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!

Every now and then, I run into a fantastic sales funnel example in the real world in another industry. When it happens, I take notes, so I can share it with you.

This week, I'm breaking down the sales funnel of my son's orthodontist. You see, in a matter of 7 days, Kurt and I decided to write a big fat check for $6000 to this Downey Orthodontics in Bowling Green. How did he pull that off so fast? That's no small feat!

Looking back, I can see SO MANY small steps that were engineered by their sales team. They had a PROCESS they were executing like a machine! I was impressed.

So even though the example I'm sharing today isn't a farming product, I think this story will have massive impact as it shows you how a small business can take a marketing framework and turn it into practical steps.

You'll see what attraction strategy they relied on, how they used SEO to their advantage, how they set up their offer to get me to convert, how they coached testimonials and reviews for social proof, how they overcame my objections and questions, and what they did to surprise and delight me.

I also share application questions along the way, to help you take this sales funnel and apply it to YOUR business.

Sales funnels are necessary if you want to move clients through a high-ticket offer like a CSA. Sometimes the best way to learn the framework is to see it in action in another business!

Vacation in July for a farmer? Is it possible?

What if it were?...

In today's episode, I share my story of how Kurt and I successfully planned and executed a 5-day vacation to Oshkosh, Wisconsin in the middle of July.

How did our farm survive without us? What did we have to do to make it happen? And was it worth it?

In this episode, I share some observations and take-aways from this experiment that will be helpful if you want to make this dream a reality.

It is possible. It all starts in your mind.

Writing the weekly CSA Newsletter.... do you love it? Or hate it?

This used to feel like a CHORE! In my early years, I would start from scratch every week, and it felt like I was back in Yearbook class -- not only trying to write engaging "newspaper-style" articles, but worrying about layout and images so it all fit!! It would take me around 6-7 hours every weekend.

Ugh.

After 14 years, I've learned a few things about how to make this important resource a whole lot faster (and better!) In this episode, I share 5 time-saving hacks I use now that help me knock this out in about 3 hours a week. So when the well runs dry... you have some back-up systems that keep you moving forward.

You can check out my latest CSA newsletter here: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/blog.

Today's episode is inspired by an email I received from a farmer and podcast subscriber. It was a question about how many emails to send each week when you have different segments of audiences?

This farmer has three different "groups" of clients -- the 2024 CSA buyers, the 2023 CSA buyers who still haven't renewed, and the "cold" audience (people from previous years). 

Do you write weekly emails to all of them? Is it the same one? Are all subscribers created equal? Are all subscribers as valuable? What about those folks who haven't bought my stuff in years?...

Essentially Jodi wanted some guidance on how to talk to the different groups in her audience, and whether it was worth her time to do so.

I have a LOT to say about this question, including my definition of a "cold" audience member, as well as what value your email list has for you (even if they stop buying for a while).

How do you keep your list alive? Find out some guiding principles to keep your weekly email workflow from overwhelming you!!

PS: I have an ENTIRE 30-day project inside of Farm Marketing School called "The Weekly Email Challenge." It is AMAZING at teaching you some writing do's and don'ts.

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

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

Subscribe to my free 5-Day Instagram Reels Challenge here. You'll get a daily video tutorial on Reels and a quick homework assignment to practice the skill you learned. Each day builds on the next, as you experiment and play in the sandbox. By the end of the challenge, you'll know your way around the Reels platform and know how to take it deeper if you want!

Do you need to be doing Instagram Reels? And if you ARE ready to take the dive, where do you get started?

Well, in today's episode, I walk you through some of my "beginner's tips" for getting started with Reels.

At first, I was overwhelmed and intimidated by all the professional-looking, high production value Reel videos in my feed.  So I avoided it for the longest time. But then I began researching IG Reels back in early 2022 -- experimenting, following other accounts, trying to figure out the mechanics of how to do it.

Finally, I decided to take the plunge and play in the platform -- "just as an experiment." Along the way, I became more confident, and every month I feel myself getting better.

In this podcast, I share some of my take-aways for "Reels-Rookies" or "Reels-Wanna-be's" for what to expect when you get started, what to keep in mind as you develop your skills, and shortcut hacks that helped me overcome my imposter syndrome.

