, it takes a minute. You have to keep edit from a consistency and a habit perspective, but over time you'll hear farmers saying, wow, I had like three new people or 10 new people buy from me this week that I didn't even know. And so, you have to kind of give time for that word of mouth, but it's pretty incredible to see that build up.
Cory, in [00:25:00] terms of building up emails. So, we talked about gathering emails at farmer's markets. 'Cause again, that email list is your customer list. So, you wanna be building it at all times and then sending emails to communicate. So, you can get in farmer's markets, you're gonna have your QR codes or sign up sheets at the gym or anywhere where you're partnering online.
How are we gathering emails online? Right? That's another place like, so maybe I'm just getting started and I need to start getting emails online. How do I do that?
Cory Hutsen: So, I referenced several times a QR code, which is a physical form of marketing, right? That's something you're putting on a flyer and I'm scanning on my cell phone and that's going to a signup form.
Same thing in MailChimp, there's a way to share that form via online. And so, in your MailChimp account, you can work with your farm account manager to access that, but being able to post that link directly on like your Facebook or putting it in your Instagram bio and using a LinkTree on Instagram since it only lets you have [00:26:00] one link, and we want to have your website store and sign up form in there.
But, people click on that, enter their name and email address. Now, going a little bit deeper, getting creative with marketing, I have seen a ton of success with farms doing fun, entertaining things to incentivize people to sign up for their email list. 'Cause we all get asked to subscribe to various email lists.
But, I've had farms that'll post their signup form on their Facebook and do, hey, by the end of the month, we're gonna be giving away 10 pounds of farm fresh ground beef, and a couple of steaks to two new signups by the end of the month. And so, doing little giveaways or raffle, I mean, I've even had farms that do bulk beef, do big giveaways, like freezer giveaways, in exchange for email addresses.
And so yes, you're giving away essentially product, right? Which has value to it. But, we already referenced email addresses. And [00:27:00] if you start to view those email addresses as having dollar values to them, you know, that exchange, for the product is gonna be more than worth it if you're, you know, setting goals and starting to achieve that consistent email collection.
Janelle Maiocco: That's awesome. I love all the examples of collecting emails. And there's so much to talk about here. First, I wanna talk about some of the myths. 'Cause I know that that's an interesting piece when farmers come to you and there's things that are like, Hey, this is what I think is true and the answer's like, actually it might not be exactly like that.
Let's think about that differently. I kind of wanna run through some quote unquote myths. And then, I wanna make sure at the end before we sort of quote unquote hang up the phone, that we talk about consistency. 'Cause I know that you talk a lot about consistency with farmers as well in terms of really building that crescendo of customer loyalty, regular purchasing, and marketing for success.
But first, let's dig into myths. I'll throw some outta you and you can give me your commentary because I know you have all these conversations daily. [00:28:00] Is the website enough? Myth number one, if I have a website, they will come.
Cory Hutsen: Unfortunately not. I wish it was. It's a great place for people to learn about you, but in today's world, especially where AI has kind of taken the place of SEO, just having a website out there, not always enough. Much more success just actually driving people to your store and promoting your store and trying to directly tell people where to go.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. A website is literally a needle in a haystack if you think about how many websites are online and how would somebody even know it was there.
It's sort of like, if you want them to find the needle, you need a bright red thread that you hang out of the haystack that somebody grabs onto. And that might be through an email or through social media comment or post, and then they follow it and do find your needle. But it's there for them to go to, but you have to put the work in to get them there.
And what are some of the ways that, sort of top of mind, Cory, if I have a website built, how [00:29:00] am I gonna drive people there?
Cory Hutsen: So, including your website on pretty much everything. Going back to the branding conversation. I mean, you want all your online channels to drive people, whether back to your Facebook or your website, but all of them interconnected.
So, I'm gonna have a link to my website and store on my Facebook, on my Instagram. If I do TikTok or any other social channels, I'm gonna have my Facebook on my website so everything's kind of circling back to each other. But you know, going from your packaging to business cards, to postcards, having your website there, if you are a farmer that's doing a farmer's market, you have your QR code to your signup form.
You have it very clear that you have a website where customers can go. So yeah, getting your website out in as many places as possible, 'cause again, it's gonna be very difficult for people to just find it on their own.
Janelle Maiocco: Randomly find it. Yeah. And I think the important thing [00:30:00] to shout out here is when we say quote unquote website, we really mean store.
