Marketing is the process of creating relationships with and satisfying customers (Wikipedia).
When I went to Business School a long time ago, it was the process of promoting and selling your product. Some people still think that selling is enough and it may be with cheap and mass produced stuff. I don’t want to live or market that way. “Marketing From the Heart” is both a great little book written for farmers and the best way to describe my view of good marketing today.
To be successful, a business owner creates a product or service that changes and improves the lives of their customers. Once that has been created, a business owner’s job is to build trust and a relationship with the people who need your product by giving and sharing of yourself and your knowledge. You are offering your customers a solution to a problem. You make your business different from all the other possible solutions by personalizing and understanding your customer. Looking at a business from this point of view, I would even go so far as to say that there are no products, only services that are needed.
Since farming is one of the toughest businesses on earth, successful farmers have a lot to teach the rest of us about marketing and running a full time business. In most communities, farmers are selling the same produce as each other and the local supermarket who is often offering cheaper prices. How can a farmer differentiate themselves from everyone else?
The successful farmer is not just selling a group of vegetables/fruits which the customer can buy from many other places.
These farmers are offering an experience and solving a problem for their customers: what is something nutritious, beautiful, convenient and tasty to serve for dinner. These farmers grow and show beautiful vegetables/fruits. They are friendly, remember their customers, understand their problems, and can make suggestions on how and what to cook. Think about that compared to the local big supermarket. Here the customer is supporting a real person, the local economy, reducing the carbon footprint of their food, and eating well.
When you build your marketing plan from this perspective, you are not selling and adding to the world of distraction and clutter. You are offering solutions. This way of marketing is nothing new, it is just that most people think only about themselves so don’t bother. The difficulty comes when your limiting beliefs about yourself and your product means that you just throw it out there or spend marketing money trying to convince people that they need your product or service. Look at the successful businesses around you that you want to emulate. How do they present themselves and to whom? Why are they successful?
Building a profitable and sustainable business today means having some presence.
You are still offering a product and service which makes your customer’s life easier. Your website and online interactions need to be the same as if you were in person. You are building trust with consistent interaction, free and helpful advice in a beautiful setting which says “ I have the solutions that you are looking for.” Don’t ask how to get more customers but how to serve them!
Farm Marketing from the Heart by Charlotte Smith 2017 60 great pages