I also talk about how you can take my free Instagram Reels Challenge with me this August! In this challenge, I teach you the mechanics of how to make your first reels confidently, so you can take this platform and run with it! NO MORE FEAR.

Subscribe to my free 5-Day Instagram Reels Challenge here. You'll get a daily video tutorial on Reels and a quick homework assignment to practice the skill you learned. Each day builds on the next, as you experiment and play in the sandbox. By the end of the challenge, you'll know your way around the Reels platform and know how to take it deeper if you want!

I wish someone had shared the ropes of reels with me like this when I was trying to learn the platform.

Check out my workshop "How to Optimize your Google Business Profile" here. Are you using the power of search engines to help you find new customers? Here's the truth: people are going to Google to find your farm. What is Google showing them? Are you showing up in the #1 position? And if not, what can you do to get there?

In this episode, I invite local SEO expert Jesse Dolan from LocalSeoTactics.com onto the show, to share his short checklist for how to create a basic SEO strategy for your business, so you can get found online. Jesse is an expert at LOCAL SEO, and has helped hundreds of businesses increase their visibility and revenue. 

What is it that your product actually delivers to your customer?

I'm not talking about the thing itself. I'm talking about the long-term life transformation? How does their life get better because of your vegetable box or grass-fed beef?...

What is the product's promise?

If you want to sell more of your products, you MUST know how to answer this question. In this episode, I talk about how to find this information, why it's so powerful, and how to talk about it in more your marketing.

Do you track any sales or marketing metrics for your farm?...

Because here's a fact: You can't manage what you aren't measuring.

And for the first 9 years of my business, I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't track ANY of these numbers. I was just "doing farm sales" and asking people to buy every week, hoping the numbers would work out.

I wonder sometimes if this is one of the reasons we were treading water all those years.

In today's episode, I talk about the importance of knowing your sales and marketing data, so you can be strategic and get your business to actually scale. What information should you be tracking? What stats matter the most when it comes to building strategy for your business?

Once you start measuring the right data, you can set goals and track progress towards greater revenue. 

This is a good episode. 

Get my new weekly marketing roadmap when you subscribe to my email newsletter.

I LOVE interviewing other farmers who are GREAT at marketing. Sometimes, the best way to grow our own  marketing strategy is to see what other farms are doing. Today's guest is Melissa Ballard of Bluegrass Beef in Kentucky. She has managed to build a growing, profitable farm business by attracting the right kind of client, telling her farm story, building a compelling offer, and turning them into repeat buyers.

She also had a moment in her journey where she changed her mindset and claimed some ownership in her business' success -- one of the strongest parts of this interview.

Whether you're a beef producer or a vegetable farm, there's lots of advice hiding in this episode about how to market and sell your product like a boss.

But writing these can feel overwhelming. In this episode, I share a hack for how to build this "evergreen" (everlasting) nurture sequence fast. You probably have the emails to populate it already! You'll LOVE this idea that makes building your email sequene so much easier!

Need some help with Instagram reels?

Search no more. Today's podcast guest and farmer is an Instagram guru. Laura Patterson has mastered the art of engagement and lead generation through the use of Instagram reels, creating compelling content every day that attracts her ideal customer. In this podcast, Laura shares how she marketed and grew her micro-greens business, and how she now uses those same strategies to grow her online business, teaching farmers.

Have you taken the time this season to identify your core marketing message(s)? Is your message consistent and clear? What are you trying to get your customers to know or do? And do you have a PLAN to get there?

In this episode, I share how to find this message, and best practices to make sure your controlling idea is communicated.

Grab my Tips & Secrets for CSA Success Canva Template to Onboard Your CSA Members.

How are you onboarding your CSA members into your CSA's first weeks? (Are you?) In this episode, I walk through the 4 categories of content/information you should consider putting into your onboarding strategy.

You'll walk away with a plan for mapping out your strategy, what it should include, and how long it should take. I even share my CSA's handbook template.

In today's episode, I interview a farmer from Louisiana, Kate Estrade, who is a curator of locally-produced farm goods -- from her own pasture-based farm, as well as from over 25 other local farms and producers. She sells through an onsite "grocery" store as well as several neighborhood hubs. Customers have been "trained" to pre-order online each week and then come pickup their order at their location of choice.

In this episode, we talk about how this business model evolved over time, how Kate helps customers support many local producers in one stop, what marketing looks like for this kind of business, and how she decides what vendors to work with.