Cory Hutsen: Right.
Janelle Maiocco: Right. I mean, the whole point of marketing is to drive sales. So, the whole point of marketing, we used to say, 'cause a lot of times, farmers will come to us knowing and being told by friends, like, get a website. And it's like, but if there's no way to buy from you, what's the point? I think internally we sometimes call that the billboard to nowhere.
Like, I have a big billboard, but I can't shop from you. So then, you've lost that engaged customer 'cause there's no call to action. There's no way to actually transact. And so, the whole point of driving everybody to your website is actually to drive them to your store to then make a purchase right when they're hot and interested and looking and reading and learning about your farm. That's the ideal time for them to make that first transaction or to find you or to get added to the email list so they can buy.
Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. And people have very short attention spans online.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah.
Cory Hutsen: So, posting directly to the store link and getting them there, again, there's a reason Amazon [00:31:00] doesn't have a ton of other things going on on their website.
Like it's very focused on going there, making it easy to purchase byproducts because people have a very short attention span and can exit out and get buyer fatigue pretty quickly.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. It's interesting you say that, when you go to Amazon, you're not going through a landing page to then go click to their store.
You're just going straight to the store every time. Right? And I think when farmers are sending out newsletters, especially 'cause we have that integration with MailChimp, is they are adding items from their store right into those newsletters. They're not going to the website first. They're just gonna go shop, right?
So, they're literally skipping the website and just going straight to the store in many, many cases, especially once they know you as a farm, it's just like, I'm going straight to the store. And if I wanna see lovely pictures of your farm, they'll probably see that on social media. But it is important to have that branding landing page or billboard, if you will, for especially first timers who are showing interest in your farm.
Okay, I have another myth. Okay. Website is enough. Was myth number [00:32:00] one. Myth number two. On-farm pickup is enough.
Cory Hutsen: Again, unfortunately, going to say that is a myth as well, unless again, unless you're totally cool and you live in an amazing neighborhood and your farm smack dab in the middle of a bustling metropolitan area with a lot of neighbors.
But yeah, for most farmers, your buyers are out there, but a lot of 'em just don't even have the ability or the time to get to your farm to pick up their food. They want it.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Even if they are good intentioned.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, exactly. Like maybe they would love to come to your farm and they probably would, but they just do not have the time.
I'm a perfect example, as are you, Janelle. We work full-time jobs. I would love to spend more time at farms and going to pick up food, I want that food. But, I'm at a desk all day.
Janelle Maiocco: I will pay you money to bring it to me because I want the food so bad, I will pay you $10 or $15 or $20 to deliver it, all day, every day.
'Cause I know how valuable it is. And unfortunately, a lot of times too, you talk about [00:33:00] frequency, right? Like if on-farm pickup is the only option, I probably, even when I was a young mother with little kids running around, you know, maybe once or twice a month I would do that, right? Whereas if it's weekly delivery, I'm buying every single week, right?
Or I'm subscribing to the eggs or the milk or the beef or the pork because, it's consistent. I need it that often. I'd rather buy from you than the grocery store. I don't wanna backfill at the grocery store. I want to buy from the farmer every single time. Not just on the rare occasion I can go to the farm.
So interestingly statistically, it absolutely increases sales when you are offering pickup or delivery directly in communities, versus only on farm as the option.
Cory Hutsen: Well, and also gives you the ability to get more brand awareness out there.
Janelle Maiocco: That's fair.
Cory Hutsen: Right? And you know, you leave the farm whether you're doing deliveries and maybe even have your farm logo on your truck.
A lot of our farms will even have their QR on their truck or you're leaving boxes on doorsteps or doing pickups and people are seeing those boxes being like, oh, what's my neighbor getting? That [00:34:00] looks awesome.
Janelle Maiocco: It is awesome.
Cory Hutsen: Get a box of food on their doorstep. So yeah, not just the convenience factor, but it's a great opportunity to just, you know, get some brand visibility out there.
Janelle Maiocco: You are so spot on. Yes. Neighbors can create fomo. When I see somebody else getting farm eggs or getting chickens from a farmer, I want that too. Okay. I have another, myth if you will, just 'cause we run into these a lot and it's good to discuss. And so, I guess really when it comes to fulfillments in some cases, I know you talk a lot about this, but, farmers saying, Hey, customers are just like me. I know you have sort of that opposite conversation at times, like, you know, customers want what I want.
