by Susan M. Brackney
When done well, email campaigns can help generate awareness about your farm and drive real-world traffic to your market booth, too. Of course, no one likes an inbox full of spam. To avoid alienating customers, follow relevant laws and provide content your recipients will truly value. Not sure if it’s worth your time and trouble? “Email marketing is a great opportunity for small farmers,” says Daniel Burstein, senior director for content and marketing at MarketingSherpa, a marketing research institute. “Agribusiness and the grocery store [have] become so dehumanized. By providing regular updates from the local farm — in addition to sharing their farming practices [such as being] organic, taking better care of animals and soil, etc. — they communicate a value proposition as being a product that is worth paying more for.”
Those regular updates also help to set you apart from the competition. After all, when you develop relationships with your customers, they’re less likely to view your product as interchangeable with someone else’s. Burstein holds up The Country Hen as a strong example. Operating since 1988, the company carved out a niche — and a loyal customer following — by including printed newsletters with its eggs. Topics covered range from egg nutrition and farm equipment updates to humane farming practices and news about organic legislation.