Could this "local distributor" model be the ticket for your farm?...

This podcast is for all of you who go to farmer's markets!!

Do you want to walk away from the market feeling like you did everything you could to maximize sales that day?

Here's a fact: You're going to sell more at the farmer's market if you do a little bit of preparation in the sales strategy department.

In this episode, I'm sharing my checklist of "things to make sure you do" before you hop into the truck and head to market. Things like: create a weekly special offer. Print this checklist out and create a workflow each week to check them off. The more of these you can do, the more revenue you will drive.

Promise.

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: https://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

The FREE Coupon Code Challenge -- This is a free 4 week challenge where I teach you two coupon code styles every week, and challenge you to use one of them to build an offer for your clients. You'll test out which codes deliver for you, AND you'll learn some creative ways to incentivize other positive customer behavior besides buying. I share a short video training in 4 weekly emails with all the instructions. It's free. It's low-key. It will make you money. Subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/couponcode

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, using coupon codes, 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 https://www.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

Need content ideas for your CSA members? Enroll in my CSA Membership Academy and get your first month for $1 when you use my coupon code TRIAL at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy

Do you spend more time than you'd like in your farm delivery truck? Do you dream of giving this up and having more time for revenue-generating activities on the farm? What if you could outsource delivery to someone else?

In this episode, I interview Andrew Miller from Farmstead Logistics -- a third party logistics provider who helps deliver farm products from Point A to Point B. Andrew talks through what services like his provide, what a farmer should ask to decide whether this service is "worth it," what potential hiccups you need to watch out for.

My hope is that after listening to this podcast, you'll have a better idea of some of the issues you need to address before you contract with a courier service.

Do you ever have a brain freeze when it comes to social media? What the heck should I be posting about? Or when it's time to "write your weekly email," do you ever find yourself staring at a blank screen with no clue what to say?

You're in good company.

As content marketers, our job is to create a steady stream of quality content that will help attract our ideal customers into our brand, and then ultimately convert them into paying customers.

But what kind of content should you be creating?

Well, in this episode, I'm sharing a "formula" that I learned from my own digital marketing mentors: E-I-E-I-O-O

Yes, it's even a farming song! (LOVE!!) Each letter stands for a word that will remind you of a category of content. In this episode, I dive deep into what these are and give tons of examples.

Subscribe to my farm's CSA Resource Library for $1 using the coupon code TRIAL at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy 

Have you ever thought about creating a passive form of revenue through a digital workshop?

Today's podcast guest, Heather Carter of Nature Hills Farm, did just that! Her cheese-making online class is purchased by people all over the country. In this episode, she shares how she built the course, what obstacles she had to overcome, and how she plans to grow this revenue stream for her farm.

QR Codes. They are everywhere.

But are you using them in your farm marketing? In this episode, I share LOTS of ideas for where your QR codes could link on the internet to help develop your leads into buyers, and turn your buyers into lifelong fans.

Subscribe to my CSA Academy to get access to lots of resources to help your veggie lovers! Get your first month for $1 using coupon code TRIAL at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy

Imagine CSA customers coming to your farm every week to harvest their own share from your vegetable beds. 

Yes. That's the concept behind a U-Pick CSA model. In this episode, I interview Kristen Muehlhauser of Raindance Organic Farm, who has built a profitable farm business off this CSA operation. She shares the pro's and con's of getting this kind of program off the ground. 

Sign up for my seminar "The Beginner's Guide to CSA Add-On Shares" at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/addonshares

Ugh. Does your email open rate stink? Are your emails getting lost in the spam folder? 

In today's episode, I share one strategy you can use to try and get your new subscribers to add your email address to their contact list -- this is something called "white listing," and it has an effect of making sure you never show up in the spam folder again.

How does it work? After hearing this episode, you'll be able to take about 10 minutes to adjust a few words of text in your welcome emails, and it just might do the trick! 

Lots of good stuff in today's show notes too! Tons of templates and examples, so go check it out.

PS: If you're thinking of adding on "add-on shares" to your CSA, but need some help getting started, check out my paid seminar "The Beginner's Guide to CSA Add-On Shares" at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/addonshares

Have you ever pre-sold spring transplants as a type of product line?

