Issue No 11, January 1999.

NOTICE: Hard copies of the Australian New Crops Newsletter are available from the publisher, Dr Rob Fletcher. Details of availability are included in the Advice on Publications Available.

12. The Hot 50 Farm Marketing Tips

[From: 'Sell What You Sow! The Grower's Guide to Successful Produce Marketing.' by Eric Gibson. Published and available from:

New World Publishing
3037 Grass Valley Highway #8185
Auburn California 95602 USA
Price: $US22.50+2.50
Telephone: 1 530 823 3886
Email: egibson@jps.net
Web Site: http://www.jps.net/grower
Free catalog available: 'Books To Grow On']

Don't plant one seed until you know who your customers will be. Match your sales volume to the market-plan ahead and anticipate what you can sell to your outlets.

There's nothing worse than producing a crop, only to find out that you can't sell it.

Market analysis not only helps determine if your prospective enterprise can be profitable, but also determines how you will promote and market your product.

Start small, and test your ability to grow and market new products before you scale up.

This protects you so that you don't get knocked out if your experiment fails. Starting small also helps assure you'll produce a quality product.

Set aside a certain percentage of your acreage or gross income each year to experiment with new products.

Focus initially on producing a few selected specialties.

Establish a reputation for quality specialty products.

Check with current or potential buyers such as specialty distributors, restaurant chefs, customers at your local farm market, retail produce managers, seed company catalogs, cooperative extension office publications and books such as Craig Wallin's 'Backyard Cash Crops' and Rosalind Creasey's 'Cooking From The Garden'.

Play around in the kitchen experimenting with different ways in which your products can be used.

Don't get swept away by every new possibility that comes along, however.

Take your list of new ideas and evaluate how each alternative matches your skills, preferences and resources.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If weather, pests, or a collapsed market wipe out one crop, you've got others to rely on.

Another advantage of diversity is that once you've established connections with buyers, increasing the variety you offer them is a good way to increase the overall volume they will accept from you.

But there's a tradeoff: you may have to:

• learn new production technologies
• buy new equipment and/or
• develop new markets.

Diversifying markets can be simpler and more lucrative than diversifying production.

Adding a farmers market to your marketing mix, going organic, or developing 'value-added' products such as soybean snacks are examples of diversifying your markets without changing what you produce.

Raise high-value crops, plants that the big wholesalers have overlooked because they require lots of handling or special care.

Herbs require much specialized, hands-on care, for instance, as do berries or haricot beans.

Remember, however, that specialty produce doesn't have to be exotic. It just has to taste special!

Regular commercial varieties such as peaches or raspberries are also specialty crops if they are allowed to fully ripen on the tree or vine, specialty-packed and moved fast!

Be prepared to change with the seasons.

Too many growers just go by what sold well last year-but most specialty buyers, such as chefs, are constantly looking for something new.

In case your high-end markets don't take all your premium produce, develop secondary outlets for your specialty crops such as canning, processing or selling at lower-end markets.

Look for niche markets through such trends as health and nutrition, smaller packages, more diverse and higher quality foods, quality and convenience, ethnic foods, foods for weight conscious consumers as well as consumers concerned about food-safety.

Some other trends to be aware of include the demand for fresh, in-season, local produce as well as organic produce and cut flowers.

Some customers will pay the price you name for quality they can't get elsewhere.

Freshness: keep your products on the vine or tree as long as possible.

Then get them to the consumer as soon as possible after harvest.

Variety: comb through specialty seed catalogs, searching for varieties that boast of excellence in flavor.

Many specialty farmers grow their products chemical-free, using a program of natural, enriched soil practices.

Don't jeopardize your top-paying markets by mixing your premium products with lesser-grade products-develop secondary outlets for your number two's and three's.

Not everything you produce is marketable to a high-end market such as a restaurant.

Plant 10 percent more than what you plan to market.

Extend your harvest by successively planting different varieties with different harvest dates.

Steady production stretched over a long growing season provides regular work for the labor crew, evens out the cash flow, helps capture early- and late-season prices, and provides a consistency of supply for the buyers.

With only a few acres, you need to use intensive production techniques.

Read John Jeavons' book 'How To Grow More Vegetables', on intensive production techniques.

