Farmers Market Promotions: Be Creative and Collaborate

It's time to think about marketing your Farmers Market, but how can you afford to do so?  Advertising can be costly, and one-time only print advertisement might be missed by potential customers.  Billboard advertising gets more repeat attention, but it's costly to rent space.   Maximizing your marketing dollars requires creativity and collaboration from the community. 

Customers shop at Farmers Markets because they believe in supporting local farmers, they like to eat healthy food, they appreciate the camaraderie among fellow shoppers, or they enjoy the festive atmosphere.  

How can you harness that customer loyalty to assist with your Farmers Market promotions?

Involve your customer.  Appeal to their emotional involvement.  Allow your customers an opportunity to participate in your promotions.  Customers show their support for Farmers Markets through social media, wearable merchandise, repeat visits and ultimately, their pocketbooks.    Centering  your creative, collaborative promotion around these concepts will increase your customer base and market loyalty.  

  

First I'll address a topic that's near and dear to our heart....creatively collaborating on a customized tote bag promotion.  

Friends of the Lathrup Village Farmers Market "punch card" 

With some creative collaborative promotions, a farmers market can subsidize the cost of producing a customized tote bag, and create buzz for their market at the same time:

• Find a local business to co-sponsor the tote bag
• Selling the tote bags for $15 to $20 as a fundraiser for your farmers market
• Starting a Friends of the Market program where a $40-$50 donor receives a complimentary friend of the market tote bag
• Begin a “punch-card program” where an individual with 6 visits to the market (and 6 punches on their card) receives a complimentary farmers market tote bag
• Sell the tote bag at your cost as a promotional item for your farmers market
• Offer a weekly raffle and fill the tote bag with market vendor items
• Ask local businesses to sell the bags and give the market the proceeds
• Sponsor a Spring or Harvest Dinner during the market season and give a market tote bag to everyone who purchases a ticket to the event.  The ticket price should reflect the cost of the event including the tote bag.

The important thing to remember is that a customized tote bag is actually a promotional tool for your Farmers Market.  Any item that has your Farmers Market name on it represents your market and your vendors.  Your bags should be attractive, durable and washable.  Our preference is always that the bag be made in the USA.  You want your customers to say, "what a nice bag!  I have to have one.  Where did you get it?  Well, that must be a great farmers market!"  Your customer with the tote bag will enjoy spreading the word about their favorite farmers market.  

The end result is that you will create buzz about your market and your customers will be walking billboards for you - repeat advertising without the high cost of rented space!

Over the next several days, we will address other creative collaborative marketing approaches for your Farmers Market.   How do you creatively collaborate with your community?  We'd love to hear from you!

Contact Information:
Joan Rozelle
www.eatlocalfood.com
734.341.7028

Make a Credible First Impression

This morning, I had an e-mail from an individual requesting advice on whether to include their website address on their new business card, even if the website wasn't up and running yet.  This person was going to attend a conference where they hoped to make business contacts, so she was going to have new business cards printed to take and pass out.  She understandably didn't want to print business cards without the website address and then print more again when the website was ready.  My response follows.

If you are passing out your business card, you certainly want to give the recipient a website reference to check.  It adds credibility to your statement that you have started a business.  If someone goes to your page and sees “under construction”….or sees an unavailable notice; they will (even subconsciously) think that you are not credible.

Here’s how to add credibility to your new business even if your website isn’t completed yet.  Create a home page that someone would land on when looking up your domain.  It could just have your name, contact information and perhaps an illustration or two or a list of your product offerings, where your products are sold, or your upcoming engagements.  Most hosting sites offer an option of putting up a page until your site is ready, and many offer templates that are nice, and can be modified to add some photos or your logo.  Then when your website is ready to go live, you just swap out the temporary home page with your new and fabulous website.

In today’s business world, an instant impression can make all the difference between someone walking away and someone taking a second look.

If you have the same issue with a website in progress but are not sure how to proceed with setting up a temporary home page, just ask your web hosting provider.  Many have a support desk which will be more than happy to help.  This is usually something you can do yourself at no extra cost to you.

What is your experience in setting up your business website?  If you'd like to share your experience, we welcome your comments.

Eat Local Food: On-line catalog coming soon!

Banner artwork by Chris Witkowski

Many of you have written to ask what happened to our on-line store.  In case you missed our earlier post, we did make a tough decision to take down our store at the end of 2012.  The cost of compliance with regulations for maintaining a secure site (for our customer's safety and ours) was becoming too high.  One of our goals is to continue to make our products in the USA, and to keep prices manageable for our customers.  In order to keep these goals, we try to effectively manage our overhead costs.  Please bear with us as we make some changes to our website.

We are currently working on a on-line catalog made up of PDFs which will be available for download on our Eat Local Food Product Page.  Orders can be placed by phone or by e-mail, and we plan to have a page to allow you to pay on-line in the near future.  We will keep you posted on all our plans and our progress!

In the meantime, please contact me with any questions regarding our Eat Local Food customized banners, tote bags or postcards, or our in-stock products.  We are currently accepting orders by telephone and e-mail, and we look forward to working with you.

Thank you for your patience and we hope to be of service to you in the near future!

Here's our contact information:

Joan Rozelle
Eat Local Food LLC
jrozelle@eatlocalfood.com
734.341.7028