Cory Hutsen: Right. Yeah. It's a very common thing I share with some of my farmers that you're not your own ideal customer. So, when it comes to convenience, you know, I will have this conversation with farmers quite a bit.
Hey, how often are you ordering food? A lot of times for those farmers, it's almost never. For myself, who lives in a city, I have neighbors who order food every single night and they're [00:35:00] paying 50% of their total check in delivery fees and tips. So, a meal that would cost them $15 to pick up, even if it's right around the corner, they're paying $30 to get it directly to their door.
, So that's a huge example. Like, I promise you, there's people out there who want your products, who will pay increased price. The reason they're not buying from you is not because of price. I can assure you that, they are willing to pay that charge.
Janelle Maiocco: Can we say that again? Say that again.
Cory Hutsen: The reason people are not purchasing from you is not because price.
Janelle Maiocco: I think that's astonishing to a lot of farmers, to be fair. And I agree in some ways, right? Like it's ridiculous that we would pay $15, including delivery and tip to get my $15 dinner delivered, which is the example you gave. But, to your point, quote unquote, money's not the issue for folks.
And these are the people that want to buy farm food.
Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And we've talked about emails and MailChimp where so many industries are [00:36:00] driven by click now 50% off flash sale, buy one, get one free. That is not the marketing I've seen be successful with farms, 'cause again, it's not a price driven decision for customers. They're buying. They are consciously knowing that if they purchase from a farm, they're probably going to be spending more and wanna spend more than they would if they were going directly to the grocery store, because they're paying for quality, they're paying for products that were su stainably raised, where the animals were cared for.
You know, and has all these beneficial impacts on the environment and the nutrition aspects of it. So, there's a reason the nicest, most renowned restaurants in this country are farm to table restaurants and people are wanting that product and it's not because of price. So, that's not influencing their buying decisions as much as we may think.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. Happy to pay, just has to be easy, right?
Cory Hutsen: Yep, exactly.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay, next myth. Wow, we had a list of these, Cory, going into this conversation. I have to ship because there aren't enough customers near me. I think we're on myth [00:37:00] number four, that I have to ship.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, I can breeze through this one.
It is not the case. Not the case. A lot of times you farms can look into shipping and find out pretty quickly. It just not the best solution for their farm. One, unless you're ready to market, you know, marketing on a local level is difficult enough and we've shared some of the things you can do, but you may need to be prepared to market on a nationwide level if you're looking to.
Janelle Maiocco: Where do you even start?
Cory Hutsen: Exactly.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. From a shipping perspective, that's just a whole nut to crack. There are whole companies that are still trying to figure out how to market nationally. That is just crazy to think about. So yeah, start small, start local. But I think importantly, and it's not that shipping's bad, I mean, we have farms that certainly ship in addition to local delivery pickup. And frankly, a lot of those people who do ship, they already know the buyer on the other end. So, that's just sort of an extension of what they already do. But there are true costs associated with shipping that are [00:38:00] worth considering.
And that's probably a different podcast for another time in terms of, you know, what it means to be in the shipping business. But, if we pull it back to, I have to ship because there's not enough customers near me. I think you were given an example the other day of Will Harris. What was that?
Cory Hutsen: Yeah. And the Will Harris example resonated with me and just hit me very hard when I was listening to his book.
And you know, at this point, Will Harris is one of the most recognizable independent farms in this country. Right? He has been a major influencer for regenerative farming. And he used the example that if he were to dedicate all of his production, which is huge. Huge. I mean, his ground beef is in the Publix here in Nashville.
He's had partnerships with Whole Foods. And if all his production went to a set group of people, he could sustain about 16,000 families, right? 16,000 families. That's a lot. But at the [00:39:00] end of the day, like if you think about a town of 16,000 considered a, you know, relatively small or maybe midsize town, not even considered a city.
So again, I think a lot of farms can look at the fact like, well, I don't live near a major city, or I'm three hours away from the nearest major city. I can assure you everybody eats, your town of, you know, even 10,000 or 50,000 is more than enough customers. You can be extremely successful, you know, sectioning off just a little portion of that.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. It's really good to think about, like the customers are there locally. And whether you're trying to market locally or nationally, it's all, it's a marketing exercise. And actually starting by focusing local, you're actually, quote unquote, starting small.