The annals of business failures are filled with businesses that attempted to market what they thought would sell, instead of finding out first what will sell!

Get to know your customers or buyers, why they purchase what they do, and what else they might like to purchase.

Make it a habit to informally survey your customers.

Offer your product or service on a limited basis in order to evaluate potential sales. Ask your family and friends to give you both positive and negative feedback on any new product or idea you try.

Send retail or wholesale buyers new product samples and ask for their feedback.

Use small focus groups to gain insights on your new product. Finally, use advertisements as a type of low-cost test promotion.

If you are considering offering blueberry gift-packs, for example, run an ad inviting customers to 'Send blueberries to someone you love.'

Although the ad may not pay for itself in cash returns, losing a few hundred dollars on an ad is cheaper than investing heavily in gift packs.

The name of the game is niche marketing. Look for ways to differentiate your product not only by what you grow, but:

• how you grow it (ie organic);
• what you do with it (ie 'added- value' or processed products); or
• how you package or market the product.

Ordinary spinach, for example, which is triple-rinsed, cut and placed in plastic bags as a ready-to-eat salad becomes a specialty item!

Some other ways to differentiate your product might include:

• a service such as washing your lettuce or home delivery of products;
• giving information such as recipes or workshops;
• creating an image such as 'country', 'healthy' or 'natural'; or
• providing recreation, such as a weekend outing in the country.

Many smaller growers choose direct marketing through farmers markets, roadside stands, etc, in order to increase revenue by cutting out the middlemen. If you like merchandising and dealing with people, or if you have family labor available to help, you may prefer selling direct to customers.

Direct marketing is most likely to be successful for seasonal items or relatively high-value products including 'value-added' or processed products, and for small and part-time farmers within 20 miles of urban population centers or on access roads to major tourist areas.

Taking over the job of the middlemen, however, takes a lot of time.

If you only like to grow, a broker or specialty distributor who sells to high-end markets can enable you to spend all your time growing and still net a high return.

15 Your farmers market stall should be 'theater'

Display, layout, containers, signage, composition, color, contrast, structures and lighting, as well as the products and service you offer customers and how you talk to them, all come together to tell your story.

What makes you unique?

Well-stocked displays, for example, convey abundance and attract attention, as do creative display ideas such as a 'waterfall' of potatoes made by an inclined board covered with spuds of all shapes and colors.

Simple themes work well, too, such as interspersing product displays with leaves, herbs or flowers, or stringing balloons or chili peppers around the canopy or entrance way.

Roadside markets need something special:

• a rural recreational or entertainment experience such as simple picnic tables, a pick-your-own opportunity or farm tours and festivals,
• unique customer education opportunities such as food preservation workshops, specialty recipes, lower prices, specialty products not ordinarily found in supermarkets, or
• fresher, higher quality produce.

Offering customers a 'real fresh berry topping' sundae (if you are a berry grower) can entice customers away from the supermarkets!

Then run classified ads each week of the season to give customers continual reminders about when and where they can get fresh strawberries or vegetables.

Keep using classified ads to alert people about items approaching maturity, give directions to the farm and state prices and hours of operation.

Classified ads reach people who are specifically looking for pick-your-own produce.

Display ads in the weekly food section of the paper are more effective in reaching people looking for family entertainment.

Busy urbanites are seeking places to go for a weekend family outing, where the kids can feed the goats or find out how bean plants grow.

Popular themes and activities at rural attractions include:

In addition to an ongoing selection of farm attractions and fresh farm produce, set up weekend themes or festivals to attract customers.

People are willing to drive one, two or three hours-if there are enough attractions to make a worthwhile family outing.

Customer/members sign up in advance to buy 'shares' of the farm's harvest, accepting less if a crop is damaged or fails. This is different than with conventional farming where the farmer bears all the risk.

Share holders often come out to the farm to help plant and pick the crop; have it delivered to a central pickup point; or, for higher price, have it delivered to their doorstep.

Advance payment guarantees the farmer a market for everything he or she grows, creates working capital at planting time so the farmer can purchase equipment and supplies as needed, and allows the farmer to devote more time and energy to growing.

CSA's (US) also offer an urban-rural link that many feel is the soul of community supported agriculture.

