My Digital Farmer Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

What do I post on social media? If you're a small farm in your first 3 years, you're likely spending a fair percentage of your "marketing time" doing social media.

But are you using that time wisely? Social media has its place in the marketing funnel, but only if it's strategic. In this episode, I share with you the 5 "goals" for social media, and I list of 10 different categories of post content that should regularly be in your monthly social media rotation.

If you're doing social, start off by scheduling these 10 styles of posts in your Business Suite, so you know they're covered. THIS is the "strategy." Then, use your discretionary time during the week to pop in additional "bonus" posts as inspiration strikes.

Sure to become a classic episode!

Grab my Social Media post ideas PDF guide here. It will give you other suggestions for the kinds of topics you can post about to drive traffic, and get leads.

This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy to use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise, Local Line should definitely be one of the e-commerce solutions you consider as you switch.  Local Line is offering a free premium feature for free for one year on top of your paid subscription. Claim your discount by signing up for a Local Line account today and using the coupon code: MDF2024. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Join my free email list! I have a great "Crash Course in farm marketing" that will guide you through the marketing jungle over the course of several months. Each week, you'll get a new email with suggestions and tips to make your marketing better. Subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe

Episode 274: Scaling Your Marketing: What Farms Do Differently at Each Level - Interview with Andrew from Local Line - Andrew and I discuss the three "levels" of farm business, and what farms do differently in each one. This is a great episode if you want to know what you should be working towards as you scale.

Episode 275: Tips for Using Video in Your Farm Marketing - Getting Started - This will show you ways you can use social media VIDEO in your marketing

Farm Marketing School - my monthly online marketing school membership just for farmers. Farm Marketing School is an on-demand library of marketing workshops and project plans that will help you build some of the most important marketing elements in your farm business like: building a promotion calendar, setting up your Google Business Profile, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, acquiring and deploying testimonials, and practicing different types of offers. You get to chose what you want to study and build each month. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. Use the step by step project planner and resource folder to help you jumpstart your work. Take advantage of my new marketing crash course inside or take the onboarding assessment tool to help you identify where your funnel is broken and what project to do first. To see what courses are currently inside of FMS, or to try out Farm Marketing School for a month at mydigitalfarmer.com/fms  Start and cancel your membership anytime.

Join my CSA Academy Library -- this is my digital cooking resource library that I provide for my CSA members to help them learn how to become a better home chef and cook the CSA way. It includes a Beginner's Guide to CSA mini-course, Vegetable University (A to Z video tutorials for every veggie); Canning Club (canning videos); Exit Strategy videos; Instant Pot tutorial, and my Recipes and Resources pages (with weekly CSA box recipes and unboxing videos). Farmers can subscribe for a monthly fee to have access to these resources to help them support their own CSA members.

Early Bird Campaigns that Convert -- In this episode, I mentioned how I would be building my CSA Early Bird Renewal Promo campaign this month. IF you want to learn my system for how I do this every year, I offer my step by step online course to help you get it done. This course will teach you how to build a compelling offer that gets your current members to decide to renew during your promo campaign. I show you the emails to write, the posts to create, and the ENERGY you need to generate in the week before you launch. 

Find my marketing Facebook group for CSA farmers!

Follow me on Instagram for a daily IG story tip on marketing! @mydigitalfarmer

Subscribe and Review in Apple Podcast

I’d love for you to subscribe to my podcast! I don’t want you to miss an episode. Click here to subscribe in Apple Podcasts!

Now if you’re feeling extra loving, I would be really grateful if you left me a review over on Apple Podcast, too. Those reviews help other people find my podcast and they’re also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. Thank you!

My hope is to feature guests periodically on the show. If you know someone who is innovating in the area of marketing as a farmer, please send me an email at mydigitalfarmers@gmail.com.

September 4, 2024

Today's podcast guest Sue Miller shares her inspiring story of how she built a thriving farm business in rural Tennessee from growing simple hydroponic butterhead lettuce on her windowsill to serving hundreds of families in her community through CSA, farmers market, wholesale, and online store. And it all happened in just 5 years.

