news & ideas for local growers Volume 26 / Number 9 October 2017 since 1992 Become the face of your farm Marketing is the other half of the battle By Erin Benzakein tures in homeschooling and growing On-farm trial of biochar / 6 up in the garden and the occasional My first few years as a flower farm- essays where I shared some of the er were a thrilling mix of hard work rookie mistakes I was making. Other and overwhelming beauty. Through farmers and flower lovers stumbled trial and error, and a staggering across my posts and started ask- amount of work, I slowly learned how ing for advice. As the popularity of to grow top quality flowers. But once my blog grew, I also started writing I figured out what my key crops were for Growing for Market and making and how to grow them in my climate, wonderful connections in the indus- the real work began. I had finally try. Yet, while my flowers flourished, cracked the code on how to grow an I was still struggling to sell our farm’s unbelievable amount of flowers in a abundance with ease. really small space, but what I didn’t It wasn’t until I interviewed a very Summer benefits of winter CSA / 11 realize is that growing is only half of successful farmer for a story that the the battle. light bulb finally went on for me. She Like many small farms, the first shared that she too had struggled few years here at Floret were lean. with sales and marketing for years During those early days, I did a lot of before finally cracking the code. Up cold calling, knocking on doors and until that point, despite having a fan- desperately trying to sell the abun- tastic product, sales were slow and she dance pouring out of our garden. I’m struggled to catch fire. In a last ditch not going to lie - it was a terrifying, effort to keep the business afloat, she miserable experience. For me there’s decided to put herself on the cover of really nothing worse than approach- her catalog and change the business ing a complete stranger and trying name to her own. That was the year to sell them something. Back then that it all changed for her. By becom- I knew very little about marketing, ing the face of her business and put- Italy’s thriving ag cooperatives / 15 and assumed the way you sold some- ting herself out there, she turned the thing was by pointing out what the tides. competition was doing and then how She shared that in the culture we your product was superior. I thought I live in, there is a lot of distraction. needed to convince potential custom- We’re constantly bombarded with so ers that imported flowers were bad many choices, information and stim- and my blooms were better. To say ulation; people are craving a personal those early cold calls were awkward connection. More and more, they would be putting it mildly. want to buy directly from the source. Around the same time, I started They want to know where their prod- blogging about my experiences as a ucts came from and who made them. beginning flower farmer. My posts But when we as growers hide behind a featured a lot of photos of the flowers logo or a brand name, we are missing Permaculture market garden / 21 I was growing, my children’s adven- continued on the next page The face of your farm continued from page 1 this incredible opportunity to connect person to person. By the end of the interview I realized where I was go- ing wrong. On my blog and through my other writing I was sharing myself and connecting with others easily, but when it came to marketing I was trying to “sell” and driv- ing people away. Inspired by her story, and heeding her advice, I scraped together just enough money to hire a professional photog- rapher. It was a really big stretch at the time; I had to raid my family’s grocery money for the week to have enough to pay for the session. But when I finally got the images back from the photographer, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe how beautiful they were and how well the photos told the story of my little family and our farm. It wasn’t until the author stepped out from behind the lens Shortly after, I overhauled our marketing material and and became the face of her business that it took off. All im - website. I replaced the dark, poor quality flower photos ages courtesy of the author. with beautiful, professional family-centered images, and then, virtually overnight, everything changed. Before Over the years I have learned so much about market- long people were coming up to me in public and intro- ing, and now consider it one of my favorite parts of run- ducing themselves, saying they were inspired by my story ning a business. Here are a few things I’ve learned so far and wanted to support our family’s little flower business. I on this journey. never had to do another cold call again. After that our flowers sold out every week. Then the Invest in good photography press picked up on our story and our business bloomed. I can’t emphasize enough how important high quality We haven’t been able to keep up with demand ever since photos are to marketing your farm business. Investing in then. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that a few professional photos for your website and marketing pieces simple changes in my marketing strategy could result in may feel like a luxury, but I believe it is a business essen- such an amazing flood of abundance and success. tial. Even a small collection of portrait, product and action Growing for Market is published 10 times Start your own GFM subscription! per year by Tomatero Publications, Inc., PO Box 75, Here’s how to subscribe: Skowhegan, Maine 04976 To get GFM by mail Order a Print Subscription at www.growingformarket.com ISSN 1060-9296 Print edition by mail: or phone 800-307-8949 or send a check to GFM, PO Box 75, $39 for 1 year / $69 for 2 years / $97 for 3 Skowhegan, Maine 04976 $39 for 1 year, $69 for 2 years, $97 for Volume 26, Number 9, years. To Canada, $60 for 1 year / $115 for 2 October 2017 years / $165 for 3 years; $76 for one year to all 3 years. other countries. All orders in U.S. dollars. To read GFM online © 2017 Tomatero Publications, Inc. Electronic edition: Download each issue as a PDF for $30/year. 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Contact us: Contributing Editors Email: [email protected] Free Ebooks Gretel Adams Web: www.growingformarket.com “Farm Fresh Recipes” is a free, downloadable Ebook for Phone: 207-474-5518 Chris Blanchard subscribers that provides reproducible recipe cards for fresh Toll-free phone: 800-307-8949 produce. “Extending the Season” is a 52-page collection of Pam Dawling Mail: GFM, PO Box 75, Skowhegan, ME 04976 articles about season extension. Log in using the information Jane Tanner above, and scroll down to find the links. 2 GROWING FOR MARKET / OCTOBER 2017 For LOCAL FRESH PRODUCE Professionals 800-622-7333 www.twilleyseed.com s ble ta ge ve nd s le s a shots will do wonders for your ability to connect with cus- b r ta we tomers and visually share your story. My first photo shoot ge f o was a mini session because it was all I could afford. It was ve ing d nd a whirlwind to capture it all in the allotted time, but we an tsta were able to fill our little website with beautiful, profes- rs ou we or sional images.