You're actually starting very focused in terms of where you're gonna market, where you might do pickups or deliveries, or where your partnerships may be. So, it can be a pretty focused exercise to get started [00:40:00] for farmers. Let's talk a little bit then about consistency and small steps, 'cause I know, you often speak to this in terms of farms, like, Hey, let's just, you know, move the overwhelm aside. Let's start small. I think we had a conversation the other day and the word consistency came up multiple times. So, speak to that and how you're talking to farms, especially if they're, exercising that muscle for the first time or getting comfortable with marketing locally and how to begin and then grow that.
Cory Hutsen: Consistency is such a key thing, and it's the simplest thing you could do, but also one of the most important things you could do, whether that's consistently posting on Facebook or social media, or sending out that weekly email. I use the example, I could be on Facebook and be on a page that has 50,000 followers.
If they haven't posted in a year and a half, I'm not even going to be positive, they're still in business. I'm gonna be extremely hesitant to place an order. I'm probably not going to. If I go to a page that [00:41:00] has 50 followers, they're posting every day or every other day, they're posting pictures. It's clearly written by someone, I can tell there's someone behind it and they're clearly directing me where I can place my order and how I'm gonna get my order. I'm much more likely to purchase from that business than the one with 50,000 followers and not posting. But same thing, consistency with emails. I have farms that will tell me, like, they'll ask, well, how often do you send these newsletters?
And I'll tell 'em, well, you know, we recommend our farms that see the best results send weekly newsletters. And for them, which is, I understand, like, they feel like that can be their inundating customers. That's too much. Again, goes back to you're not your own ideal customer.
I understand as a farmer, you're out all day. You may only check your email once in the morning or once in the evening. But again, there's a lot of customers like myself who are on a computer. They have their email inbox open all day. The best way to communicate with them is via [00:42:00] email address or sending emails.
Janelle Maiocco: I'm just, I'm laughing because I, at some point along the way, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think email inboxes became like a Twitter feed, right? If a farmer's emailing their customer list once a week and they don't see it that day or within a couple days, they're not gonna ever see that one.
But if you email again the week later, maybe they'll happen to check their inbox at the right time and see the email. Right? It's sort of like, what's at the top of the inbox? 'Cause if it's a hundred emails below, it's not getting looked at, right? I mean, it's like if you are emailing them the once a week, they're not gonna open every single one.
It's just being up in front of them and staying top of mind for that time that they will go check it. It's just like Instagram or Twitter, you know, when you open it up, you're just seeing what's at the top.
Cory Hutsen: A hundred percent and it's also important on that note, Janelle, for farmers not to get discouraged.
Consistency also means that, you know, if you're not seeing that immediate results, doesn't mean you give up. Right? And I'll use this example, 'cause on top of MailChimp, in [00:43:00] Barn2Door, you have the ability to set automated order reminders. So, set it and forget it. Weekly reminder with just a button and a little message to drive your customers into the store.
'Cause again, average American shops twice a week for groceries, so I promise you're not inundating them with that. But, order reminders, MailChimp, if you don't have lines in the water, you're not gonna get a bite. So, it's extremely important to be consistent with that.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. Consistency's important.
I remember a few years back, talking with a farmer and like we kind of pulled teeth actually to have him do a pickup drop or like a meetup drop. And he did it one time and he is like, Nope, there weren't enough people. I'm not gonna do it again. And I just wanted to kind of beat my head against a wall because.
He's right, like one time isn't enough when you're offering a pickup or a delivery. And part of that is because you have to build the consistency for people to then lock, hook into that habit, right? So if, a neighbor's buying from you, it might take the next neighbor a couple weeks and the next neighbor [00:44:00] a couple weeks, but pretty soon it builds up over time and then they're like, oh yeah, once a month, I get my poultry from my farmer.
And it becomes their routine. But, you have to provide the routine for the customers to then sort of hook into. I don't know if you speak to that with farmers, but I know that consistency is a big deal.
Cory Hutsen: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and that's a tough thing when it comes to like deliveries where farms, it's kind of the chicken and the egg. Do I offer delivery first or can I get 20 customers to commit to before I offer delivery? 'Cause I don't wanna just do one delivery. And I get it, that's a really tough challenge, but, you know, it's not foreign to other businesses.
Well, sometimes you gotta start small and really build up that routine and habit and it'll come, but it may take some time.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And I think the important thing to note there is, you know, start with the pickup location. It might only be three people. But, with the goal of, Hey, I wanna grow to 10 and then I wanna grow to 20.