We cover marketing principles like:

• finding your unique niche
• identifying and leading with your gateway product
• cultivating vendor relationships to offer more products
• listening to your customer to build out your business
• sharing your passion
• creating community with your customers
• practicing patience as you coach your customers to new buying habits
• inspiring your customers to turn into VIPs and super buyers

Sue's strategy isn't full of bells and whistles. It's actually pretty simple and elegant. Learn how she does it, and what some of her "marketing lessons" were along the way.

Remember, if you need help building this piece into your marketing system, you can take over 10 marketing projects inside of Farm Marketing School. I coach you through the step by step process for how to create each piece of your marketing sales machine, from lead magnet creation to weekly emails, promotion planning, website home page design, testimonial pages, offer builds, and more.

This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy to use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise, Local Line should definitely be one of the e-commerce solutions you consider as you switch.  Local Line is offering a free premium feature for free for one year on top of your paid subscription. Claim your discount by signing up for a Local Line account today and using the coupon code: MDF2024. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Sue Miller is the co-owner of Blackberry Pond Farm located in west TN that specializes in growing fresh and delicious vegetables hydroponically. They are in production year round and offer a CSA box quarterly. They are Organic Certified by OnMark Organic Certification with the USDA. The farm started in 2015 in the kitchen windowsill. This was a small hydroponic system to grow herbs and salad greens for Sue’s use in the kitchen. They expanded to the porch with 3 gallon buckets to grow cucumbers and lettuce. Eventually they built a greenhouse, followed by MORE greenhouses, and the rest is history.

Currently, they run a quarterly 100 member CSA from January-November, sell at the Martin Farmers market, wholesale to chefs and run a roadside stand from our 7 greenhouses and 2 fields of crops on 36 acres in Martin, TN.  We are involved in community education about the impact of food on health. The farm is truly a family affair! Drs. James and Sue Miller who own and started the farm are physicians. James is a full time hospitalist at the local hospital and designs and trouble shoots the hydroponic designs. Sue is a full time traveling ER physician who does all marketing, social media and customer service for the farm.  Much of the planting, transplanting, daily care harvesting and delivery is done by sons Chris and Junior and daughter in law Chelsea.

Join my free email list! I have a great "Crash Course in farm marketing" that will guide you through the marketing jungle over the course of several months. Each week, you'll get a new email with suggestions and tips to make your marketing better. Subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe

Farm Marketing School - Want to work with me? Join my monthly online marketing school membership just for farmers. Farm Marketing School is an on-demand library of marketing workshops and project plans that will help you build some of the most important marketing elements in your farm business like: building a promotion calendar, setting up your Google Business Profile, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, acquiring and deploying testimonials, and practicing different types of offers.

You get to chose what you want to study and build each month. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. Use the step by step project planner and resource folder to help you jumpstart your work. Take advantage of my new marketing crash course inside or take the onboarding assessment tool to help you identify where your funnel is broken and what project to do first. To see what courses are currently inside of FMS, or to try out Farm Marketing School for a month at mydigitalfarmer.com/fms  Start and cancel your membership anytime. New projects added regularly so we keep you up to date.

Find my marketing Facebook group for CSA farmers!

Follow me on Instagram for a daily IG story tip on marketing! @mydigitalfarmer

I still remember the first day of our first week of CSA this season. 

It felt electric! I woke up with so much excitement. I had a big to-do list, and not enough time. But I was excited to get started.

My crew was out harvesting super early that morning, and with so many different things to harvest, I had a chance to tell so many visual stories in my CSA Facebook group, on IG stories, and newsletter. 

It's always exciting when we start something again, isn't it? 

I could tell my customers were feeling the excitement too.. They have been looking forward to seeing us again for months. I loved feeling the brand energy soar. Marketing felt easy.

This week, on the podcast, I talk about these periods throughout the year when you might experience a burst of organic brand energy. I share 4 different places I typically see them. I want you to LOOK for these moments, and capitalize on them! Don't just let them go by. Milk them for all they're worth. They can catapult your brand energy, and you'll ride that wave til the next one.

