Farm Marketing: In-Season vs. Off-Season with Old Rich Valley
In this week's episode, Janelle, and Amy Campbell from Old Rich Valley Farm discuss how to market your Farm in season vs. the Off-Season.
From scheduling posts to securing Pre-Orders, there are many ways to maintain cash flow year-round for your Farm.
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Janelle Maiocco: Welcome to the Direct Farm 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 Farmers selling Direct online and in person.
I'm happy to speak with Amy from Old Rich Valley Farm in Virginia today. Amy is part of our Farm Advisor Network and they've built a online to expand their farm sales. Today, we'll be discussing marketing in the off season versus the in season, or busy season. When you're an independent farmer, you're [00:01:00] ultimately responsible for marketing and selling your products.
While this is a bit of extra work, versus using aggregators and distributors, it also means more controls over pricing and a wider profit margin. There are best practices when it comes to marketing your farm, and times when you put in extra work building up and maintaining customers. I'm excited to talk to Amy about how their marketing has changed over the course of a year.
And welcome, Amy. So glad to have you on the podcast today.
Amy Campbell: Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Janelle Maiocco: Lots to talk about for sure. Just so folks know a little bit about you before we get started, so they know a little more about your farm. Can you just share where you live, what you're currently selling, what items you're obviously growing on your farm, and then how do people get your food, in terms of where do they buy it and then how do they get it, from a pickup or, sort of a fulfillment perspective.
Amy Campbell: Sure. So, our farm, we've been at it for about five years, maybe? Selling directly. It's just me and my husband and our [00:02:00] kids with us, and we are all pastured proteins. So we've got, beef and pork and chicken. Our chicken is seasonal, but everything else is year round. And then, as far as distributing, we sell at one farmer's market.
We're pretty rural. Some people come out to the farm just in our local community, but, we also do monthly pickup sites too, and some of those are three hours away, we have monthly pickup sites, to probably about seven locations.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Seven locations. Awesome. Wow. So, that's the bulk of it.
I was curious if you were doing farmer markets yet. So, that's great to hear. I do want to shout out because to your point, I think you did some commodity farming and then transitioned to direct to consumer five or six years ago. Correct?
Amy Campbell: That's right. My husband has farmed his whole life.
He grew up on a farm and just beef cattle. That's what his dad has always done, and so when we first got married, that's what we did. We bought a whole herd of cows and we were trying our best to make [00:03:00] it work on the commodity market. And we realized it wasn't going to work on the commodity market.
Then, we read about Joel Salatin and realized we'd decided there was a better way to farm. And so, we have made a lot of transitions. Will started, we started selling directly I guess about six, maybe six years ago, and then I quit my full time teaching job and came to also be a full time farmer.
Janelle Maiocco: Wow. That is very inspirational. I hate to say it, but we all love the good story of moving from commodity to more sustainable and also direct, right? I feel like, I don't know, you tell me, but doesn't it give you just more control over your business?
Amy Campbell: Oh yeah, it's good and bad in that it gives you more control over your business, your pricing, who your customers are, you know your customers, which is something we love about the direct model. But, you also have to go find your customers and it's a lot harder to get that product to them, instead of, we used to just sell a whole big [00:04:00] tractor trailer load of cows at one time. And a couple of those would be all the checks we needed to hopefully pay for the farm. And so, it was a lot less work as far as one and done, but sometimes that wasn't enough to pay for the farm.
And then, what are you going to do? You don't have any way of changing the prices.
Janelle Maiocco: So really, that was a big piece of it, right? Was just your ability from a profit perspective and controlling those prices.
Amy Campbell: It was, it really was.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And then you're right, it creates work because now you're an independent farmer selling direct and it's your business, and you have to do the marketing and sales, right?
So, I appreciate that. It is the extra work. And that's why we, one of the reasons we love to talk about and unpack sort of marketing best practices, because sometimes there's some great efficiencies that can be found, right? And I know that benefits a lot of other farmers who are trying to do the same thing.
