Insights from Your Local Coffee Shop When Investing in Your Farm Brand
A Farm Brand is a highly valuable tool to drive loyalty and fuel sales. In fact, 43% of Buyers will spend more money on brands they trust! An investment in your Farm brand is vital to your business long-term.
More than just a logo, your Farm brand is the cumulative experience customers have with your business in person, online, through emails, and while shopping and consuming your products. And with the rise in social media, it’s more important than ever to make sure your Farm makes an emotional connection with your buyers, who are targeted by other competing brands every day.
The top 4 factors buyers use to describe why they’re loyal to a brand are price, quality, experience, and convenience. These directly relate to the 5 Levers of Farm Success that are essential to the core of any business operation.
Your Local Coffee Shop. How do local cafes beat Starbucks --- a billion-dollar conglomerate? Let’s take a look at the tactics local coffee shops implement (which your Farm can use) to build a strong, local brand:
Quality: A local cafe provides a higher quality product. Whether the coffee is brewed more carefully, sourced from a specific area, or provides custom latte art, the product local coffee shops offer is higher quality than what a coffee chain like Starbucks offers. Quality over quantity is essential to communicate with buyers.
Experience: A local coffee shop truly values its buyers as each one of them is a member of their community. By providing exclusive deals to valued customers or through remembering their coffee orders, a local coffee shop strives to make buyers feel special in a way Starbucks does not.
Price: While a local cafe may offer more expensive products, the price often reflects the quality. Local businesses charge a higher price because their products are premium. Buyers want to support local businesses; in fact, 80% of buyers will pay more for a locally produced product (versus commodities). Local cafes aren’t afraid to charge a higher price, knowing customers value their products.
Convenience: A local coffee shop provides a simplified ordering experience with limited menu options. Starbucks creates fancy coffee drinks where buyers can experience choice paralysis as they are faced with too many choices. By simplifying the available options at the local coffee shop, buyers can make quicker purchase decisions.
Standing Out Among a Billion-Dollar Budgets
Large corporations often spend millions of dollars creating a custom website, hiring a team to manage their social media, and offering customer perks that make it convenient to shop from them. When competing against big conglomerates, you may ask --- how can your Farm can stand out? Luckily, you have the upper hand. Here are three (3) reasons why buyers will choose your Farm products versus commodity offerings:
Local Products. The unique, one-on-one experience of a local Farm cannot be matched. When Buyers go to a grocery store, there’s no interaction with the owner, no story, and no explanation about how the products were produced. At your Farm, sharing your story and regularly engaging buyers on all channels (web, mobile, social, and email) will allow customers to form an emotional connection with your Farm and products. 94% of buyers said they’re highly likely to recommend a brand they felt emotionally engaged to. Therefore, investing in building your Farm Brand will pay dividends.
Convenience. When your Farm offers a simple purchasing experience - the ability to order anywhere, anytime online, you will create a loyal network of buyers. 90% of Americans have made a self-serve order online in the preceding 12 months. With a streamlined purchasing experience, buyers can subscribe to your products, access convenient pick-up locations, and get orders delivered to their doorsteps with ease. When it’s easy to purchase from your Farm, customers will return.
Premium Products. Buyers can purchase commodity products like beef or produce at any grocery store. However, highlighting what makes your products unique will help your Farm stand out. Highlighting the unique qualities and attributes of your products (e.g., grass-fed, organic, home-grown-by-heroes) will be the tipping point to creating a loyal network of buyers - who will consistently return to purchase from your Farm.
Win with a Local Brand
Local brands regularly win against the big conglomerates. Small businesses thrive in their communities by being transparent, trustworthy, and offering personalized experiences. Sharing your Farm story across all channels and increasing transparency about your Farm business will help build trust in your brand.
Personalizing your Buyer’s experience - sending targeted emails, engaging face-to-face at the farmer’s market or during a delivery stop, and responding to comments on social media - creates a connection that is unique to your Farm.
Branding is a vital component of your Farm business. Taking the time to invest in building your Brand will reflect how people view your business and perceive the value of your products. By providing a unique Farm experience, meeting customers’ expectations of convenience, and with a premium product offering, your Farm will win.
Barn2Door provides an all-in-one solution to grow and manage your Farm business. If you’re curious to learn why successful Farms run on Barn2Door, watch this 5-minute video.