Our farm is predominantly a CSA farm, and so we didn't offer this as a product until just a few years ago. At first glance, it didn't seem to "fit" our customer profile.

Boy, was I wrong! Three years ago, we started offering transplants as a product line, and our CSA clients bought like crazy! It's created a whole new revenue stream for us, AND it's given us a new way to attract potential CSA clients.

It's also a form of "guaranteed" income, because it's a pre-sale. In other words, we sell it first... THEN start seeding in the greenhouse.

In this episode, I walk you through how we organize our Plant Sale from start to finish. Download my Product Price List Canva Template from the Show Notes!

Today, she shares her story of how she's learned to simplify her marketing -- everything from the flagship product to her messaging. We even talk through what she's found to be the 2 most valuable pieces of her marketing strategy each week. 

I also want you to check out her website. It's a great template to work from, if you're trying to build your messaging elements for a Choice CSA farm. www.WillowHavenFarmPA.com

We talk through her sales funnel, her two awesome lead magnets, her Foster a Chick program, Pizza Nigths, and her top marketing a-ha moments.

So many gems in this podcast! 

In this episode, I share some examples of product badge labels, best practices, and some categories to help inspire you how to use them.

If your e-commerce platform doesn't make this easy to do, I also share some ideas for work-arounds in the episode. 

I want you to head over to your online store, and audit your product descriptions this week! Decide which ones could use a special "badge" and see if it makes a difference in the sales.

This episode is PART TWO of a series all about "ways to use coupon codes in your online store."

If you have an online store, these are a great way to entice your customers to come on over and buy. I also love that i can run a report of my coupon codes and see how they performed. This gives me the ability to TAG clients who use certain coupon codes, RETARGET them, and EVALUATE how effective my offers were. 

I recently heard from Local Line (my ecommerce platform) that they would adding coupon codes as a basic feature at the end of May. This compelled me to find 15 different ways I could test coupon codes this summer in my store. I'm sharing the last 8 with you here. (The first 7 were in Episode 264 -- go listen!)

Get ready to write these down. And commit to testing at least one of them in the next few weeks! See if it helps you make more sales.

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

Be sure to listen to Episode 264 for Part 1 of this series on Coupon Codes! I share 7 other ways you can use them in your online store.

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

Find my marketing Facebook group for CSA farmers!

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

What if you customer is feeling confused about where to begin? or how to use your product? In this episode, I walk you through my CSA farm's new customer "Punch List." I'm helping my customers see the target to hit this season! And I think it's going to be awesome! 

Listen to the episode and be inspired how a punch list might work for your business. 

Check out my CSA Member Academy -- a library of resources to help shortcut my CSA customers to mastery fast at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/academy

Get my CSA Tips and Strategies Canva Template to help onboard your rookies to CSA mastery faster. Get it at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/csasuccess

What keeps my CSA members coming back year after year?

I'm telling you now... it isn't just the vegetables. 

In this episode, I interview one of my CSA's strongest members, Esther Hertzfeld. Esther and her husband have been with our CSA for 9 years. She shares her journey from rookie member to CSA Facebook group influencer to CSA site host to ultimate brand ambassador for Shared Legacy Farms!

What drove Esther to sign up with us in the first place? But more importantly... what keeps her coming back?

Use this episode to help you peek inside the motivation of a quintessential CSA client.

What makes them tick? What do people like her look like? How can you find more of them? And what do you have to do to keep them coming back?

The five stages are:

1. Unaware
2. Problem Aware
3. Solution Aware
4. Product Aware
5. Most Aware

In this episode, I break down details of each of the 5 stages, and I give examples for what type of marketing content works best in each of these stages in your ag business. 

Every marketer should be exposed to this concept, which is why I dedicated an entire episode to it in my podcast archives!

Sign up for my free Book Study of "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek this February at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/bookstudy

Have you been trying to get people to buy your products, and you're getting no where? Are you posting your offer on social media and wondering why it's not getting traction?

What am I doing wrong, Corinna? 

In today's episode, I tell a fun story about my dog Harley that might just clear things up for you....

Sign up for my CSA Quickstart course and coaching program through Feb. 4th: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/csaquickstart

What if you were given an opportunity to acquire a loyal customer base from another CSA farmer who was retiring? Would you take it?