Whether it's a fancy restaurant or a grocery store known for its top-of-the-line produce department, go after the top markets in your area. Convince them that you can get them the best product they've seen-and then deliver what you've promised.

Do this even if you are able to sell them only a few products-as they find that you are dependable, you can increase the order size. Once you've established yourself as a supplier to 'the best', use them as a reference. This gives you a real 'in' when selling to other markets.

If the retail buyer is reluctant to try out your product, offer a guarantee by offering to take back without cost products that don't sell.

Supply stores with recipe pads and encourage produce managers to set up sample tables.Spend on packaging.

Customers like to be romanced, so tell a story on your packages; give a little background of your farm or the history of the product.

Provide cooking and storage tips.

Invite the consumer to write to you with their comments on the product or suggestions for recipes.

You might offer a retail pack of potatoes, for example, with several different sizes.

The pack appeals to retailers with very limited shelf space, as well as to customers who often prefer several different sizes of potatoes for different uses.

Or you might offer a 10-pound package of near-perfect, uniformly sized tomatoes in a cell-pack that gives each tomato separate protection. The lid folds back so the box can be used as a display box.

23 Selling to restaurants

Since affordable labor is a big problem faced by chefs, they are glad to buy food products in a semi-prepared form, such as pre-sliced vegetables, pre-peeled potatoes, pre-washed greens or tomatoes and potatoes sorted according to size.

The less time spent preparing produce in the kitchen the better. Chefs use big tomatoes, for example, for slicing, and little tomatoes for salads.

It may pay to spend a little extra to have your farm logo or a striking color label put on your shipping boxes. If the product looks as good as the packaging, the terminal wholesale buyers will buy.

Some packaging boxes are so attractive they double as retail display cases.

You might also include extra labels for the retailers to use as in-store displays above their produce.

Make sure that your pricing reflects the added cost.

Educate buyers and consumers about your product in order to make them willing to pay a premium.

If you are selling to a distant specialty broker, for example, give them product information to educate their sales staff and flyers and point-of-purchase materials for their sales-people to take to the chefs and produce managers.

For some resourceful growers, selling through specialty brokers or distributors leaves them free to spend most of their time in production, while getting top dollar for their crops.

The high-end specialty trade is a highly crowded, competitive market that demands the highest quality product and packaging.

The supply-demand issue is very critical. You can't just grow anything and expect to get high-end prices.

Specialty produce changes from year to year depending on what's fashionable.

One reason may be that larger cooperatives with a packing operation often develop bigger, more centralized operations, with high staff costs plus expensive machinery. Ensuing debts can lead to failure.

Marketing associations exist to help market and promote growers' products, with no centralized site for packing. As well as promoting farm products by type of product, marketing associations can also promote farm products by growing region.

28 Dry it, pie it or put it in cider 'value-added processed products

Fruit that may be worth cents-per-unit weight as a fresh market product may be worth dollars as processed jam.

Value-added products:

• create additional products for you to sell
• enable you to market less-than-perfect produce as processed products
• provide a source for year-round sales and
• generate off-season work.

Start small and build a solid local base before attempting to sell to larger or more distant markets.

Test market your product at farmers markets.

Supply local gift shops and small independent retail stores with specialty items that they can't get through normal distributors.

First get 'visibility' such as testimonials, publicity in local papers, proof-of-sales, etc.

This will entice large distributors and supermarkets to carry your product.

Hand a customer a small paper cup of cider and they'll probably want to purchase a gallon.

This is inexpensive promotion.

Product sampling is especially important for introducing new products or new varieties of a product.

Whether it's with toothpick samples at your farmers market stall or roadside market, by doing demonstrations at a retail store, or bringing along your cutting board when you visit produce managers or restaurant chefs, let the customers taste your great product.

Once they have tried, they'll buy.

This is something customers can't find at the supermarkets or wholesale markets.

For example, ifyou have a roadside stand, go the extra mile and provide:

• information on types and varieties of produce
• recipes for customer use
• a picnic area
• a call-in ordering service and
• acceptance of credit cards.

Washed produce is welcomed by travelers or picnickers; you also might provide a produce-washing facility for customer use.