Independent farmers like you often seek us out for different business reasons and priorities. We definitely get folks who are just beginning. They're just [00:05:00] building their brand, and what you did, which was transitioning in, right?
Which is similar in terms of, hey, we've got to grow our customers. We've got to grow our brand, and then we also have farms, interestingly, that come to us later. They've been farming for a number of years. It's not so much about customer growth, it's more about the rhythm of business, and saving time on some of their workflows and managing things like orders and finances and fulfillments and deliveries, etc.
So, it's interesting. You've been with us for both, I feel like, right? Because, didn't you sign up back in 2019 and you were pretty largely in growth mode. And now you're more like, let's, you know, steady Eddie. Cause because to your point, I think you said this in a prior podcast, with two of you and a family, there's a max of what you can do.
Amy Campbell: Yes, yeah, we're really not seeking to grow a whole lot more than we are currently. We just hope to maintain and obviously a little growth here and there with customers, because you always are going to lose some. [00:06:00] But yeah, maintenance is our goal right now. When we transitioned into farming or selling directly, we were on Facebook a lot and we weren't even on Instagram yet, but just Facebook.
We did not have an email, really. We finally set up an email address. We were just using our personal account for a long time.
Janelle Maiocco: Yep.
Amy Campbell: We had no website. We didn't have any of that, we were handing out flyers with our pricing, then we would have to go up on our pricing.
And then, people had those flyers and weren't our current prices. So, there was a lot looking back, that Barn2Door has just helped tremendously. We no longer get orders coming in through Facebook Messenger and text and email and just everywhere, we just send everybody to the website where the inventory is hopefully up to date on our end.
That's something we still struggle with, but, if we can keep our inventory up to date, it streamlines the process of people ordering and then getting that meat to them and remembering their orders.
[00:07:00] That's huge.
Janelle Maiocco: All really helpful. I love that you were talking about what it felt like at the very beginning, which is different once you're a few years in, and probably testing a little bit.
It's almost like you need to spend even more time up front when you're just growing that initial customer base. And I wanted to talk about those sort of the three parts of customers of marketing. And it really, I think, lines up pretty well with your business, which is the first thing you care about is getting customers.
That doesn't go away. Like to your point, you'll always lose them. So, you need to replace them. But, when you're first starting or transitioning, you need to find them and grow them. And then, the next is keeping customers. And then of course, the third piece of that is then driving consistent sales from those customers.
Right? So, I'd love to learn from you. Let's back up to the getting customers when you first were transitioning, when you're first building your brand, and you're getting the cadence of business, you mentioned, you were at the beginning of your brand, you're handing out flyers, what were all the things that you tried, and then what did success start to look like?[00:08:00]
Amy Campbell: Yeah. So, we started by going to about four farmers markets. So, over the years, we just found that a couple of them just had less traction, maybe less customers. So, we're currently only doing one. And then, we use another one as a delivery site once a month.
Starting at the farmer's markets, and we are currently still at one, has really helped a lot at getting those customers. The one city that we still have a farmer's market in is our biggest delivery. That's still where we have the most customers coming from.
So, the farmer's markets were huge, just getting your face out there. Facebook was really big for us. That was while it was still, still plenty big. And we were in the midst of having cute kids, so we had lots of things that we posted about.
Janelle Maiocco: Was it personal pages or did you start a farm page?
Amy Campbell: We did start a farm page. Once we came up with our name to sell directly, we started a farm page. Our kids are out there farming with us [00:09:00] every day. Lots of pictures and videos and that helps, and I think as far as marketing, that's what you want.
People want to connect with you. They want to know you as a farmer, you as a person, they want to be a part of your family. And so, the more you can share about what your family is doing on the farm and how you're farming and what your day looks like, that is something that they're going to value what you're doing.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And so, it sounds like casting a wider net early on with farmers markets was good and you learned quickly which were the more productive ones. And then flyers, did you stop doing flyers? And then, you must have started collecting emails somehow, too.
Amy Campbell: Yes, so we started collecting emails, and we were much later in than we should have been in collecting those emails and, we now have MailChimp where we send out a weekly email, but we did not start sending that weekly email until probably two years ago.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay.
