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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Advertising

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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: "jay gee" <jgj23 AT mindspring.com>
  • To: "market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Advertising
  • Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 16:07:08 -0800 (PST)

Leigh Hauter wrote:

>>If your ad testing proves that assumption true, you may have
>>been right. However, if you don't test your advertising in a
>>variety of media to reach a large cross section of the local
>>population, you may be passing up an awful lot of sales,
>>profits and opportunities to make customers happy, therefore,
>>more willing to pay higher prices.

>But Jay, that's the problem, market-farmers don't have the money for
>test marketing (or advertising). That's why I said marketing for us
>wasn't rocket science (or I meant to say that). Maybe an ad campaign
>you have does have the money to make it rocket science.

Advertising for anyone serious about doing it should be
rooted in Science. All ads are tested. All are experimental,
some work better than others.

Your ad budget can be measured in hundreds of dollars
per year and still be measured for effectiveness. If you
are spending over $ 1,000 for advertising, measuring
media and ad results is very important.

> We can only observe who buys from us and try to figure out who they
>are, why they buy what they do, and find out how they came to do it.
> From the low cost, admittedly imperfect market survey we might have a
>sense of where to advertise (more likely, where to put our fliers).

You can and should do more than observe, even with limited means.

>We are not talking millions of dollars in sales here with advertising
>budgets. For some of us we are talking several hundred thousand of
>net sales but for most its in the tens of thousands or less.

If you are selling $ 10,000 a year or more, you should have an
ad budget and make sure it is doing the job. For a farm with
several hundred thousand in sales, the ad budget should probably
be about 5% of your sales number, maybe higher or lower,
depending on what kind of profitability you have versus how
much profitability you want.

>What we need is advertising campaigns for the farm version of the mom
>and pop store.

I'm sure there are lots of good mom and pop farm ad campaigns
out there making money for people. Those who have them in
place are unlikely to share them and dilute their effectiveness.

>And your thoughts about higher prices. yes, one time I did charge
>$195 for the same thing I charge $330 this year. This version might
>be better (in quality) and there hasa been a degree of inflation over

Inflationary price increases are unrelated to advertising induced
price inelasticity.

>the decade. But my ability to charge the higher price is more
>dependent on non-ad type of changes in society. More articles in
>magazines and newspapers about food safety, food health. cooking and
>CSA's makes my product more valuable. If all of the CSA operators in
>the DC area got together and pitched in for an ad campaign, there
>wouldn't be much money, and we couldn't reach many people, not in
>this market. We have to think outside the box as far as how to
>publicize what we do.

Yes, and done right, it could work better than advertising.

>taste. People that are satisfied with corporate vegetables do not
>buy at farmers markets. People who buy chicken from KFC usually
>don't go out and pay more for a pasture raised, hand plucked chicken.
>People who buy hamburger that has been irradiated do not go to the
>farmer and also buy fresh grass fed beef. At least not in my
>experience.

I think you might be surprised to learn that a goodly number
of your potential customers do patronize the Food Lion, eat at
KFC now and then, and are known to buy burgers. They
may not admit it to you, but they do admit such facts to
market researchers.

I'll stop too.


Jay Gee
not a farmer - but interested in farming





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