Market Farming

["Hook Family" <guldann AT ix.netcom.com>]

In some ways as a CSA I feel lucky from an advertising standpoint in that we
have a finite amout of "product", shares, to sell and when sold out no more
advertising needed.  But.......we did advertise once and spent what seemed
like a fortune about $800-$1000.  In the early spring of '99 we ran a full
page (goofy local paper actually a bit smaller in size than a real paper) in
a small paper.  We chose this paper because a full page ad in it was way
cheaper than a full page ad in the real paper. This paper went free to many
households.  I think though because its a free paper some read and some
toss.  But all we wanted was about 30 responses we got about 50, between
some not joining and turning away a few we ended up with about 35 members
(we had a literal handful from our first year).
The interesting thing about this ad was in the package deal we got the full
page and then about 2 more weeks in which they ran a smaller version of the
ad about a half an index card size, plus they ran a "story".  Not everyone
who saw the big ad read the story.  And we got maybe one call at most when
the little ad was running.
The big ad was worth the extra bucks, it was well done I thought from the
small ad dept.  We brought in a few picture of our various critters they
added some photo type clip art of veggies and the wording explaining the CSA
program.  It was in two colors or is it 3 if you count the newsprint.  It
was newsprint, black, and green (sort of looked teal).
But since then our advertising sceme is this: produce great veggies and
serve um up with a smile (which includes the newsletter) this gets us most
of our new members friends of old.
Other expenses
$30 fee to Massachusetts Maple Producer, We are listed online and in their
print brochure.  Got us a ton of calls even into May! (Sugaring ends in
March in eastern Ma)
$15 fee to NOFA-Ma to be listed in their brochure-got us two members
Free- listing on National CSA list-got me one or two
Free-listing in Massachusetts Dept. of Food and Ag. CSA brochure and
webpage-got me one.  The dept had a table at the Flower Show a woman
inquired about local ag got sent to us.  She lives in my town about 2 miles
away
So I guess our experience shows a combination resent posts, some
advertising, then good friendly service keep the customers coming.
If we were to ever open a farm stand I have no clue how I would proceed :)
advertising wise.
I see our new enterance into school tours as being for now word of mouth
which is adequate at this time.
It's raining again here as well, although not like Bill's 3 weeks straight
we actually saw some sunshine pass 3 days.
Beth ps If someone is desparate I could scan my ad and send it to your
private email. It will be a test of my computer savy :)