Market Farming

["Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>]

In your opinion what s the best way for a
> farmer to get good press which actually leads to sales?    I found it
> useful to prepare a "fact sheet" for the reporter, which had lots of
> information that we did not cover in the interview.  A lot of that
> material made it into the article.

We have had our farm featured in two of the main Wisconsin farm papers. I am
not sure that is all that helpful in terms of getting new customers, but it
did give us a little visbility in the community as many do read those
newspapers.

One of the articles was done several years ago, well before we even had any
product to sell. I tried to hold them off for a year or so, but they needed
an article and really pushed us to do it early. We did not in any way seek
to be interviewed.

When I discussed this with the one regional reporter, she explained that
they have a very difficult time coming up with articles for anything new. I
told her that I really wished that instead of the "fluff" stuff, they would
have some really hard nosed business articles on the subject of "How you can
make money farming," but she said that was a pretty difficult thing to do.

She indicated that they will call up a person they get a tip on who is doing
something "new" and they will ask if the person is doing OK with the
business and they will say it is great, etc. and so they will visit the farm
or other rural business and then at some point they realize that the
business is not really bringing in all that much revenue. And then they find
out the owner is retired military, early retirement from government or
company and drawing a pension, independently wealthy etc.

The last article was in the Wisconsin State Farmer and in that case we were
able to proof the story and make some changes before publication. We also
supplied the picture in digital form so I never even met the reporter
although he lives a short distance from here. The initial interview was over
the phone and he put the story together from memory so there were a few (not
many) technical errors. But overall the story was pretty factual. Which
impressed me, because for those of you who have done stories with the media
over the years, you know that they ALWAYS get some things wrong no matter
how hard to try and be clear about things. (Maybe that is why they call it
... doing a story:)

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com