In this week's episode, I interview a CSA farmer who did just that! Aeros Lillstrom of Who Cooks for You Farm shares her story of how she grew her CSA to 800 members through this form of acquisition. She also shares some of the unique issues that needed to be addressed as part of that transition. If you've ever thought of this form of scaling, this will be a helpful primer for you! 

In this week's episode I talk with CSA farmer Kate Edwards from Wild Woods Farm in Solon, IA. Kate's farm boasts an 80% retention, and she's learned how to build systems to make running her CSA easier than the early years. Kate shares some of the milestones she passed through as a CSA farmer. We spend a lot of time talking about the importance of having a mentor, as well as learning how to communicate the "why" behind your business.

If you're looking for a CSA farmer to inspire you, this is a great episode! 

On the cover was a small coupon code with the following words: 50% off all cards, photobooks, and calendars. 40% off everything else plus free shipping. BOOM.

I ran to my computer that night to set up my order, and an hour later, I had dropped $350.

WHY did I do that?

How did Shutterfly pull that off? What were the elements of that offer that made me buy?

Using my Shutterfly case study, I'll help you see how you too can build an offer that makes your ideal customer take notice.

We'll cover:

• why targeting the right person is so important
• how to get the timing right
• why you must lead with the correct product
• how to position the price so the person feels good about it
• why a little bit of urgency and scarcity will seal the deal

Need help building a CSA farm from scratch this year? Sign up for my free webinar "The 3 Mistakes Rookie CSA Farmers Make (And How to Avoid Them)" on January 28, at 12 PM EST. Registration is free at www.mydigitalfarmer.com/webinar

Grab my free resource: Choosing the Best CSA E-commerce Platform for Your Farm: the Complete List of Questions to Ask Before You Buy When is it time to get a CSA Management software? And how do you decide which one is best for you? There are SO many options to choose from nowadays, and the it can feel overwhelming! Do you go with a CSA Customer Management System? Or do you just stick with an e-commerce platform?

I've noticed this is a roadblock for SO many farmers, and it keeps many of you from scaling your business.

In this episode, we cover the big questions you should mull over as you navigate this territory. I give you advice from many years of experience, AND I share some awesome resources to help you figure it out once and for all!

A few days ago, I had a spontaneous idea... 

I needed to set up my coupon codes in my e-commerce store. (Local Line recently announced that they were adding coupon codes as a free feature to the platform).

But I was dragging my feet to get it done.

"I know!" I said.  "I'll create a challenge for farmers. That will make me do it!"

And thus, the 4-Week Coupon Code Challenge was born. 

The goal of this challenge is to expose you to different coupon code styles that you can use in your farm marketing, and get you to experiment with them this month as you build your offers. This is a live challenge, running during the month of June, 2024. Each week, I'll send you an email with a short video inside that focuses on TWO new coupon code concepts. Your job is to choose ONE of them, build an offer around it, create the code, and market it to your clients that week.

Then... seee what happens!

I'll also share the tech videos for how to build out the featured coupon codes in Local Line -- since that's my platform of choice.

Some of these coupon code styles work really well for weekly offers to drive sales in your store. But some can be set up inside of your email or text automations --  a one-and-done kind of setup that drives revenue forever.

By the end of this month, you'll have a pseudo-coupon-code-strategy running in the background of your business, making you money. 

To join the challenge (which is totally free), subscribe at https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/couponcode. I'll send you your first marching orders a few minutes later! 

Get excited with me. This is how we get stuff done. Together. Let's go.

Get on the CSA Quickstart Course Waitlist: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/waitlist Have you ever wondered if you should add a CSA to your farm business? If so, then you definitely want to listen to this episode. I interview my husband and business partner, Kurt Bench, from Shared Legacy Farms, and together we discuss the 10 questions to think about before you jump into the CSA arena. 

Do you ever find yourself comparing your social media account to another farm? (Me, too). In today's episode, I talk about why this is a dangerous mind game that we must avoid, and I talk about what we should think about instead. This episode will get your mindset back on track, and remind you what to focus on with your social media marketing!

If you had to put all your customers into a giant continuum, who are the ones that stand out in a good way? Who rises to the top? In today's episode, I'm sharing the 4 qualities I value the most in my customers. When I see a client manifesting one of these behaviors, I TREASURE them. Knowing the marks of your best clients can help you build systems to notice, appreciate and multiply them.