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Investing in an eyecatching
farm sign and an easy-to-read label helps bring repeat customers.
- Photo by Edwin Remsberg |
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The experience of practically every range poultry producer bears
this out: Marketing your product will take as much time and energy
as the actual task of raising and processing your product.
In a survey, 80 percent of APPPA members cited direct marketing
as a top sales method. For most, the best way to reach family, neighbors
and others in the community was word of mouth, posting flyers on
local bulletin boards, selling products at farmers markets and contacting
customers often.
Marketing Tips
Newspaper Stories. Mary Berry-Smith doesn’t
consider herself a marketing genius, but she managed in one year
to have her pastured poultry operation featured twice in the Louisville
Courier-Journal. Each time, she received a flood of orders that
led to people reserving every one of her broilers and turkeys well
before the 2001 season was complete.
Marketing is all about capitalizing on advantages. The key lies
in what some call “relationship marketing.” Berry-Smith
worked with a newspaper editor to explain the benefits of the system,
and that made the editor more willing to try, and to be impressed
by, the product. Joel Salatin and his farm were profiled in the
national Smithsonian magazine, as well as on ABC News.
Farmers who have received ink in newspapers or magazines report
that when people read about their product – and the philosophy
and practices behind
pasture-based poultry systems – their phones, in Chuck Smith’s
words, “ring off the walls.”
Pre-Orders. David Bosle of central Nebraska prints
a newsletter every winter for his customer list of close to 300.
He includes a self-addressed, stamped envelope to take orders, by
month, for the season.
“That’s a must,” he said. “The biggest
cost is to get the customer on the belt, and once you’ve got
them there, it’s stupid to let them fall off.”
Bosle takes advantage of the short growing time for chickens and
clusters his flocks around spring, summer and fall holidays, including
Memorial Day and Labor Day. With the pre-ordering system, he generally
sells his birds prior to growing them.
Samples. Robin Way not only praises the virtues
of investing in a colorful, easy-to-spot farm sign, but also recommends
giving out free meat. “If they take the
trouble to drive down our lane, I’ll give people freebies,”
she said. “Maybe they’ll never show up again, but may
be they’ll be one of our best customers.”
When they first starting raising poultry on pasture, the Ways would
bring chickens to auctions and meetings and make donations. All
of the meat was accompanied by their farm business card.
Selling with Other Products. Delahanty, the New
Mexico grower, markets his organic meat under a “Real Chicken”
brand that commands varying premium prices – as high as $5
per pound at some upscale groceries in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
Next, he plans to sell organic vegetables he expects will flourish
in the manure-rich soil aided by his flocks.
“I’ve already got the contacts at farmers markets,
groceries and restaurants all up and down the valley,” he
said, “so selling them vegetables the chickens help grow should
be easy.”
One grower who works with James McNitt at Southern University garners
$2.25 a pound for chicken partly because she already has a dedicated
list of customers lining up for her organic blueberries. “And
people are pushing her to do more,” McNitt said.
Molly and Ted Bartlett offer chickens as an extra option for members
of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) enterprise in northeast
Ohio. When joining their farm for the season, customers decide whether
to buy a poultry package. “We offer them 10 birds for $90,”
Molly Bartlett said, “and they can take them all at once,
or over the course of a year. It works well, it helps the cash flow,
and it provides more variety to offer our customers.”
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