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market-farming - RE: [Market-farming] market for frozen steaks

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  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] market for frozen steaks
  • Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 19:49:18 -0600

Cheryl Plum wrote:
> Hi Rick, it sounds to me like you need to target a steak-eating
> base. how about an ad in the classifieds of a nearby or city
> newspaper? forgive me if this sounds too simplistic, but I know
> there are plenty of people who would love to be eating your steaks
> and have the money to buy them; you need to figure out how to reach
> this specialty market as directly as possible to maximize your return.

Everything we hear about running classified ads for direct marketing produce
has not been that succesful but we have not done it.

I have tried running free ads on THE local BBS but have had no response. One
thing we did was to send out a Farm Flyer to around 30 of our former
customers who looked like the best candidates for buying some product. Thus
far we have had near zero response. And this is a deal with free delivery if
you buy at least $50 worth of product. And for February we are discounting
steaks by $1.00/lb for ANY steak.

By the way, the discount is ONLY for our regular customers as we need to
make this a special for them.

As I have said before, these markets are very thin. You have diehard
customers though who keep buying, but they are very few and far between. It
is not like people don't know we are here since we have a significant
presense at the local food coop. In fact, we now are members of the coop
which gives us an business listing in their monthly newsletter. I will say
that there are so many competing businesses now that it is becoming
overwhelming for them and they need to make some changes in their layout to
make it a bit more fair for newcomers.

Our major selling tool is our brochures and from what we can tell, we get
maybe at most one or two buyers per 100 brochures that are picked up. Is
this typical? I don't know. But that is what we find in our area.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Direct marketed dairy beef and produce
(also dairy heifers and beef stockers)
Viroqua, WI







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