How can we serve you better? Practice the art of drawing out customer reactions. What did they like and dislike and what they'd also like to have in addition to what you offer.

Train your employees to do likewise.

Besides simply talking to customers, other ways to solicit customer feedback are through focus groups, suggestions boxes and by inviting, through the product label, customer comments and suggestions.

The more people know about your product, what went into growing it and how to use it, the more they are willing to pay premium price.

Ways to inform customers about your products or services include:

• point-of-purchase flyers,
• on-farm demonstrations/workshops,
• free recipe sheets,
• product information on labels,
• educational articles or columns in the media, and
• a regularly published newsletter.

Studies show that most purchases are unplanned.

Few people go into a store and stick to their shopping list 100%.

Develop a roster of posters, shelf-talkers, tent cards, recipe pads and brochures to act as on-the-spot salespeople when customers walk into your store. In this way, customers are encouraged to try a new product.

By supplying customers with recipes and storage tips, point-of-purchase displays also encourage customers to purchase larger volumes.

The products you sell through retail stores or wholesalers will also move a lot faster if you can supply them with lots of interesting material.

Offer a unique, high-quality product that customers can't get elsewhere.

Stress quality, freshness and uniqueness rather than cheapness.

For high-end pricing:

• Package expensive specialty items in smaller units. Sell berries, for example, in pint rather than quart sizes-this makes it easier for the customer to buy and try out a new or expensive product.
• Price competitively for common items, but slightly above the market for unusual or hard-to-find items where competition is less intense.
• Give samples in order to show the customer your quality.
• If and when you do make upward price adjustments, make them a little as needed rather than all at once.

As the farmer who grew and intimately knows the product you're selling, you can sell twice as much on any given day as a hired salesman.

Selling skills can be gained by common sense preparation.

Go to your library or bookstore and get a good book on salesmanship.

Contrary to the salesman's image as a talker, it's even more important to listen.

If you want to sell, then ask, don't tell.

Talk, ask questions and listen until you've learned about the customer's needs and how you can satisfy them.

Use your logo on road signs, packaging, letterhead, containers, business cards, brochures and direct-mail pieces, as well as on all advertising that you do.

In seeking graphic design help, look for barter arrangements: one flower grower supplied an advertising agency with fuchsias in exchange for half her bill.

Keep your logo simple, clean and crisp.

Logos with lots of details can distract a customer and cause her to miss the real message or theme you are trying to convey.

In a market of mass-produced, no-name products, stamping your personal identity on your product builds trust and confidence.

Even the smallest farmer can utilize branding to maximize his advantage over competitors.

It's important though that the 'quality goes in before the name goes on'. Consistent quality is crucial to branding your products. Bad products will ruin your brand name.

Read books like:

• 'Bigtime Lettuce' by Eric Gibson,
• 'Advertising Without Money' by Salli Raspberry and
• 'Street Smart Marketing' by Jeff Slutsky for low-cost promotion techniques.

A story written about your product or farm operation in the local newspaper can be worth hundreds or even thousands of advertising dollars.

An industry rule-of-thumb is that editorial coverage is seven times as valuable as paid coverage.

Word-of-mouth advertising is not free, however.

It is earned each time you provide your customers with outstanding service and a quality product.

Word-of-mouth really takes off when you do something extraordinary.

This might include custom growing for restaurant chefs or providing an irresistible fresh berry-topping sundae for roadside market customers.

Other ways to help fuel word-of-mouth include:

• asking satisfied customers to recommend your services or products to their friends;
• setting up a referral program to encourage customers to tell others about your farm or market;
• printing your farm logo, along with a map, on your paper bags, cartons and other containers;
• handing out brochures for committed customers to pass out to friends; and
• collecting customer testimonials to quote in your advertising copy.

Community involvement means joining the chamber of commerce or donating fresh vegetables or holding a benefit sale for a charitable organization.

Contribute bags or boxes of your product, and include a sales brochure.

Recipients will show up later at your farm.

Sponsor a local high school club that is community-minded.

They are always looking for interesting stories to fill their newspapers or air time.

In fact, 75 percent of what appears in print has come from news releases.

Media people get so many slick press releases from large firms.

They often favor 'home-made' newsy items from small businesses, especially if they are local.

