Save Time with Farm Marketing in the Summer
This is the busiest time of year for many Farmers. You still want to attract Buyers, but you are spending time running deliveries, manning Farmer’s Market booths, packing orders and maintaining your other daily chores. You do not have time to spend hours manually marketing to potential Buyers every week.
There are time-saving automations you can deploy to bring ease to your marketing efforts, without adding hours to your current workload. Having a set schedule each month to plan efforts and using automated software will give your Farm the ability to market to more Buyers without added stress.
Plan your Marketing Efforts
To save time during the busy season, which can come with many unexpected changes, it is crucial to plan your marketing efforts in advance. Do not put off these tasks, or else you will risk not having time to post on socials or send newsletters, resulting in a missed opportunity.
Successful Farms put time on their calendar once a month to plan ahead for marketing and schedule posts and newsletters to automatically go live on certain days. In the beginning of each month, set aside an hour or two to plan and schedule your Farm marketing assets so you can focus on Sales the rest of the month.
When planning, map out upcoming holidays, Subscription and processing dates and Market locations. These are dates that will (typically) remain consistent throughout the season, so marketing assets with these details can be drafted and ready to send in advance.
Ensure you know when and where you are sharing certain information. You may not share a handful of on-Farm photos in a newsletter, but you can schedule them to go live on your Instagram. When you are strategic in your marketing efforts, they will spur more Sales.
Mailchimp Integration for Newsletters
Farm newsletters are most effective when sent at least once a week. These emails typically contain Farm updates, current product offerings, upcoming on-Farm events and pick-up, delivery and Farmer’s Market locations and times. It is important to target your communications to segmented groups. If your messages are targeted towards their wants/needs, they will be more likely to read and interact with the email, hopefully leading to a purchase from your Farm store.
Barn2Door integrates your Farm Buyers’ contact information into Mailchimp, including their purchase history. This makes it easy to target various types of Buyers you may serve. Using Mailchimp Customer Journey Builder, you can segment your audience into various lists, such as New, Loyal and Laggard Buyers. Each of these lists may require different communications to lead to a purchase, so separating them and creating messages tailored to each group is crucial to increase Sales.
Mailchimp Customer Journey Builder will help create drip campaigns to engage each contact list. Buyers will be enrolled in a campaign that sends communications encouraging loyalty to your Brand, sending emails at optimal times for each contact. New Buyers will receive your Farm story, instructions to order and your pick-up and Market locations/dates.
Your Farm can enable Order Reminders so Buyers never miss the chance to secure a purchase. This will remind Buyers of your products, and why they first purchased from your Farm. Farmers who send regular Order Reminders enjoy +30% higher average order volume. You may miss out on profits when you do not utilize these email campaigns.
Meta Business Suite for Social Media
Farms find success posting several (3-4) times per week on their social media profiles. This may include 1-2 grid posts for more important updates, and a couple story posts to highlight products or a day on the Farm. While story posts are typically uploaded in-the-moment, grid posts are more thought-out, and may require scheduling to save time during the busy season.
Using Meta Business Suite, you can analyze the performance of your social posts to see what your followers are most engaged with, and schedule posts for the future. If you choose to set aside time each month to plan marketing efforts and schedule posts ahead, using this platform will allow you to lay out a ‘content calendar’ for posts in advance.
Creating a content calendar will give you an overview of your future posts, ensuring you are not posting too much of one topic (such as on-Farm events), but instead posting a variety of content (product photos, delivery dates, etc.). Meta Business Suite gives your Farm the capability to schedule and plan out posts of Instagram and Facebook, to ensure you are marketing to Buyers on multiple channels.
Barn2Door’s Marketing Toolkit
Ahead of each month, Farmers can access seasonal materials to super-charge marketing efforts. Barn2Door’s monthly Marketing Toolkit offers:
50+ seasonal social media graphics
3+ premade Mailchimp newsletter templates
10+ social media content prompts
1-2 recipes (with photos!)
10 sample subject lines and 2 sample newsletter drafts
These easy and ready-to-use Farm graphics and prompts will streamline planning your marketing efforts. Each month you will be ready to post on socials and send newsletters with recipes, Subscription call-outs, Farm puns and holiday graphics, ready to post with prompts. Use Meta Business Suite to lay out your posts, using pre-made templates or creating your own.
You will be prepared for email and social media updates for holidays, product announcements and Farm Subscription/bundle box offerings. Reduce stress and take planning off your plate, or simply get ideas for your own marketing creations with the monthly toolkit. Consistently engaging Buyers with a variety of content will encourage purchases, build trust and make your Farm business look more professional.
Conclusion
Plan your Farm marketing efforts in advance and use software to organize and post your content so you can focus on Sales in the busy season. Successful Farmers utilize automations to target communications to different audiences. From social media to email marketing, we have the data and software to help you attract Buyers in your area.
Barn2Door offers software for Independent Farmers to create and promote their brand, sell online and in-person, and save time managing their business. If you’re curious to learn more, watch this 5-minute video.