Copy, Paste, and Post: The Barn2Door Marketing Toolkit
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're joined by Joelle Orem of Orem Farm. We’re chatting about the Barn2Door Marketing Toolkit and how it can help make Social Media simpler for your Farm Business.
barn2door.com/marketing
barn2door.com/blog/new-monthly-marketing-toolkit-for-your-farm-business
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Richard: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Richard, your host for today's episode. We have a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Joelle Orem from Orem Farms in Indiana. Welcome, Joelle.
Joelle: Hi. It's so great to be back. It's been awhile
Richard: it has been . Well, this is actually the second episode in a miniseries on the Direct Farm Podcast, Barn2Door, social media tactics. In this series, we'll hear from Barn2Door experts and farm leaders like Joelle to hear tips and tricks to save time, grow your social media following and [00:01:00] drive sales with social platforms. Today we're gonna talk about the Barn2Door marketing toolkit and how you use it, Joelle, to contribute to your social media and email strategy here. But before we dive in, Joelle, why don't you reintroduce yourself and give an overview of your farm and back.
Joelle: Sure. So my husband and I live in central Indiana and we own and manage Orem Farms and, we really work closely alongside his parents and of course our two kiddos. So, we basically focused on pastured beef and we sell direct to our customers online and through lots of other different channels as well.
We also have a custom hay baling business that keeps us really busy during the summer. And, uh, we grow some of our own grain and some row crops here and there. We also just started doing, Certified organic. So that's been an adventure for sure. Uh, but we've been customers with Barn2Door for almost three years [00:02:00] now. I think it was actually 2020 that we signed up. So yeah, three year anniversary with Barn2Door. It's great to be here and I'm excited to have a conversation about the Marketing Toolkit.
Richard: Yeah, absolutely. We're always excited having you as well, and you're also part of the Barn2Door Farm Advisor Network and, uh, marketing development expert. You know, we were just mentioning prior to recording here that, uh, you helped teach our academy courses, you've been on some of our Barn2Door Connect programs as well.
So, uh, we can't get enough of you. Awesome. So to dive into today's topic, uh, for listeners who may not know, the Barn2Door marketing toolkit is seasonal marketing materials and assets that are shared each calendar month for your farms use. The toolkit includes images, graphics, and sample prompts for emails, newsletters, and social media posts.
The toolkit is available for farmers who use Barn2Door for $29 per month here, but to start, Joelle, Why are social media and email marketing essential to running a successful [00:03:00] direct farm?
Joelle: So it's really important to keep a constant and consistent contact with your customers, and that not only builds trust with them, but it also gives them an inside look at what they're going to be purchasing. So with social media and really just any online presence nowadays, it's. , it's completely saturated with content.
And so anytime you can be extra genuine and , really show the heart behind what you do and how you do it, is gonna set you apart from all of the noise that's going on. So, people can see, , when you're just posting to post and when you're actually taking the time and putting some effort into it and giving them a little bit of a inside look on what you Do.
Richard: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think you're bringing up a really good point in terms of being genuine. As an Account Manager here is something I, I mention all the time is, you know, people canpick up your tone of voice, they know when you're being authentic. Uh, they know when, you [00:04:00] know the marketing is coming from the farmer.
, so I think that's a really, really important thing to bring up as well. So how do you use the Toolkit to assist you in executing your social media and email strategy here?
Joelle: Yeah, so I've actually gone back and forth and I've tried a couple different tactics, but, , really the way that I'm using it right now is, I'm using it as kind of a jump off point for the month. So I'm sitting down when it comes in and looking over all of the prompts. So in the Toolkit there is actually, it's a big database of images, already formatted for social media.
So they're already, , the right size and , the right colors and everything. There's a whole bunch of images, but there's also a huge list of social media prompts. So it's going to be , anything from like a holiday, maybe it's, a random holiday, like National Chili Day, which we used last week. Um, , all the way to, just some ideas for you to share on [00:05:00] social media. So there's the social media prompts, but there's also an email newsletter template that you can use as well. , and it might have like a recipe or just some, fun information really what I'm doing is. I'm starting my month and just kind of forecasting like, what do we have going on this month?
