Business of Farming Conference 2013: 30 Direct Marketing Ideas
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REACH THE PEOPLE 30 Ideas for Direct Marketers Bridget Kennedy
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Transcript of Business of Farming Conference 2013: 30 Direct Marketing Ideas
REACH THE PEOPLE
30 Ideas for Direct Marketers
Bridget Kennedy
THE THEORY BEHIND THIS PRESENTATION
MOST OF USDO NOT HAVE MASS MARKETS
Most businesses, even small ones, try to sell their product “to everyone.”
They seek out big ideas to reach as many people as possible with the most generic message.
BILLBOARDS ARE BEST FOR:
Businesses… with a ton of money to invest because they are
selling something that costs a ton of money that naturally have a massive audience that are extremely relevant to people
traveling on that highway or road (gas stations, fast food, hotels, major attractions)Could make sense for a farmers market or farm
destination in some circumstances.
SEGMENT YOUR MARKETS:
You want to do the exact opposite: sell your product “to one person”.
You want your product or service narrowly targeted to reach a focused segment of the population.
WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO REACH? This narrow focus is called a “market
segment”. You can segment people by all kinds of
factors, like:Gender or age Price willingness InterestsLocationReligion or ethnicity IncomeSize of HouseholdLocal vs. touristEtc.
SO HOW DO WE REACH SOMEONE?
In the places they are already looking!
EXAMPLE
Who is this woman?
Julie
SOME ANSWERS She is married. She has two children ages 7 and 10. They go to Emma Elementary, 2nd and 5th
grade. She is trained as a CNA and works a 12 hour
overnight shift at the hospital 3 days per week.
She spends a lot of time caring for her elderly parents.
Her interests outside of family & work include: Watching cooking shows on TV. Cooking. Clemson U. sports teams Weight loss Researching her family tree Facebook
THERE ARE 100 MARKETING IDEAS SUGGESTED BY THESE SIMPLE FACTS
SEGMENT A: PARENTS WITH KIDS AT A CERTAIN LOCAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
SEGMENT A: PARENTS WITH KIDS AT A CERTAIN LOCAL SCHOOL
If you are a direct marketer, you could spend the next year exclusive focused on this market segment. This would be smart!
How do we use the simple fact of affiliation with a school to attempt to reach each parent 3-5 times with your message?
PARENTS WITH KIDS AT A SCHOOL: WAYS TO DISPLAY YOUR MESSAGE
1: Sponsor school sports events in exchange for logo placement/mention at those events.
2: Advertise in the yearbook or monthly newsletter if they have one.
3: Sponsor school plays and other functions that have a printed program.
KIDS AT A SCHOOL: PROMOTE YOURSELF THROUGH INVOLVEMENT
4: Offer cooking classes or classroom demonstrations.
5: Outreach to teachers and school administrators about educational field trips to your farm.
6: Donate product to PTO fundraisers and other school events.
Your idea here. There are others.
PARENTS AT A SCHOOL: THINKING ABOUT MEDIA FOR THIS AUDIENCE Parents of school-age kids will tend to
follow certain patterns in media consumption:7: Some cable TV consumption “over
shoulder” of kids, or with them. Classic example: Animal Planet. Cable TV can be purchased by network, by show, by county.
8: Predictable drive time radio. Some predictability to format choice, based on age and other factors. Focusing on a specific drive time on weekdays on a station with a local signal is an affordable way to do radio.
PARENTS AT A SCHOOL: THINKING ABOUT MEDIA FOR THIS AUDIENCE Parents of school-age kids will tend to
follow certain patterns in media consumption:
9: Some communities have targeted print media for this group, such as: WNC Parent (Asheville Citizen-Times) Summer camp guides or summer activity guides
(special inserts/editions of your weekly paper)
PARENTS AT A SCHOOL 10: “Buying Club” type marketing can work
well in any place with a critical mass of people – and a school is a great example. You don’t have to call it a buying club. Create some kind of bulk presentation of your
product with a small discount over what you would usually sell it for one at a time. Maybe it’s: Apples by the bushel Side of freezer beef Case of 12 dozen eggs a week . . . Etc.
Create a marketing piece that tries to recruit leader/partner marketers to coordinate purchasing of this item. Maybe this “captain” gets an extra discount for pulling in 10 customers for you.
Make it be “about them.”
THE TRICK Don’t just do one of these things. You
are creating a coordinated program. You are trying to reach the same person
3-5 times with a consistent message. In doing so, you are going to reach other
people like them, as well. Don’t do anything just once unless you
can really convince yourself it was a bad idea.
Be patient.
BACK TO JULIE
She wants to lose weight. Therefore she has a focus on
health/exercise and is specifically willing to spend money and time in those areas right now.
