Your farm has more to offer than only what you grow and raise. Your customers are hungry to peer behind the scenes of what it takes to grow food and reconnect where it comes from. There are opportunities for farms of all sizes to bridge the gap between teaching and inviting their community and customers to learn more.
As a customer, you learn and see firsthand how your food is grown, what it takes to succeed in farming, and better understand our food and farming systems. This will inform your future decisions about what to eat, how it affects your health, and its impact beyond the plate.
As a farm, you connect with your community and customers directly, invite them onto your land, build trust, share your story and knowledge, and market your brand simultaneously. A farm's impact can also spread far beyond the farm gates through podcasts and webinars shared online across social media.
Marketing in the age of the internet is competitive, but the potential reach is virtually limitless. It’s essential to differentiate yourself and your farm from others and stand out, but how you go about that greatly depends on your brand story, goals, and vision.
Some farms' content and personality are well-suited to humor, while others approach it from a more serious and intellectual angle. However, you bundle your brand and expertise with as much authenticity and transparency as possible.
The digital marketing landscape is diverse, offering multiple mediums for content creation and consumption. Your favored style of content creation will depend on your personality, expertise, creativity, and markets, so it is worth identifying beforehand.
However you create will ultimately combine storytelling, education, and entertainment. You can share educational content related to agriculture in general, dive into details of soil health or regenerative agriculture, or share insights into what you raise and grow on your farm. Each one of these topics can have a blend of story, learning, and fun, so let that creativity express itself in your content.
If possible, the most effective educational marketing strategy is to invite them to visit the farm.
Depending on your type of farm and personal goals, inviting your community and customers for regular open houses or seasonal tours can be an incredible marketing opportunity. Not only are you introducing yourself to potential customers, but you’re also creating a memorable experience for them!
Visiting a farm is highly novel for many people, as most aren’t typically exposed to the world of agriculture. If your farm is highly seasonal, such as a fruit orchard, you could host a U-Pick event with live music on the weekends when the fruit is ripe. If you offer a CSA box for your customers, have the pickup location be your farm or at peak season host an exclusive potluck-style dinner for the members at the farm!
The possibilities are endless, but opening your farm to the community and customers expands your network and strengthens reciprocity. It also creates memories and reconnects us to the land that sustains us.
Using your farm as an event space or host can be another great way to expose it to a broader audience. You can collaborate with experts, universities, and non-profits to educate and host field days on your farm.
Some of these workshops could be aimed at other local farmers to deepen their farming skills and agronomy knowledge. Other events could be held for the broader community, who may have smaller gardens and want to learn more about composting at home.
Creating a positive association between your farm’s brand, an educational event, and an inspired customer is a relationship ripe for loyalty and gratitude. Often, these events may require some initial investment to host well, but the returns from the relationships will be profitable as the seasons go by.
Alongside inviting people to visit your farm in person, spreading your story online allows you to expand your reach and potentially broaden your offerings. Using social media for our farm has allowed us to connect instantly with those on the opposite side of the country and far corners of the planet.
Everyone has a story to share and knowledge to teach others, and you are no different. There are numerous podcasts, especially some of which you probably listen to, that you could ask to interview you. Long-form conversations are some of the most effective marketing because they allow listeners to hear your whole story, rather than the soundbites and highlights.
If you are feeling really ambitious, maybe start your own podcast! It can be a great strategy for creating consistent content, showcasing your expertise and those of your guests, and, if even mildly successful, a potential new revenue source through sponsorship and collaborations.
What seems like regular everyday chores to you will inspire others and spark curiosity among many more. You can document your daily highlights and challenges in real-time using the stories feature across social media. These posts last 24 hours and are a great way to create content quickly.
I like thinking about content as more of a documenting process than a creative one. When creating content, we tend to get “writer’s block” when we find time. Every day, however, there are opportunities to capture moments and share them with your story as they happen.
These brief pieces of content are more of a documentation process of what is going on right now and have a sense of exclusively to them, since they are brief in nature. They also allow for lessons to be shared even as you are learning and observing what’s happening on the farm.
Consumers want to reconnect to the land and have more relationships with how our food is being grown and who is growing it. They are hungry for knowledge and education about farming, how the soils work, and what it takes to grow healthy food. Herein lies an opportunity for your marketing strategy to integrate your story, expertise, and experience to connect with them on a deeper level by teaching them.
Local Line can help you seamlessly integrate these stories into your digital marketing strategy. Connect with consumers on a deeper level by sharing your story, expertise, and experiences to educate and inspire.
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