And if you're leaning into that and you're [00:45:00] asking those three people to share, or you're, you know, collecting emails in that area or whatever else, then you're growing it. So, yes, it might not quote unquote, feel worth it the first few times, right? Or the first couple weeks or deliveries or whatever else, but it is because you're actually investing in the long-term goal.
Cory Hutsen: Exactly.
Janelle Maiocco: Awesome. Okay, so what does success look like across, like if I'm a farmer, I come into you and you're like, okay, here's the best practices across a variety of marketing mechanisms. If I'm a farmer, what does success look like on social? What would you recommend? Like how often do I post? Do I have to post?
Cory Hutsen: My baseline for success on social media is posting three to four times per week. We use something and it's especially talked about in our actual Social Media Academy that we offer. But the three Es: entertain, educate, e-commerce. So, you have a really great blend of providing social media content just about the farm, 'cause people love seeing [00:46:00] pictures of just the animals or the day to day. People are interested in what goes on at farms, most people are very interested in seeing that. So, having that content with a mixture of actually promoting your store. But, if a farm is doing consistently three to four posts, per week, and I have some farms that are posting every single day, sometimes even twice a day, which is awesome.
But if you can just set yourself a little goal, like three to four posts a week, I think that's a great baseline to start seeing some results.
Janelle Maiocco: Well, and you don't have to be a design specialist or a media specialist or a marketing guru to just snap a photo on your farm. The interesting thing is, I don't know if many listeners know if you're one of our farmers, you probably do.
But we offer a marketing toolkit, which is essentially a monthly marketing packet for farmers that includes 50 plus graphic designs that are beautifully done by our design team for social media. It includes four to six pre-made seasonal MailChimp newsletters and [00:47:00] draft content for the newsletters and for social media posts.
So, it's sort of like it's the marketing kit, but at the end of the day, even with that kit, and we try to do like 90% of it, we can't be there to take a picture of when the cow was born, right? Or when you're starting a brand new project or literally creating a new greenhouse or starting a new plant, like trying to grow a new variety of something.
Those are the pieces that draw your local customers to you and make it about you and your farm and your brand. That's unique. That's so important and people love it and can delight in it, but it doesn't have to be fancy. It can be casual. And even if it's once or twice a week, just make sure your social media has a heartbeat, right?
Or, you know, get our toolkit 'cause it's amazing. And that can just help you get there in terms of minimizing the time required to do that. But yeah, social media is good. Did you have a final word on that?
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, just that you don't need to stress yourself out trying to come up, you know, no one's expecting you to be this incredible social media marketer doing [00:48:00] all your own design content. Like, I have so many farmers who are saving so much time posting the stuff off the marketing toolkit as well as just, you know, taking a fun video of what's going on with the cows or the baby lambs.
Janelle Maiocco: Mix it up.
Cory Hutsen: You know, I have farms that like some of my favorite posts are just when farms spread out all the packaged meat, what would be in a quarter cow. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that's such a good post. You're educating buyers, letting 'em know exactly how much beef's in a quarter.
It's fun to look at. It gets 'em excited, encourages people to buy. So, some simple things like that can be so effective.
Janelle Maiocco: Absolutely. I love it when people lay out the CSA box, Dirty Girl in California does such a good job of that with his produce. It's beautiful. Okay, and then emails, you said once a week.
Do they need to be long?
Cory Hutsen: No. No, email length can be totally at your own discretion. Like we have some farms that will send lengthy emails and they'll almost use it as a journal to build a brand connection or just a connection with their [00:49:00] customers where they'll lay out what's going on with their family on the farm, what they did.
They'll share the great things and they'll also share the hardships of being a farmer, so people can start to connect with them, 'cause there are a lot of challenges that go on with the farm and some farms are super transparent. And then, we have some farms that, you know, can be equally successful. Hey, here's a couple fun facts that happened on the farm, or here's a couple cool nutritional facts, or this is how much proteins in a pack of my primal ground beef.
And then they'll include, you know, they bank two or three photos from that week and then they're including, two products or so to link in with a couple store buttons. So, if you're spending hours upon hours doing your one email a week, I would encourage you to meet with us, or take a look at the marketing toolkit or come to office hours.