What do we need to sell?, what do we want to educate our customers about? And then I'm kind of just picking and choosing what works for us. So I'm not using every single thing, , but I am using a lot of this as a jump point, , so that we can get a nice headstart on scheduling things and, customizing things for how we want to, post throughout the month.
Richard: Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned something a little earlier as well of regular engagement with your customers. So why is it important to engage with your customers consistently? , especially on social media and with email newsletters. D o you see any correlation between the frequency of your engagement, farm sales? , is it worth
Joelle: it? [00:06:00] It's absolutely worth it. So, Have to remind our customers that we're here. And like I said, there's so much noise out there and, you have to be at the top of their mind and a lot of times they forget about it, and I know I do. And so an example that I share with a lot of people, , that are specifically talking about email marketing is a lot of times our sales are coming from the link at the top of our email newsletter, even if it was sent a couple weeks ago.
And so it just shows. People aren't always accessing your website directly through a search bar or even through your social media page. They're sometimes going in their inbox and using that almost as like a curated search just for them. I, I do that all the time. I'm gonna jump in my inbox and type in shoes and try to see which coupon came up, just keep that in mind. The content that you're posting, it's gonna live there for a while and people will go back to it time and time again.
Richard: Yeah, that's a really, [00:07:00] really good point as well with, those folks accessing those emails two weeks after you've sent them out. That's a really good reminder that these things, like you said, are persistent. They stick around for a while and people can access them and plug into them at any time.
How exactly does the toolkit help you save some time?
Joelle: So it basically helps because the work is already done. , I actually have a background in, , graphic design, communications, email marketing. I've done social media for numerous organizations in the past and it takes so much time to think of ideas and copy. Like even just writing a caption can sometimes just take an hour
And, we're probably overthinking it a little bit, but I think what's amazing and is that it's already done. There's so many things that you can cover and so much content that you can post, but, , having that already worked through and all of the typos already kinked out and, it's just really helpful so that I can focus on [00:08:00] what I do best and that's managing our farm.
And, , what I've learned throughout the past few years, when we've really scaled our business is that, , delegating is really hard for farmers because we are scrappy people and we are used to, trying to figure it out and fix it and put the pieces together and, It's very hard for us to delegate something and, we've actually, , tried delegating our social media and, hiring that out.
And, it was nice for a while. We did it right when we launched our subscription box and it took a little bit off of our plate, but, we found that, we're not able to share the, in the field news and the little, , the little captions that we want to tweak the way that we want. I think the Marketing Toolkit is great because you can either post just how it is, you can copy and paste and just stick the image with it, or, , you can really customize it.
So a lot of times I will add my own twist of things or , if you look in the toolkit [00:09:00] itself, there's actually, a filler. So it's gonna have, , the social media prompts, but there's a little spot that says , type in, your chores or what routine you , use in the evening. So there's a lot of customized, , opportunity, I guess is what I'm trying to.
Richard: Yeah. Absolutely, and when you're , working on the farm, you don't always have time to double check when National Chili Day is right.
Joelle: Exactly,
Richard: Perfect. I love it. So I gotta ask you as well, what is your favorite part about the Marketing Toolkit?
Joelle: , I mean it really is just like I said, it helps take the brain work out of it for me. And really, Barn2Door in general is like having a team, it, it's like having my own marketing team. So I love getting an email saying, Hey, your toolkit's ready. And then it's like, oh, that means I need to schedule out posts.
So , it's a mental prompt for me, but it also helps me. Capture all that content that can be posted. And so I'm not [00:10:00] digging around, , no pun intended, but I'm not digging around for all this stuff to communicate with my customers. And, there's a lot of options too. So it's not, I personally don't love stock images, but the way that these are created, You can capture a lot of different, , topics by the graphics that are in here.
So it's not just posting like a stock image of a steak, it's got words on it. It's got, some color treatments and things like that. I love that the work is just already done.
Richard: Perfect one coming from someone like you with your background, you know that, that means a lot to us as well. So , we're really happy that you're enjoying it as much as you are. I wanna thank Joelle for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Join us next time as we continue the social media tactic series on the Direct Farm Podcast.
Here at Barn2Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including Orem Farms. If you want to connect with Joelle and other farm advisors, attend the Barn2Door Connect. Register for [00:11:00] weekly sessions at barn2door.com/connect. And for more information on Orem Farms, you can follow them on Instagram @oremfarms
thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you next time.