Send information about something that is unique or new, and is of real interest or usefulness to readers, rather than blatantly self-promotional.

Make it news, not advertising.

Get in the habit of thinking 'possible PR story.'

Ask yourself:

• What is unique about my market or my products?
• Do I grow an unusual food item not normally obtainable in grocery stores?

Recipes, tip-sheets and contests are just a few more of the hundreds of ideas for interesting news releases.

As a small entrepreneur, don't try to be General Foods.

Tell your story.

We live in a society in which everything is wrapped in plastic.

People want to hear your personal story.

Put lots of personality into your copy:

• tell how your farm got started,
• your early struggles, or
• about your ethnic background.

Tell what is unique about your product.

Why is it the kind of product customers won't find from major food manufacturers?

Tailor your advertising and promotions to your current and prospective customers. Evaluate ad results so that you don't keep spending money on ads or promotional campaigns that aren't working.

This can be done by 'pre-testing' through focus groups or by simply asking people what they think of your ad before you run it.

'Post-testing' involves tracking each ad such as:

• counting coupons brought into the checkstand or returned to you in the mail
• by checking the sales of advertised items or
• by talking to people coming into the store: 'Where did you see our ad?'

Tabulate sales and try to make a judgment as to how many of the sales resulted from the advertisement.

If the ad doesn't work, don't repeat it!

By offering the customer a bonus for bringing the coupon into your store, coupons act as an incentive to act on the ads or leaflets advertising your market or product.

Coupons act as a loss leader. As customers bring in coupons for the free or discounted item, they usually purchase other items as well.

Coupons also serve as an effective, low-cost way to test advertisements or promotions. Code each coupon so you will know where it came from.

Instead of offering a discount off the cost of an item in your coupons, offer a free cup of cider, a free recipe booklet or a free coloring book for the children etc.

This way customers won't become conditioned to always expecting low prices.

Smaller growers need to realize that their competition comes not from neighboring farmers but from the supermarkets and their corporate farm suppliers.

Cooperative promotion can mean trading mailing lists, cooperative advertising, joining a local direct marketing association, taking part in a farm trail map or getting together to sponsor a regional tasting event.

It pays to promote with fellow growers

Whether this means:

• helping the hungry by contributing food to a local soup kitchen
• joining an organization to save endangered farmland or species or
• fighting for rights through political action or community groups, it's worth your time to share the harvest with others.

What goes around comes around!

Information resources include:

• your local cooperative extension office
• economic development groups
• community colleges
• local libraries
• chambers of commerce
• farm and other trade journals
• trade associations and
• farm marketing conferences.

It is frequently expressed at marketing conferences that if you go home with one new idea it will pay for the cost of the conference.

In the long run, you'll actually work more effectively and profitably by not working seven days a week.

When bad weather conditions turned his broccoli crop into pathetically small-time versions of real broccoli, Tom Willey of T & D Farms near Fresno, California, started the 'broccoli florette' craze.

Similarly, if a drought makes your potatoes look like ping-pong balls, try selling them as 'Pee Wee Potatoes' in $2 pint boxes.

Always give something extra.

Remember that word-of-mouth really takes off when you do something extraordinary.

Customers expect the basics.

Think of Crackerjacks and chances are you'll remember the tiny little toy you always find at the bottom of the package.

So give customers their money's worth and then some by giving something away free, such as food samples, a pumpkin or a small basket of strawberries, hayrides, etc.

[The above has been extracted, with some minor omissions from:

Published and available from:
New World Publishing
3037 Grass Valley Highway #8185
Auburn California 95602 USA
Telephone: 1 530 823 3886
Email: ebibson@jps.net
A free catalogue is available: 'Books To Grow On'
Web site: www.jps.net/grower

The editors are grateful for Mr Gibson's co-operation in permitting us to include these ideas.]

Contact: Dr Rob Fletcher, School of Land and Food, The University of Queensland Gatton College, 4345; Telephone: 07 5460 1311 or 07 5460 1301; Facsimile: 07 5460 1112; International facsimile: 61 7 5460 1112; Email: r.fletcher@mailbox.uq.edu.au

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originally created by: GK; latest update 6 June 1999 by: RF