To Increase Sales During Off Peak Seasons, Host Community Events

By Jane Eckert

One of the challenges of direct farm marketing is to maintain a revenue stream during the off-peak season. Most direct farm marketers don’t have sufficient advertising dollars to spend to this end. An effective alternative is to offer your farm as a host site for special events or meetings for community groups and not-for-profit organizations.

This achieves two goals: raising the awareness of your farm in the surrounding community; and creating traffic during slow times. The sponsor group also benefits, as your farm venue delivers a unique atmosphere for their event as well as raises awareness of their cause.

Tips For Finding The Right Group & The Right Event

Finding the right event is crucial. Finding the right group is even more crucial. There must be a good fit between your farm and the group. To determine a good fit, look at several things. Does your farm and the group have the same target audience? Is the event compatible with your family values and the image you wish to maintain? (For instance, you may not want to host the local Bikers event.) Will they commit volunteers to work the event? Is your site compatible in size and in style with the event they propose? (A black tie event is questionable but a square dance event is a good fit.)

There are various levels of involvement your farm can provide when hosting these events. Those events requiring the least involvement on your part include: a 5k or 10K walk around the farm; starting point for a bicycle club ride; antique car show; lawn and garden equipment show, among others. If you haven’t held events before or if your staff and time are limited, you should consider a low level of involvement. This makes the success of the event more likely from your point of view. You can always increase your involvement as you gain more experience with this type of activity or if your staff increases.

To select the correct event, think about what your farm has to offer: a scenic setting; farm animals; children’s play area, farm market shopping; food concessions; and hopefully plenty of parking. Being a host site doesn’t necessarily mean contributing cash or any of the proceeds to the group. It means providing a rent-free space and parking, which may be the entire contribution to the event. However a donation of a portion of your admission or proceeds is an option you may want to consider. You may also be asked to provide tents, tables, straw bale seating and other items of comfort that you have readily available on your farm.

Be Open To New Opportunities

Be open to opportunities as they present themselves. For example, a Midwest farm agreed to be a pick-up site for pre-purchased Easter baskets for a local charity’s donors. The charity wanted their donors to have a central location to bring their child, meet the Easter bunny and pick up their basket.

The Midwest farm used this opportunity to tie in with the basket pick-up and host an Easter egg hunt. The charity eventually selected a new fund-raiser. By then, however, the Midwest farm had an established Easter egg hunt event. Eight years later, this has become a major, four-day event in the spring, which attracts more than 2,000 egg hunters plus multiple family members.

Consider Children’s Events

Children’s events are a natural; local and national children’s organizations are a good source for collaborative efforts to create events that can draw substantial traffic. There are many of these organizations including: the Girl’s & Boy’s Clubs, Ronald McDonald House, The Humane Society, 4-H Club, FFA, The Shriner’s Hospital and YMCA.

One nationally known children’s charity, The Make-a-Wish Foundation is an excellent contact. Recently, the St. Louis chapter of this charity collaborated with a southwest Illinois entertainment farm creating a family event called “Pick-A-Wish.” Participants plucked stars off apple trees to win prizes that had been donated to Make-A-Wish. Arcade games were also available creating a family day at the orchard and a special day for Make-A-Wish.

Local civic organizations are another source of collaboration for events. Some you may want to contact include The Lions Club, Optimist Club, Rotary and Chamber of Commerce, offering events such as: a special VIP day for picking fruit, host an after hour’s event or fund-raiser.

Win Win for your Farm & Community Groups

Working with local groups can attract new customers and provide increased media attention for your farm, which also helps attract additional customers. These collaborations give your business the opportunity to give something back to your community.

Finding these community groups isn’t really as difficult as you may think. You may already be a member of a group wanting to come up with a new idea for a fund-raiser or a place to host a special event. Let people know in your local organizations that your farm is available for these kinds of activities. With trial and error, time and experience, your farm can benefit from these events and attract new customers.

Jane Eckert is the founder of Eckert AgriMarketing (www.eckertagrimarketing.com), a full-service marketing and public relations firm that helps farmers to sell directly to consumers, diversify operations and become tourist destinations. She is also CEO of www.RuralBounty.com, a search directory for agritourism farms and ranches in North America. Jane can be reached at 314-862-6288 or you may email her directly.