Amy Campbell: Two or three years ago. And we [00:10:00] should have started that a long time ago. So for anybody listening, start sending your weekly email now, and start collecting those email addresses. We were really just relying on Facebook. And now, especially the way Facebook is now, you have no clue who's going to see your posts.
And you don't know if they're going to see what you're putting out, what your specials are or what you're doing. And so, we definitely were relying heavily on Facebook. And so, now we lean more towards email marketing, for sure. But yeah, we stopped, we finally signed up for Barn2Door. We are very technologically ignorant, both my husband and I.
Janelle Maiocco: You're probably not, you're probably just being hard on yourself.
Amy Campbell: We are not very good at that. And I tried, I probably tried five times to make a website for ourselves. Not even like to sell just, Hey, here's who we are. And put some pictures up there. And I couldn't even do that.
So, Barn2Door was the perfect fit for us, because they created a beautiful website for us. And then, also had the [00:11:00] site where we could sell our products. So, that's huge. And then, they also taught me how to send a MailChimp email. And so...
Janelle Maiocco: Amazing.
Amy Campbell: I mean, we would not be doing that without the support.
And that's been a huge game changer for our farm.
Janelle Maiocco: Fantastic. So, you ended up with a site, I guess you were signed up in 2019. So, it's been three, four years since you've had a website and a store online.
Amy Campbell: Mm hmm, yep.
Janelle Maiocco: Got it, okay. Did you start sending emails right away or is that, you said it was about two years ago that you started sending newsletters?
Amy Campbell: Yep, just about two years ago, where we started doing our, and well, probably four years ago we were sending some emails, but they were very sporadic here and there. So, a couple years ago is when we did every Friday, we send our weekly email.
Janelle Maiocco: It's great because it's like trial and error.
What works best. So, it's great to hear what you've adopted, what's evolved for you. If you were to give yourself one great piece of advice for five years ago, [00:12:00] what you know today, if you're like, turn around and say, okay, Amy, Amy from five years ago, here's the advice to grow your brand and transition and start to access and grow your customers.
Amy Campbell: Yeah, that's a good question. I would say consistently emailing your customers because, I think it's very true. I've heard it a million times, but if you are not in direct contact with your customers frequently, they will forget about you, and it's not their fault. There is a lot going on in this world.
And so, you got to keep yourself up in front of them as much as you can without being overly annoying. But, if you can just keep reminding them that you're still farming and here's why, then they'll be connected.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I appreciate that. I promised to ask you about busy season versus an off season.
Is it fair to say that you have an off season? That's not even necessarily a fair assumption, right? Because I feel like farmers are very year round and it depends [00:13:00] on the product mix. Do you have a lighter time and a busier time?
Amy Campbell: We do, and that changes. Our chicken season is during the summer months.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay.
Amy Campbell: So, roughly March through October. And so, we are done with chickens and that takes a lot of our time. I homeschool, so as soon as we finish with our chicken season, we kick into a different gear. And farm wise, we still have the pigs and the cows.
And so my husband, he pretty much does all the actual farm chores during the winter, and I just help as needed. And then, we also have a farm kitchen where we make broth and stuff. So, things like that are just year round. But overall the winter is much slower. In the summer we go sunup to sundown.
And we never stop really.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh my goodness.
Amy Campbell: And so in the winter, the sun is not out as much. And so, that helps us actually come in.
Janelle Maiocco: Wow.
Amy Campbell: And we need it.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I know, right? You need to balance as much as you can. [00:14:00] So, let's talk about that next phase then, which is the keeping of your customers, right?
And you just mentioned keeping them engaged, keep reminding them that you exist by sending them those newsletters once a week. And then, what does it look like in the winter months? Do you think about marketing to your customers differently in the winter months than you do when it's in the thick of the summer?
Like what changes for you?