IDEAS TO REACH PEOPLE WITH HEALTH, EXERCISE, WEIGHT LOSS CONCERNS:
11: Provide rack cards or bulletin board material to local gyms. Especially good idea for produce CSAs as you are seeking subscribers during “New Years Resolution season.”
12: Introduce yourself to nutritionists, heart health centers, and similar health providers.
13: Sponsor athletic events like a 5k.
MORE . . . 14: Add lots of nutrition facts about products
offered and keywords to your website. Add a recipe section (a good idea anyway).
15: Connect with natural food stores however you can. With consolidation of the industry they may not be able to buy your product, but they may be able to host you for talks, print a story you wrote in a newsletter, or put something on their bulletin board.
16: Use targeted radio, TV, or newspaper. TV: food network in your county; Radio: health-related call-in show; Newspaper: health/exercise column.
JULIE WORKS AT THE HOSPITAL (CNA 3 NIGHT SHIFTS A WEEK)
What can we do with that?
REACHING HOSPITAL WORKERS 17: Meet with their HR director. Talk about local
food as an employee benefit. Many major workplaces have “lunch ‘n learn” type programs that you could provide.
18: This could open the door to have posters or other materials in break rooms or public areas of the workplace.
19: Place paid ads in employee newsletters. 20: Find one friend/ally on the inside. Offer
them a free share/product/etc. if they will be the “captain” in spreading the word about a direct-ordering/delivery system.
21: Offer to provide a “farm stand” on a certain day of the week – either just your farm or you and a couple friendly producers.
YOU CAN’T DO ALL THIS!
We’re just listing ways to reach one person (and similar cohorts) based on a narrow set of characteristics, and it’s STILL impossible to do it all.
You could spend all your marketing time and money for the next year on the last 6 steps, and you might have some hope of reaching Julie, as busy and distracted as she is.
So why have you been trying to reach everyone! It’s impossible!
LET’S DO ONE MORE, YOUR TURN NOW!
Let’s depart from Julie and apply the same kind of thinking to a different target market.
How about second home owners in the mountains?
YOUR MARKET SEGMENT IDEAS 22: 23: 24: 25:
WHAT ABOUT COST?
“Hey Bridget, this has been an intriguing workshop, but I’ve analyzed all the ‘market segments’ in the places around me and they mostly have one thing in common:
These people are all broke!”
SELLING TO THE FINANCIALLY CHALLENGED: COUPONS?
Use coupons that promote value, not discount or cheapness.
“Value” means a fair price but also refers to the perceived value of your product. Coupons are popular, but you do not want to cheapen your product; you want to increase its value, and the right kind of coupon can do that.
Examples . . .
VALUE COUPONS 26: A free tour of your farm with a purchase
greater than $X.
27: A free sample of one of your lesser-sold or less-understood products with a purchase greater than $X of a more popular product.
28: Receive free product for referring a friend to a major purchase.
CONSIDER YOUR PRODUCT LINE . . . GIVEN YOUR MARKETING CONTEXT
Things that have a high price are not necessarily more profitable. They usually have a higher production cost and more production risk, and a rarer, smaller marketing audience. The price is high for good reasons.
Yet farmers seem drawn to high-priced items, as if they will make more money.
29: FOSTER WORD OF MOUTH WITH A GOOD WEB PRESENCE AND CONSISTENT, SMALL ADS SOMEWHERE
Don’t count on word of mouth to work magically by itself. Customers say “I heard it from a friend” which tends to make us undervalue other kinds of earned and paid advertising.
#29 CONTINUED: HOW WORD OF MOUTH REALLY WORKS
In truth, what people really mean is “I heard it from a friend and then I saw your sign and then I saw your rack card and then I saw an article about you in the paper, and that reminded me to call you.” But what they remember is the friend.
So do invest early in having nice looking, consistent, web and print materials, and regular ad placements (however small) in the media read by your target customers. EVEN IF you think of word of mouth as your primary strategy.
#30 KEEP AND BUILD A LIST
Start this early and never stop. Get email addresses and mailing
addresses, it is better if people opt in to getting communication from you.
Send mass e-mail or mail communication selectively: make sure you are offering something “real” like a special promotion, an opportunity to visit the farm, a great recipe, etc.
Social media like Facebook are good for putting out that steady supply of “slightly less newsworthy” information.
SPEND LOTS OF MARKETING TIME AND MONEY ON THE CUSTOMERS YOU ALREADY HAVE.
It is especially important to get contact information for customers.
Train everyone who represents your farm to ask for this information, and create sign-up systems to make it easy.
It is ten times easier to sell something else to an existing customer who loves your business (or to get a referral from that customer) than it is to find a new customer.