This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy to use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise, Local Line should definitely be one of the e-commerce solutions you consider as you switch.  Local Line is offering a free premium feature for free for one year on top of your paid subscription. Claim your discount by signing up for a Local Line account today and using the coupon code: MDF2024. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Join my free email list! I have a great "Crash Course in farm marketing" that will guide you through the marketing jungle over the course of several months. Each week, you'll get a new email with suggestions and tips to make your marketing better. Subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe

Farm Marketing School - my monthly online marketing school membership just for farmers. Farm Marketing School is an on-demand library of marketing workshops and project plans that will help you build some of the most important marketing elements in your farm business like: building a promotion calendar, setting up your Google Business Profile, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, acquiring and deploying testimonials, and practicing different types of offers. You get to chose what you want to study and build each month. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. Use the step by step project planner and resource folder to help you jumpstart your work. Take advantage of my new marketing crash course inside or take the onboarding assessment tool to help you identify where your funnel is broken and what project to do first. To see what courses are currently inside of FMS, or to try out Farm Marketing School for a month at mydigitalfarmer.com/fms  Start and cancel your membership anytime.

Join my CSA Academy and learn how to support your CSA members Use my resources!! Try it out for the first month for $1 using coupon code TRIAL. (After that, the price increases to $19/month). Go to www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy to see what’s included with the monthly membership. You’ll get access to the ENTIRE resource library I use to help support my CSA members and get them to CSA mastery fast! Use the templates inside to help you build your own customer onboarding and/or training curriculum this summer. This is a MAJOR shortcut to figuring out your onboarding process!! So valuable! Cancel your membership anytime. https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy

Beginner's Guide to CSA Guide -- Use my Canva template and share it with your CSA members in your fulfillment process. This quick read guide shares the quick tips from my CSA master members, for how to be successful as a new CSA member. https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/csasuccess

Get my A to Z Vegetable Storage Guide and use it as a lead magnet -- This is my MOST successful lead magnet ever. I've used it for 5 years. I'm sharing the Canva template with you, and you have full rights to use it as-is, or change it for your farm. https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/atozguide

Follow me on Instagram for a daily IG story tip on marketing! @mydigitalfarmer

I get this question a lot from farmers...

"What should I focus on first in my marketing strategy?"

After 15 years of running a farm business (and learning this stuff the hard way), I feel like I can offer a pretty solid "list" of the marketing "assets" that pack the biggest punch. 

In this episode, I share what they are. It's not a short list. The goal of this episode is not to intimidate you or overwhelm you. (I didn't make all these in one year either!) But having the checklist will give you clarity and direction! You'll know what things to start working on. 

Remember: Slow and steady wins the race. Build these a few at a time, and one day you'll wake up and notice that your sales system is humming like a well-oiled machine. 

I share a LOT of links to past episodes in this podcast too, so you can follow up on the marketing asset of your choice and go dive in deep. 

Get your checklist and marching order in this episode! Ready?... Let's go!

What if there were a Farm Marketing "Bible" that spelled out all the best practices to help market to your customers online?

Farmers are expected to know everything about how to run a business - including sales and marketing. But knowing where to start can be overwhelming -- especially if you're not trained in this skill set.

Enter Nina Galle from Local Line. In her role as the Content Creator at the leading e-commerce platform for farmers, she began to see common themes among the 'successful' farm accounts using their software system. She began to ask the question, "What if I could take the lessons from these successful farms and put them into a marketing handbook?" The result was an amazing new book called Ready Farmer One -- a comprehensive A to Z guide on how farmers should market to their customers.

I call it the Farm Marketing Bible.

In this podcast, I interview the co-author of Ready Farmer One: The Farmer's Guide to create, Design, and Market an Online Farm Store. This is a resource that farmers can pick up any time to learn the different key  marketing elements that need to be optimized in your farm marketing machine. Rather than reading it from front to back, it's actually designed to be more of a "pick and choose" guide. Need help on how to master email marketing?... find the chapter about how to do email marketing the right way.

The best part of the book are the transcripts of actual interviews with the farmers that were interviewed during the research phase. These stories will inspire you to see how you can take the principles of the book and put them into practice in a real-world business.

