Ever feel like your farm business goals are taking too long to materialize? In this episode, we explore the often-overlooked value of "waiting" in business and why those seemingly stagnant moments are vital for growth. Drawing from my own journey through a long waiting period, I unpack the hidden benefits that emerge when we embrace the "in-between" times. Whether you're waiting to go full-time, reach a new revenue milestone, or snag that big wholesale gig, there's a lot happening beneath the...

Have you filed your CTA report yet? (Do you even know what that means?) This is a fairly "new" (and unknown) legal requirement and I'm discovering that a lot of farm business owners have no idea about it.  As a business, you may have to file a report, and you have until December 31, 2024, to do so (or face some big fines). In this episode, I break down the Corporate Transparency Act and its implications for business owners, especially small farms. With insights from my lawyer Richard...

November 6, 2024 by Corinna Do you know how much each lead is worth to your farm business? In this episode, we dive deep into the concept of Earnings Per Lead (EPL) and how it can transform the way you approach marketing for your farm. I’ll explain exactly what EPL is, how to calculate it for both paid and organic campaigns, and why this metric is critical to understanding the value of each lead. By tracking EPL, you'll learn how to make data-driven decisions to boost your farm’s revenue,...

Are you creating value-added products and selling them in your farm business? After hearing this episode, you may decide to get started! "Value-added" refers to any agricultural products that have been processed or enhanced in a way that increases their market value. This could involve transforming raw farm products into something more convenient, shelf-stable, or unique, thus making them more appealing to customers. For example, turning fresh vegetables into pickles, making jams from fruit,...

With the holidays coming, are you preparing any farm promotions to finish Q4 strong? If not, this episode is for you. I've invited my friend Christina Marbury (the marketing director of Taste the Local Difference -- a marketing agency for farmers) to share her expertise in building holiday promotions that sell. Christina has the advantage of working with hundreds of farms across the Midwest on their marketing strategy, and she has seen the types of offers that work well for the...

Are you a CSA farmer that has to get their members to "renew" every year and it always feels like a STRUGGLE? I've got you, my friend, because in this episode, I share my process for setting up my CSA early sign "renewal" promotion every fall in the final week of my CSA. I give them only 7 days to make up their minds. I've used the same sales system for the last 7 years, and I consistently get 75-85% of them to renew.  Here is an overview of the steps that I walk through in more detail in...

In this episode, we dive into the powerful psychology of consistency and how small commitments can lead to bigger, lasting customer actions. Inspired by Robert Cialdini’s principle of consistency from his book Influence, we explore how getting your customers to take small, meaningful steps—like participating in social media posts or attending a farm event—can prime them for bigger purchases down the line. We’ll also discuss how this principle helps customers claim an identity and align their...

Fixed Price discounts. You've seen them. "Save $5 when you spend $25!!" Percentage off discounts. You've seen those too: "Get 20% off when you spend $25 or more!" But which one is more effective? If you were going to build a coupon code in your online store, or offer a promotion at your farm store -- which one will lead to more sales? Well... it depends. As it turns out, there are best practices surrounding the use of the fixed price v. the percentage off discount. And it all revolves...

When it comes to selling raw milk to the public, farmers face legal and health challenges that make it really hard to provide this product. Luckily there is a work-around. It's called the "herdshare." The problem is, it's awfully hard to explain. In today's episode, I'm interviewing a second generation dairy farmer, who is moving her product line to raw milk. She has faced these communication and sales hurdles head-on, and she shares her unique sales strategy that is slowly but surely getting...

September 18, 2024 What if you could brainstorm your personal marketing strategy for a new enterprise in a 1:1 call with another farmer? Well, that's exactly what happens in today's podcast. You get to be a fly on the wall, listening in on my monthly Farm Marketing School Zoom call, that turned into a 1:1 coaching call with one of the members. This month, Allan Laird was in the hot seat, and he and I work out how to build up a clientele for his goat's milk soap line. This is a brand new...

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...

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...

So you're creating videos in your farm marketing. Wonderful! Now how do you get the most mileage out of them? If you're like most businesses, you spend a lot of time making the video, recording it, posting it, and then it falls into the black hole -- never to be seen again. But what if you could re-purpose that content and have it do double-or-triple duty for you?  For example, you film the process of packing your CSA shares in the pack shed for an Instagram story. Well... what if you took...

Are you doing video in your farm marketing? If not... why not?! Video is my go-to content creation method. Perhaps it's because I'm a natural public speaker, but I find it to be the easiest and fastest way to communicate with my leads and customers. It's also the best way to build connection and trust, to grease the wheels and move people towards buying. And yet, for many farmers, video remains an elusive skill. It feels scary and the fear of looking unprofessional is real. In this episode,...

Today we're talking scaling. I've always wondered "What does an established farm do differently than a beginner farm --when it comes to marketing and sales?" If you could break up the development of a farm business into stages, what would be the key identifiers? How do those business owners practice business differently? Do they think differently? Do they believe certain things that are hard to believe early on? Are they doing certain things that they didn't do in an earlier level? If being...

A few weeks ago, I drove my two boys up to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for their annual weeklong Air Show. The EAA Venture Air Show in Oshkosh is the largest air show in the world, and for seven days, it also becomes the busiest airport in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people visit this air show every year. We first discovered the event a few years ago when my son Jed first started getting into aviation. Everyone told us, "You need to go to Oshkosh." Well, they were right. If you're an...

Are you in that stage of business where you are aggressively looking for new customers? Here's something important for you to know: New customers need to know that your product works before they buy. They need proof. Period. You HAVE to have a social proof element in your marketing system somewhere in the messaging sequence. As a marketer, our job is two-fold: to increase desire and possibility and remove doubt and fear. The social proof piece is what does this second part.  In this...

How much do you spend to ACQUIRE a customer? This is a powerful question you should know the answer to. In this episode, we dive into one of the KPI's (key performance indicators) in your farm business, namely Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). I explore its significance in evaluating the efficiency of your marketing strategies and the overall health of your business. We'll break down the key components that contribute to CAC, including marketing and advertising expenses, salaries,...

Last week, I shared 3 ways to increase the average amount a customer spends in a transaction with you.  One of those suggestions was to create an "order minimum."  But how do you decide what that order minimum should be? Well... you look at the numbers. Which numbers? That's what this episode is all about. I share 5 key metrics you should review to help you figure out your order minimum, AND I share the formula to plug those numbers into. Your homework this week is simple: calculate what...

July 3, 2024 Recently, I've been looking for ways to increase our weekly online store revenue in our Local Line store. I noticed that we had a LOT of 1 or 2 item purchases last year. Those are quite frankly a real drag to pack. The amount of time it takes me to print the pack slip, pack the order, pay for the bag it goes into, and hand deliver it -- begs the question, "Am I making any money on this?" I penciled out the numbers and realized I'm barely breaking even with those orders. I...

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...

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...

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...

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...