Amy Campbell: Yeah, it's a little bit harder in the winter just as far as taking good pictures out on the farm, because, one, I'm not out there as much. And our kids aren't out there quite as much. And just as far as getting good pictures, and if you have a good picture, then you remember to post it and you remember to do that.
And if you have to be more intentional about it, it can slip your mind. So, one thing I like to do, I am still a paper, pencil kind of person. So, when I get my planner every year in January, I like to sit down and use that time to sketch out almost a year at a glance.
Janelle Maiocco: [00:15:00] Yeah.
Amy Campbell: For marketing, and so, that's like, look at the holidays, and not write down everything, obviously.
But just plan out some ideas. And so I kinda, I have a list in that planner, I'll have a list of recipe ideas that when there's a month or a week that I can't think of anything, I can go look at that recipe and send it and just different ideas of things to talk about. I think the winter, if it is slower, it's a good time to sit down and write a little bit longer emails or posts explaining the difference in organic and not organic or pasture raised, and CAFOs and labels, all of these things your customers may not know about if you don't explain it.
And so, just using that time to educate your customers and plan. Just sit down and plan. My husband, he likes to say, You're not going to hit something you don't aim at. And you don't have a plan of what do you want your customers to do?
Do you want them to sign up for your CSA? Do you want them [00:16:00] to join your subscription? What are you going to want them to, if this is your off season and you. really don't have anything to sell. What are you going to want them to do when that busy season starts back? And so making plans and even making content now, and saving it.
Janelle Maiocco: It sounds to me like there might be a teeny bit more time to think.
Amy Campbell: Yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: And write. And I love that because, having talked to some other farmers, they have definitely emphasized the fact that when they send newsletters that include the educational piece or the FYI of what the food system is really like out there and why you're so different than commodity and CAFOs and everything out there that's not nutritious per se or not as healthy, that means that they almost get a better response to those emails and newsletters, even in terms of sales.
Amy Campbell: Oh, yeah, we've found that if you can show a picture of the grass after the chickens have gone across it, and show that regenerative [00:17:00] agriculture and explain why, of course, they're going to want to buy that chicken versus just, hey, here's a sale on this chicken. So, when you can show, in your words and with pictures what's happening, but you don't have time to sit down and write a long post when you are working all day long in the summer.
If you can write that content ahead of time and then pull it, make sure you know what you've got there and then pull from those resources. That's a big time saver in the summer.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah. And I suspect it's fine to have a mix of really short ones and longer ones as well.
Amy Campbell: Oh yeah.
Janelle Maiocco: How important do you think is it to have a shop button or links in your emails and newsletters for those customers when they're opening them?
Amy Campbell: Oh, yeah, you want to train your customers to hit those buttons. I have pretty much after every single section, I've got some sort of button like visit the blog, visit our store.
Oh, you want bacon? Here's the link. And, I bet there's seven or eight buttons in my email.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, fabulous. [00:18:00]
Amy Campbell: Yeah, every week. And it's neat with MailChimp, you can go and look which buttons are they clicking on and you can see which ones are getting the most traction. Does Buy Now or Shop or what seems to work.
Janelle Maiocco: Do you have any ah-hahs or trends from having tested so many buttons and words?
Amy Campbell: I do think shop, and shop now. I think the now actually does help. It's a little bit more of a this might not be there later, do it now kind of trigger. Anytime that there's a recipe about bacon, then I'm going to have a link, a button that goes straight to the bacon.
Janelle Maiocco: To individual items.
Amy Campbell: To that item.
So that way, if I'm talking about something specific, or I talk about we had chicken wings for dinner this week, here's how we cooked it. And then, of course, I'm going to have a link for those chicken wings.
Janelle Maiocco: Got it. That makes a ton of sense. Okay, and do you send your weekly newsletters pretty close to year round?
Amy Campbell: [00:19:00] We do. Uh huh. We started about two years ago. We send it every single week without fail.
Janelle Maiocco: Amazing.
Amy Campbell: It's funny because sometimes we really are putting it together right then before we send it. Our goal is to get it done like the day before, but most of the time we are really sending it on the day.
Janelle Maiocco: Understood.
