Marketing Plans

You’ve worked hard to have a timely and attractive website. You have a distinctive logo and promotional materials. Your social media marketing plan for the season is in place. Your products or services are top quality and will be available in sufficient supplies. You’re all ready for a great sales season. But do customers know your brand?

It was a joke in the county economic development office where I worked that I was the only person in the office that spoke “farmese.” You know…that strange language that uses terms like sustainable, organic, row feet, CSA, cagefree, free-range, over-order pricing, certified organic, etc. Any phone call from a farmer came straight to me because I was the only one in the office who understood what they were talking about.

In 1906, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal division of wealth in his country. The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule or the law of the vital few) states that in many cases, roughly 80% of the effects of an action comes from 20% of the causes. Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land and wealth in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

With so many concerns for the Fall agritourism season, here is an informative podcast that helps outline how to mediate some of the risks of hosting events this Fall season. While Marylanders must follow Governor Hogan’s mandates about group gatherings, staying informed about how vendors in other states are addressing Covid-19 protocols for group gatherings can help make more informed decisions as the Fall season approaches.

A shift was already underway to ordering food online in America, prior to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. online grocery sales grew 22% in 2019 and, propelled by high demand from nationwide COVID-19 lockdowns, stands to surge about 40% this year, according to the Coresight Research U.S. Online Grocery Survey 2020. Shopping for food online has become normal, if not the “new normal”. Farmers who direct market their products and craft food entrepreneurs can also implement the online tools necessary to capture these profitable food and beverage sales.

Earlier this month I attended the 2019 USDA Direct Marketing Summit held in Chicago, IL. I had the opportunity to display one of the 22 poster presentations featured at the summit. My poster featured the Maryland Rural Enterprise Development Center’s Website, its modules, and its client impact.

Farmers' Markets are an increasingly popular form of direct marketing for both farmers and customers alike. Farmers' markets differ from other direct marketing operations due to the fact that growers share insurance, advertising, and marketing costs. Successful farmers' markets can substantially increase the incomes of participating vendors. Maryland now has farmers’ markets operating in every county of the state and the City of Baltimore. During 2010, there were more than 6,100 farmers’ markets operating in the United States.

Across much of the United States, farmers markets have reported a decrease in consumer participation over the last couple of years, resulting in a decrease in farm sales and income. In an attempt to understand and reverse this slump, a multi-state study is being undertaken by Farmers Market Federation of NY and Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County, in partnership with Community Involved in Agriculture (CISA), NOFA-VT, University of Maryland Extension, and the Farmers Market Association of Maryland.

Your Ag Business Venture: Dream, Plan, Implement is a guide designed to put you in the driver's seat while on the road to making your ag business idea a reality. There are many good tools and resources within this guide to help you along the way.