Eckert AgriMarketing Newsletter- February 2007

(click here for directory of past newsletters)

News From Fresh Grown Publications!

It’s not often that the words “guaranteed income” and “farm” appear in the same sentence. Take Notice!

I want you to be among the first people to know about my new book, Fresh Grown Company Picnics and Events. Whether you have been doing picnics and events for a long time, or you are just thinking about it, this new book contains tons of tips and step-by-step instructions on how to establish and grow your company picnic business.

The book goes through a natural progression beginning with offering event space for rent, and then advancing through various considerations: tent rental or purchase, providing food services by caterer or your own kitchen, and at the top of the income list, providing a turn-key event where you do all the planning and scheduling, and charge accordingly.

Checklists, sample contracts, and even a telephone script are provided to give you every advantage in understanding and embracing the business of company picnics. Each book also contains a CD recording of my 2006 Teleseminar on Corporate Events and Picnics.

All orders received in the next two weeks will receive free shipping and handling!

Click here to order.

February 2007

Email Marketing Tips

Looking at the long list of people who receive this message, I recognize that some of you have been doing email marketing for a couple of years, and some of you just don’t get it yet.

Well, let me say to all of you, I think this is one of the most important marketing tools we have available today. While websites are very valuable and more and more of our customers are going to the web to learn more about us—the email newsletter serves as a mini website that can go directly to the customer's "inbox", instead of waiting to be discovered.

Email marketing is proactive. Your customer has given you an email address and indicated that you are welcome to use this means to alert them when your crops are ready, or when you have special activities of interest. The majority of web users now check their email at least daily, so if the strawberries are going to be ready tomorrow to pick, you can send an email this afternoon and have pickers there in the morning.

It’s like "knocking on the doors" of all your best customers to personally invite them out to the farm.

So whether you are just starting to collect email addresses, or you’ve been sending regular email alerts out, I want to review a few tips that will help you jump start your season with email marketing.

1. Clean your list. People move, change email service providers, and change their email addresses. Now is the time to glean your list of the bad addresses. You also now have time to see why some of these bounced. It may be the method you used, as many services have sophisticated filters that may return your email mistaking it for spam. For more on this, see the article on my website titled "Creating the Electronic Newsletter.”

2. Develop more ways to add to your list. You should not add email addresses without getting permission. For one thing, it’s against the law, but it also will just annoy people. You want to ask people to give you their email address so that you can send them information of interest, such as discount coupons, opening dates, and special event announcements. Read more on this in “The Need to Collect Databases,” which explains more about both the why and how you collect email addresses.

3. Take time to make your messages count. I’m writing this now because now is a good time to write the copy about the opening of strawberry season, the activities on the farm, and even your fall activities. You pretty much know what you are going to offer, so take time now, in the winter, to write some really interesting articles and short "news bulletins" that you’ll have on file when the season comes around. There are some other tips on my website in the article “Fine Tuning Your Electronic Newsletter.”

4. Segment your email lists. That last article also talks about how to segment your email marketing so that you get just the right message to the right folks. For example, if you have a scary haunted house, segment your marketing list so that you can send a special message to your teen customers, while you send a different message to your customers that are more interested in the arrival of the fall mums.

February really is a great month for marketing. This time of year seems to allow a little more time for thinking. Do your marketing plan now for the entire year, take time to do some clever writing, figure out some new ads or displays that will attract more customers to share their email address, and get your email newsletters ready to send.

You might even send a Valentine to your email list! I am.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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