Farmers Told Us:  The Internet Works for Them!

By Jane Eckert

Towards the end of last year, we took a survey of about 200 agritourism farms throughout North America, asking them about their season.  I talked about this in last month’s column, looking at school tours, special events, advertising budgets, etc.  This month, we are going to see what farmers have to say about the Internet.  I’m not at all surprised to see that this is becoming a major force in marketing today’s farm!

E-Newsletters
An e-newsletter is an email from the farm that goes out to your best customers.  Usually, it’s an attractive, brief announcement of what’s ripening, what events are coming up, and maybe a description of a new attraction, or a recipe that happens to use the produce that you are currently harvesting.

Of the farms I surveyed, over 36% of farms are using this technology versus 11% who still mail a printed newsletter (some are doing both).  Of those farms using e-newsletters, over half of them said that this method of marketing was either “significant” or “critical” to the farm’s success.

The reason farms are using this method of frequent communication is that it is an extremely cost effective method to reach your best customers-after all, there are no printing costs, and you can have it in the customer’s inbox within just minutes of the time you decide to send it out!  I am also seeing growing use of coupons within e-newsletters, and I hear that the redemption of those coupons is rising.

Your customers must sign- up and give you their permission to come into their “inbox,” and most are eager to do so.  Have a sign up table near the checkouts, and of course encourage them to sign up on line on your Web site.  Over one third of the farms using this marketing method already have over 2,500 customers who have subscribed. If you are still in doubt, think about sending an email out to your very best and most loyal customers the very day that strawberry picking begins.

Web sites
Without a doubt, a farm Web site is now a principle marketing strategy being used by over 83% of the responding farms. While the majority of these farms used an outside Web designer to create their Web site, 22% said they designed their sites themselves. No matter how you get it done – the main message is that every farm open to the public must have a Web site to compete in today’s economy.  As I read recently in a book by John Jantsch called Duct Tape Marketing – “harness the Internet or prepare to become obsolete.”  I can’t agree more.

What did it cost? The amount spent for the Web site does vary by size of operation and scope of activities, but over 70% of the farms spent less than $2,200 to get their Web site written and designed.  While many of the farms had their Web site designed by an outside professional, they do have the capability to manage simple ongoing updates to the content themselves.

How often do you update?  Frequency of update was another important question because we know that the Google™ search engine will rank Web sites higher for frequent updates-versus those that make changes just once a year.  Over 53% of the farms with Web sites said that they update their content 5 or more times per year. Farms are also now using their Web sites to accept reservations online for school tours and group events, while a few of these are actually taking the payments via the Internet.

Another important tool to improve your search engine ranking with Google or Yahoo™ is to make sure that you create as many inbound links to your Web site as possible. Many farms are taking advantage of both the free & paid listings opportunities from Web sites, such as your state ag and tourism associations, maze directories, garden center directories, pickyourown.org, ruralbounty.com, etc.

Two other very important questions provided some significant results for those of you still not sold on the need for a Web site.  First, over 62% of the farms indicated that they know they now receive fewer or a lot less phone calls for information as result of having a Web site. And you certainly must consider that not having to answer the phone as often is a major cost savings to your business.

And here’s the bottom line-it helps the bottom line! Seventy percent of the farms believe they have seen from a moderate to significant increase in their business as a result of having a Web site.

Blogs
This strange word coming into our vocabulary is a contraction for “Web log” and was originally sort of an online diary.  But today, it is becoming a useful tool for building your Web audience, and therefore the popularity of your Web site on those search engine rankings.  There may be some of you that don’t know much about blogs or blogging, but trust me—you will be hearing more and more about blogs as the next Internet strategy to get the word out to your best customers, while increasing the number of hits to your Web site.

Blogs are a simple way to post regular commentary on the Internet about what you are doing on the farm—what’s new, upcoming activities, what’s ripe etc.  Just about 10% of our farms surveyed now use blogs, but I am anticipating that number will be increasing.  We are now encouraging all of our Web site clients to be considering a blog as an extension of their Web site.

For those of you that want to know more about blogs, I plan to write my next article in this magazine on this very subject.  If you’d like to take a look at a blog you can view one on my Web site at www.eckertagrimarketing.com/blog or go to www.walterspumpkinpatch.com/blog.  Most blogs also allow you the option to subscribe to receive all future posts.

If you would like to participate in other periodic surveys conducted by Eckert AgriMarketing, simply subscribe to my e-newsletter and you will be given this opportunity. For those who did participate in the fall survey, the complete results were emailed to you—so if you’ve not received those, please let me know.  I think the results of these surveys certainly provide us all with some valuable information to help make our farm business’s grow.  Thanks for growing with us!

Jane Eckert, a national speaker, author and agritourism expert, is principal of Eckert AgriMarketing (www.eckertagrimarketing.com), a firm that helps farmers sell products directly to consumers and develop their operations into tourist destinations. Jane can be reached by phone 314-862-6288 or at jane@eckertagrimarketing.com