'Cause you know, you don't have the time being a farmer to be spending, you know, four or five hours a week on one email.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I love that. And no, it shouldn't take that much time. So, shorter and sweeter can [00:50:00] be fine if you wanna throw in a longer one and every so often, great. I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with farms who started with once a month newsletters, and then quickly shifted to once a week.
And that consistency again, in communicating with the buyers has been a game changer. They refuse to even miss once a week because it literally brings in sales every single time. I think two other best practices, have an online store and have some local pickup or delivery options. Any thought on that?
Cory Hutsen: Online store. Absolutely. At the end of the day, we want a place to direct all our marketing efforts, right? All our marketing efforts are pointing people to go to the online store. That's the end goal. Whether it's all the things we've talked about, flyers, posting on social media and newsletters, the finish line is the online store and getting all these efforts are to get people to go into your store, add stuff to the cart and check out.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep. It's a game changer. We've seen it change so many farm businesses for the better. It's incredible. [00:51:00] Awesome. Okay. Anything else, Cory, before we peel off? I know we've talked about so many good things.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah. I mean, I think if there's one big takeaway for me, you know, it is the consistency, social media, newsletters, every farm's gonna have different results. But if you're not doing anything, you know, you're not gonna see the results.
Janelle Maiocco: That's fair.
Cory Hutsen: You know, again, it's not enough to have a website and store. Having a Barn2Door store is an incredible thing, but, you know, you have to take the tactics to let people know that you do have that online store.
So, just being consistent with it and persevering, and, you know, relying on all these tools that are here for you.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. I, I love what you're saying. There is a little bit of what you put into it is what you get out of it. And we didn't even brush by a sort of paid social, you and I talked about that earlier, but, if you just look back on the entire podcast, we didn't even talk about paid social.
We literally talked [00:52:00] about all of the marketing efforts through social media, email, newsletter, local partners, you know, local business partners, QR codes, farmers' markets, et cetera. All of which are primarily free organic, you know, grassroots marketing truly. Which is really exciting. And the majority of farms don't do paid.
And are having thriving great success if they're just putting many of these tactics in place.
Cory Hutsen: Yeah, it's a great point, but I just wanted to say like, I know a lot of this is a lot of information.
It can be a little overwhelming, but start where you can start. I talk to farms all the time. Hey, set a benchmark for yourself that you can achieve. Like, even if that's five emails, 10 emails a month, that's awesome. That's gonna accumulate over time. Don't put all this pressure on yourself that you have to have a thousand followers in a month.
Or, if you don't have 250 emails in a couple weeks, you're not doing well. You're a busy farmer. Celebrate the wins. Like, you get five email addresses in a week. That's [00:53:00] awesome. That's five potential customers. So, give yourself some credit. There's places you can start, and start building the foundation.
Janelle Maiocco: I love that. I love it when you say celebrate the wins because it is make small, achievable goals and then celebrate. Right? It's a long game. It's not a short game. Right? I guess is another way to think about it. But start putting that one foot in front of the other.
The other thing you mentioned, and I just wanna say right before we peel off, is you did mention academy, and frankly, office hours. So, for farmers who are using Barn2Door or even thinking about using Barn2Door, it's good to know from a resource perspective, you can meet with Cory and other account managers similar to him in office hours.
We literally offer twice a day any day of the week, so that you can meet directly with folks who, like Cory, talk to farms all day every day, and are literally swapping ideas with farmers to help with the whole goal of helping farmers be successful, driving sales and building loyalty in their local communities.
So really powerful. Again, that's one-on-one office hours. And [00:54:00] then, separately, we mentioned a few times, academy classes. Yes, Barn2Door offers academy classes for everything from grassroots marketing to social media, email marketing and more. Interestingly, we're gonna have a podcast on that in the next couple weeks with Alex from Chucktown Acres who teaches our Grassroots Academy class.
So, listen to that one. If you wanna learn more information on the academy classes, they're short and sweet, but really high value, with typically 25 plus other farmers and just very rich conversations. So, with that in mind, I wanna extend my thanks to Cory for joining us on this week's podcast episode, and for sharing what he's learned and coached across hundreds of now very successful farmers. Again, if you wanna meet with members of the Barn2Door Success team like Cory, daily office hours twice a day, Monday through Friday, any day of the week. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.
We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase sales, crush marketing, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer just getting started transitioning to selling direct, [00:55:00] or if you've been at a while and wanna simplify your business, check out Barn2Door.com/Learn-More.
Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next [00:56:00] time.