It sounds like it's really, really important. What happens if you don't send one? I guess you've been sending them so consistently for two plus years now.
Amy Campbell: Yeah, and it's funny, right now actually we have, just as an example to see who all is clicking on it and stuff, another marketing thing I guess would be, we have two Airbnb cabins, and they're always a little bit slower in the winter, so they're not booked out as much this winter.
And so, last week we sent a thing about, hey, a cabin giveaway. We'll give away two nights stay, all you have to do is reply to our email. And we've had like a hundred people just reply to our [00:20:00] email. And so this is our off season, our less busy season, but yet we're having a whole lot more people open our emails and reply to our emails, which is hopefully going to keep us out of their spam folder and keep us in their inbox.
And so we try to do little things like that in the off season, one to make people hopefully still open our emails, but for us, the winter is not the off season as far as selling. We have meat subscriptions, and so, our deliveries are year round, once a month. And so, I'm always trying to remind people to order, and you can add on something to your subscription.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's fantastic. I wonder if subscriptions are their own form of marketing, because people are getting product once a month.
Amy Campbell: Yeah, we are not marketers. We do not have any marketing background. So, we do not have very many posts that are just trying to sell our product, to be honest.
What we hope to do is to sell you on [00:21:00] our farm, our family. And so, we do a whole lot of sharing our recipes, sharing how we're eating dinner, and we're cooking from scratch and we eat dinner almost every single night, even though it's not always convenient. We are sharing that and we hope that our customers will value that and see the importance of a family dinner and latch onto that.
And so the subscriptions, yeah, that's something that people like the idea of a half a cow in their freezer all the time and the subscriptions we do that allows them to have that half a cow in their freezer, but a little bit at a time, and that way they don't have to have a chest freezer and stuff.
Janelle Maiocco: Because many people don't. I will tell you, you have to pat yourself on the back though. You say you're not marketers, and yet you've learned so much in the last four or five years, especially because you've had to do exactly what all marketers tried to do.
You have to find customers, you have to grow your customer base, and then you have to engage them regularly to drive sales and you're doing it.[00:22:00] And to your end, and really your brand is you, and so sharing, being personal and having a personal brand for people to connect with is actually the best kind of marketing really, right?
Cause it's more about that authenticity and that brand, than it is about moving just a product without a story.
Amy Campbell: That's right. And that's another thing to think about in the off season, your less busy season. That's when I do a lot of listening to marketing podcasts.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay.
Amy Campbell: Actually, ones that are about selling CSAs or selling subscription type things.
And then just reading marketing books. I know probably five years ago, I bought myself the StoryBrand.
Janelle Maiocco: Yes! That's a great book!
Amy Campbell: I bought myself for Christmas. I had time to sit down and read that book, and in that book he does a great job of explaining that your customer is the hero.
The story is not about you. And [00:23:00] as a farmer, we can grow a lot of animals and have a lot of meat. But, if the customer doesn't value that pasture raised meat and value the same thing we do, nobody's gonna buy it. And so, the customer is the hero because they're the ones that are coming out to the farmer's market in the cold and rain to get their monthly subscription, or pick up their meat.
And so, we really try to focus, not so much on ourselves because, we tell our story and what we're doing, but we really want our customers to know that we cannot do this without them. And so, I also try to go back to that StoryBrand, took a lot of notes when I read that book.
Janelle Maiocco: Tell the listeners one more time the name of that book, because that is a really classic, great, well known marketing book.
Amy Campbell: Yes, StoryBrand, and it might be StoryBrand Marketing by, Donald Miller.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay.
Amy Campbell: And so, that really did, just kind of change the way that we [00:24:00] tell our story, and make it a whole lot less about us and more about our customers.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's fantastic. And there is so much to share, not only with what's going on on the farm, but all of the different ways that you are growing those animals in a really responsible, respectful way.
And frankly, I just always love it when farmers successfully get food on the tables, because once people taste the difference, that right there is an association back to the brand, right? They're like, wow, not only do I love the story and the mission and the passion behind this farmer, but it tastes better than anything at the store.