I HIGHLY recommend this book for every farmer doing direct marketing. Grab it here!

What is the secret behind my CSA's incredibly loyal fan base? How are we scoring a 93% retention rate every year?

What if it's not about the vegetables?

In today's episode, I interview my MVP, Cadie Jardin. Cadie is a member of my farm team. We call her our "CSA Coach," and her job is to make sure my CSA members feel supported in their quest to become successful foodies and local eaters. She also manages our CSA's private Facebook group, and creates weekly video training content for my tribe, as well as recipes.

In this interview, we peel back the layers of customer support in our CSA. We talk through the challenges that new CSA rookies face and how we guide them through the 3-year journey to mastery. We talk about the power of the membership community in helping them along. And we give specifics on what kind of content will move the needle forward for your customers.

This conversation will give you a new perspective on what your customer is thinking, what they NEED, and what they actually WANT from you. 

Want some help building your CSA Early Renewal Sign-Up Promotion so that your members renew their share when you want them to?... Sign up for my online course: "CSA Early Bird Campaigns that Convert" I'll teach you how to build an irresistible offer for your members that gets them running to the online store to renew their membership when you want them to....

Somebody buys your product. Then what happens?... 

Many business owners think that the work of sales and marketing is now over. The customer bought the product, and now we're done.

Wrong.

In today's episode, I talk about the VERY important phase of the sales process called "product fulfillment." I share lots of examples of what this can look like, and why spending just a few hours optimizing your workflow in this area can lead to WAY more profits.

Sometimes it can take a while for your product to deliver its promise. You need to be there guiding the way, to make sure it happens.

If your product consistently delivers quality results, your customers will come back again and again... AND they'll refer new clients to you. That translates to more profits.

Sometimes the fastest way to grow your revenue is just to make sure you're delivering a quality result every time.

This episode will help you think through this process. WORTH EVERY SECOND. Listen now.

Before your potential new client decides to buy your stuff, they're looking for ONE thing...

Proof.

You need to show that you're the real deal -- your product delivers results! Customers often don't even realize they're looking for this, but they are.

That's why it's important for you to build these "credibility moments" into your buying process somewhere.

In today's episode, we talk about 10 different ways brands can show authority and give their potential clients the social proof they need to feel ready to buy.

See how many of these you already use in your business! And maybe add on a few more to your pipeline. Often, it's THIS element that unlocks the floodgates of sales. 

Can you say "Quick win"?...

As an entrepreneur and small business owner, I am constantly chasing "the next big thing." I set ambitious goals. I build execution plans to get there. And I base my sense of success and value on whether or not I hit them.

The problem is, I almost NEVER hit them exactly the way I planned. Or I compare myself to  other businesses, Instagram accounts, and parents -- some made-up ideal that I think I "should be" -- and I come up short.

I end up feeling like I'm "not good enough."

Not successful enough.

All I see is the gap.

In today's episode, I want to walk around the dark side of goal-setting. I want to offer another way of looking at your progress, so that you stop seeing the gap, appreciate your gains, and redefine "what is success."

I share lots of examples from my own life to help you see how easy it is to fall into this trap.

What if crossing your horizon line isn't the way to define success? What if there's INCREDIBLE value in the journey itself.

What if you're right where you are supposed to be? And how can we learn to be present in the moment and appreciate all the value of what has come before?

Tired of trying to share long, ugly URL links with leads and customers in your marketing channels?

There's another way. They're called "redirects," and when I first discovered them, I was ecstatic. I use them ALL the time.

This is like bitly link shorteners, but where you get to decide what the actual link itself will say. The formula is always: yourwebsiteurl.com/shortcutword

Using redirects gives you the ability to share things like:

• popular product pages
• your favorite lead magnets
• YouTube videos and hotsted PDF resources
• website pages you always reference
• your online store link

In this episode, I give you some case studies of where I use redirects the most, how they work, and how to set them up.

You can even go watch a demo of me making a "pretty link" here on YouTube.

Ditch the bitly links and start using these easy-to-set up shortcut links through redirects! You're gonna love this quick tip!