Amy Campbell: Oh yeah, that's definitely true. And, if you're buying produce or meat, you're cooking at home. And I think that that is something that's missing today, is families are so busy that we just eat out. We live in the middle of nowhere, so we can't eat out all the time, so it's very rare that we do.
I think that families are just on the go and eating fast food and eating out. And so, the [00:25:00] more you can remind them how important it is to eat as a family, it's healthier for you and it's just better for your family to connect, that's something we hope that we are sharing with our customers.
Janelle Maiocco: A win, win, win, which is always great. So then, we've talked about getting customers, keeping customers, and then helping them buy as often as possible, right? Like it's the frequency of your loyal customers. What recommendations or what have you uncovered that works well for you at your farm in terms of driving the most consistent sales?
Amy Campbell: The subscriptions are huge. I would say, and I have not looked in a while, but I would say over 50 percent of our sales are subscriptions. And the only way to advertise a subscription is to share what other customers are saying about it or just, again, sharing your transparency, you're being transparent, about what your farm is doing, and what your values are, and then [00:26:00] you're going to hopefully find people that really want local or really want the health benefits of pasture raised meats.
But you're sharing your story. And then, those subscriptions are people that wouldn't necessarily come back and put a big order in every month, but they are because it's automatic coming back, they come every single month to pick up their meat. So that's huge for us.
And then as far as the rest of them, we have some customers that get a half a cow. Every year or every other year. And so, we just always like to check in with those people, once a year to say, have you been enjoying your cow?
Or, if your freezer gets low, let us know and we'll put you on the schedule. And so, just reminding them that you're still here and available if they want another purchase, another half a beef. And then, just the consistency of a weekly email is big, because I do go to a farmer's market every Saturday.
And so, we send our email out on Friday and then the market is the next day. And so, that's a good reminder to place your [00:27:00] orders for the farmer's market tomorrow.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, so they can place orders a day ahead and pick up at the farmer's market.
Amy Campbell: They can. We are typically filling orders, I think the cutoff is at noon, so they get the email and they've got to put it in by noon or something like that and then we can fill those orders for the next day.
Janelle Maiocco: Awesome. And then of course they can buy in person, which is great.
Amy Campbell: Yes, and that's one thing at the farmer's market, is a good thing to one, collect emails.
Janelle Maiocco: I was going to ask that, like your best advice for collecting emails, because that's a big deal, right? As you're literally growing your list of customers.
Amy Campbell: It is, and so, I just have a clipboard. I've got a couple of QR codes on there that they can scan to sign up for my email directly, or if they write their email down, I'll input their email for them. But I use that as to say, if you want more herd share information, our monthly subscriptions, I can send you that information [00:28:00] or I'll just add you to our email list, and you'll get our email just once a week.
But getting those emails, and then a lot of times if we're out of, I run out of chorizo almost every single week, and so I say, I had a bunch this morning, but if you'll pre order, I'll bring you some next week. And so, I think it's okay to run out of stuff at the farmer's market or maybe not even take everything say, sorry, we don't have ribeyes.
They're on our website though. If you want to go to the website and order.
Janelle Maiocco: Oh, I would so do that. I'm pre order for pickup. I love it. And hopefully they're buying even more, but it guarantees that they're going to show up too, right? When you're at a farmer market, having guaranteed foot traffic, despite the weather, it can be a winning proposition.
Amy Campbell: Oh goodness, that's a game changer. When you go with a whole truck full of coolers and you have no idea if anybody's going to buy your stuff and then you're going to bring it all home is very discouraging. But if you go and you know you've already [00:29:00] sold a couple hundred dollars worth of meat, then it makes it a lot more worth your time, for sure.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, that's fabulous. Good on you for trying four different farmers markets. Did you always collect emails at farmers markets like from the get go, or is that something that you sorted out as you grew?
Amy Campbell: We did not. Yeah, we have just been collecting emails probably the last three or four years.
Janelle Maiocco: Okay. Wow, your business has evolved. Holy smokes. That's really exciting.
Amy Campbell: Oh, yes.
Janelle Maiocco: That's great. I love it. I appreciate all the feedback, on obviously getting customers, keeping them and then encouraging frequent purchases from those customers and getting them to show up from a foot traffic perspective to the farmer's market.
That's a big deal. So, I have a question. Now that you're in this mode, like you successfully have transitioned, you've grown your customer base to a good size for your family, and now you're in quote unquote maintain the recurring sales, existing [00:30:00] customers, obviously replace customers as they drop off, because that's going to happen to everybody, people move even, right?
So, you have to do that, but what would you recommend to folks from a marketing lens? Because you're looking for cadence at this point, right? And probably even time saving opportunities.
Amy Campbell: Yeah, that's a good question. I would say the more you can have those consistent customers coming back, the easier that is to do.
So the subscriptions, or CSA type models are really good for that maintenance, because, you have things sold every month or every week. And just as far as planning for the year, for us, for instance, we know how many beef we need to process every month, to fill those subscriptions. And so, just the more you can somehow grab that consistency, the subscriptions really is huge because, that does help you get in that rhythm and keep those customers.
[00:31:00] Just communicating frequently is really big in maintaining those customers. And so, that's where that email comes in or, those Facebook and Instagram stories and posts, the more you can entertain and educate and, just connect with them as a person.
It's so funny at the farmer's market or at the grocery store in the community, people will say, Oh, is that your son that falls asleep everywhere on the farm? And, it's funny because he does. He's growing out of that season now, but for almost a year, we were posting pictures of where's Haston cause he was asleep somewhere.
And it was in the funniest places. And so things like that, we don't do that anymore cause he doesn't fall asleep. But that was kind of a season of being able to just connect with our customers. So then we can do things like that.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, it's like it humanizes it. I think, too, people like humor, right?
And so it's just adorable and cute. Obviously, if your [00:32:00] son is falling asleep in random places, and I think you're giving people a smile in the middle of the day, I think that goes a long way.
Amy Campbell: Yeah, if you just have, this is why CAFOs are bad, this is why my meat is better than, you know, if you just have posts like that all the time, people are going to be like, eh, I don't want anything to do with that.
But, if you can show them that you're just another person trying to do the best with your land that you possibly can and feed your family. And then, Hey, I'd also like to feed your family if you're interested. I think that just being transparent, just expressing what you value, and not everyone is going to be your customer.
You're going to lose customers and that's fine. And people will like your pictures and then not buy, that's just not a good fit for everyone. But, the more you express what you value other people are going to value that too. And so, you will find your customer base.
Janelle Maiocco: It sounds like a mix [00:33:00] of explaining the differences in different kinds of agriculture, right?
And helping educate them on your practices, but also keeping it very human. How many, this is kind of a random question, maybe, but if you were to think about the photos that you include in your newsletter and on your social feed. What percent of them are animals and product versus human and what's other?
Amy Campbell: I would say very few are product. We do have a lot of like our family sitting down for dinner pictures. So the meat is on the table, but not necessarily here's the meat. And then, probably 70 percent is kids or us out actually farming. Maybe the other 30 percent would be animals.
You got to have a balance though. You want to share the pictures of the cows out eating grass and you want to show your pigs are actually in the woods or in the fields. And the same with the chickens, you want to make sure you're [00:34:00] transparent and showing all that.
But for us, our family being together out there is one of the main reasons people value our product because they know that it's a true family farm. And I think a lot of people are missing that. I think a lot of that small community feel, is kind of gone in a lot of areas. And so, the more you can remind people of the importance of that and bring them back to being a part of a small community, they want to be a part of that.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, I think it's also a source of encouragement and hope, which is really, really fantastic. So thank you for doing that, frankly, and being an example of that community and that local love, really. That's awesome.
Any final tip, anything that I'm forgetting to ask that you think is very important to share with the folks listening today, that you want them to go away with, and or if nothing comes into your mind, then simply answer this, what are you looking forward to in 2024?
Amy Campbell: Well, one thing I do want to hit on real quick would be, I started [00:35:00] using the Marketing Toolkit, I guess, maybe a year ago. And that's been a really big help to me, like I said, we are not marketing majors here. And so, just coming up with the cute little things to put on Instagram is not, I mean, I can post pictures of my kids, but pictures of cute things or even it's just a great reminder of national Bacon Day is coming up or whatever. I don't know when National Bacon Day is, but if I see that in the toolkit, I can put that on my Instagram and sell a lot of bacon all of a sudden.
So, just things like that have been really helpful for me. Especially, in the busy season, because I don't have time, but just getting ideas in the off season, too, to help plan for the upcoming season is really big.
Janelle Maiocco: I appreciate that. I don't know if, just for listeners purposes, Barn2Door has a toolkit, and some of our farms subscribe to the toolkit, and so every single month they get, I think roughly 50 [00:36:00] designs that are ready to post directly on social media, whether it's Instagram or Facebook, and then we give a number of templates for MailChimp as well, and it's very seasonal, right?
It could be, Happy 4th of July, or Merry Christmas, or it's Bacon Day, which I think is December 31, if I remember it correctly! But I'd have to look it up, because there are so many funny days. There was like, I think Hug a Goat Day or something. Like, it's fun, because if you're a goat farmer, or you're selling bacon, or there's a National Chili Day, which is in February, by the way. You can use those as just an excuse to post, almost.
Amy Campbell: Yes, sometimes you're just completely out of ideas. Just someone putting that out there saying, Hey, it's National Chili Day. Oh, great. I have a chili recipe. I would love to add to it and just use their post.
That's been really helpful in the off season. And something else just to add is, as farmers, we need to embrace that slower season. I think [00:37:00] sometimes it's hard, that season changes and you have been go, go, go all summer, and then all of a sudden you're like, well, what am I going to do today?
But one, just embrace that slow time to spend more time with your family. My husband coaches wrestling. So that's done with the younger kids in the winter, but just embracing you don't have to just be go, go, go all the time. And then using that time to plan is really great.
But yeah, for 2024 we hope to just keep telling our story and just keep connecting. Our goal is for everyone, really everyone in the world to eat locally. But especially everyone in our community, and there's a lot of farms that are starting to sell directly and we think it is great.
We think the more farms that are selling directly in our area, the more people will be eating locally. And so, the more we can be transparent and share what we're doing, and just get the whole world eating from their [00:38:00] community would be huge for our world.
Janelle Maiocco: Yeah, it's definitely moving in the direction of progress and solution, that is for sure.
Well, in that vein, thank you for giving your time today, to hopefully inspire other farmers that are selling direct and feeding their local communities and hopefully they'll remember to read StoryBrand and keep that idea list going strong so that when it's a day without ideas, they have a go to list, which I think is a great, great tip.
So, there's just so many great tips. So, definitely listen to this podcast, but we'll also do a summary of this on our blog and we'll include your other podcasts because you have rich information too, when you dig into really getting into the nitty gritty of subscriptions and customer engagement and things like that. So, we'll include those links.
I wanted to say thanks, especially for you joining us today. If you want to check out and follow Amy, you can go to instagram.com/OldRichValleyFarm.
Check them out. They're in Virginia. [00:39:00] Cute family with kids that sleep in funny places. And honestly, truthfully, a great tip is go follow them so you can see what Amy's doing on Instagram. You can get ideas from one another, which is just great.
At Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country. We're delighted to offer services to help farmers succeed in marketing, promote their own brands, gain customers, and then keep those customers coming back for more. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started, or transitioning to Selling Direct, or if you've been at it a while and you're simply trying to streamline your business management, you can visit barn2door.com/learn-more for some free information.
Thank you so much for tuning in today. Again, thank you, Amy. It was great to spend some time with you today and hopefully unpack a litany of great ideas for folks from a marketing lens in the off season and busy season as they continue to work on serving their communities and growing their farm.
Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks everyone. We look forward to joining you next time on the Direct Farm Podcast.