Keeping Detailed Records Can Improve Marketing Decisions

The other week I attended a field day at a PA dairy farm that has a creamery enterprise processing their own cheese.  Having attended numerous field days, I expected the day to be spent covering the production aspects of the business.  A fair part of the days was, in fact, spent on dairy and cheese production.  However, what impressed me was the time and detail spent on record-keeping and marketing for the cheese enterprise. The manager shared several examples of the charts created from data they track - everything from milk usage to customer (outlet) trends to sales by type of cheese - all over a multiple year span.

I've created an example, below, (with non-existent data) to illustrate how detailed record-keeping can assist in making marketing decisions.

Example chart of cheese sales ($) by type

The chart easily illustrates for each cheese type how sales have changed over the five-year period in question.  Anyone looking at this can quickly see that sales of cheeses A, D, and G, after reaching a peak in 2010, dropped in 2011.  This should tell the business owner that those are cheeses that should be closely watched during the coming year to see if sales continue to drop.  The owner might additionally want to do some investigative work to see if he/she can identify a specific reason behind the drop in sales.  Alternatively, the significant sales increases for cheeses B and E may lead the owner to increase marketing for those types, or to leverage their popularity to assist with sales of the cheeses with decreasing sales.

Whether it's cheese or another product, having sales data organized in a fashion like this can easily assist with identifying trends among your customers and help you make production and sales decisions.

The state of Farmers' Markets in Pennsylvania

Guest post by John Berry, Penn State Extension Educator, Lehigh Co.

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has a deep, rich history with direct-to-consumer farm markets.  As early as the 1700's, local producers were vending their farm products directly to consumers.  Descriptions of preparing raw products and value-added wares, loading the wagon, and spending the day at market is found in many daily journals.  More recently, Pennsylvania was ranked number three nationally for dollar value of direct sales to consumers in 2007 by the U.S. Census of Agriculture (USDA NASS, 2009).

2007 Direct-to-Consumer Food Marketing Sales (USDA NASS, 2009)

As the number of farmers' markets continue to grow nationally (over 7,100 by mid- 2011) and become more popular with consumers (USDA AMS, 2011), more focused needs assessments are needed.  What education or technical assistance could help these markets be more successful?  Generalizing from the ever-popular on-farm marketing materials did not necessarily identify needs unique to these enterprises.  While many of the educational needs on farmers' market managers and vendors are similar to other target audiences of Extension - exploring for unique attributes seemed appropriate.

A survey of farmers' market managers in Pennsylvania was implemented in February and March of 2012.  The survey included approximately 25 questions intended to study information and technical assistance needs on the part of the markets, as well as characteristics of the markets that may define success.  Some basic information about the markets was also collected.  The survey covered the 2011 season for all markets.  In addition, a portion of the survey of Pennsylvania farmers' markets examined how Pennsylvania's Act 106, and food safety issues in general, affected the markets during the 2011 season.

The resulting report provides summary results from this effort.  The typical market manager responding to this survey has 12 vendors attracting an average of nearly 600 shoppers per market day.  This is in the face of their nearest competing market being less than 5 miles distant.  This survey also indicates that 19% of these markets are considered as start-ups with 38% are considered growing and 37% are considered mature.  While the results are useful to those of us in Extension, they also may be of interest to farmers' market managers, other types of market managers, government agencies, and others who work with this audience.

Using PA MarketMaker to Market Your Business (part 3)

Continuing on in the MarketMaker series, today I'm going to talk about using PA MarketMaker to search for a business or product. This is an important feature for both consumers and food business owners. For example, a consumer can find a pumpkin patch in their area and a cattle rancher could find a processor for his beef.

1. To search for a product or business, click on a business type from the dropdown box under the Farmers, Fisheries, and Businesses section of the Pennsylvania MarketMaker homepage, located in the center of the page. Then, choose a search distance of “PA” or a mileage range from a specific zip code. Click “Search” to continue.

2. On the Results page, you will see businesses matching your criteria on the right and can view their location on the map in the center of the page. If you are looking for more advanced search results, you can narrow your search by clicking on the available options in the “Select By,” “Select a Category,”and “Select a Subcategory” tabs.

3. To view the profiles of the businesses in your search, either click on the business name in the Results section or the orange and blue dots on the map.

4. To start a new business search, simply click on the “Begin New Business Search” button located in the upper middle of the page.

That's it! Now you can perform a search for a business or product anytime you need. In the my next post, I'll write about how to use the Buy & Sell Forum.

Using PA MarketMaker to Market Your Business (part 2)

In my last post, I wrote an overview on the ways you can use PA MarketMaker to market your food business. If you are interested in signing up, below is a easy "how to" guide for setting up your profile.

Creating a profile on Pennsylvania MarketMaker

1. Go to PAMarketMaker.com and click on the “Register” button in the upper right of the page.

2. Select a business type. If you have more than one type of business (for example, you have a corn maze and therefore are Agritourism and you also have a café which would be an Eating & Drinking Place) you may add other business types later in the profile creation process.

3. Once you choose a business type, you will be given a page full of different checkboxes that may or may not apply to your business (for example, Agritourism has options like air conditioning, group discounts, picnic areas, wedding parties, etc). Choose all that apply to you. Don't forget to explore the tabs above the checkboxes. They will lead you to more options. Also, if you see a small diamond shape next to a selection (like this ◊), that indicates that there are further choices in that category (for example, once you check the box for "Milk", you have the options to select "Goat", "Cow", or "Sheep").

4. As mentioned in Step 2, you may select the “Save & Add Another Profile” at the bottom of the page if you have multiple business ventures. If not, click “Continue”.

5. On the Upload Image page, you are welcome to upload an image of your business or your product/service, but it is not a necessary step in the registration process. Don’t have a photo yet? You can always update your profile at any time! Click “Continue” to proceed.

6. The next page is for general business information. MarketMaker website users will be able to view this information and use it for contacting you. Don’t forget to add your Twitter and Facebook information if you have it!

7. After clicking “Continue”, you will be directed to the Contact Information page. Please list contact information for the person in charge of handling customer calls. Multiple contacts may be added by selecting the “Save & Add Another Contact” button. To proceed, click “Continue”.

8. Are you affiliated with any Pennsylvania food or farm agencies or associations? The Affiliations page allows you to choose the agencies or associations you are affiliated with and their badge will appear on your profile. Click “Continue” after you have selected all of your affiliations.

9. The last page of registration allows you to preview your profile before submission. If you need to make a change, click on the “Edit” button next to that mistake. If you are satisfied, click “Submit”.

10. A password will be emailed to you. Use it to update your profile at any time.

Congratulations! Your business is now listed on Pennsylvania MarketMaker. In my next post, I'll talk about using MarketMaker to search for a product or business.

Using PA MarketMaker to Market Your Business (part 1)

If you attended Ag Progress Days last week, I hope you visited the PA MarketMaker booth in the Farm Credit building to learn more about PA MarketMaker and how it can help you market your food business.  If you weren't able to make it to APD, you can find more info about MarketMaker here in this blog series.

First off, what exactly is MarketMaker?  Penn State Extension has partnered with many other states to launch Pennsylvania MarketMaker, an online tool that allows you to create an online directory listing of your
business and your products.  MarketMaker has a lot of other great features! The site allows you to:

• create a business listing so customers can find you through searches
• explore market research including census data about potential customers in Pennsylvania
• use the Buy& Sell Forum to list specific products/services you are selling or ones that you are hoping to purchase
• check out what produce is in season, and
• find fact sheets and publications about marketing and managing your food or farm business.

Stay tuned for more info on how to set up your MarketMaker profile and how it can help you market your business!

Not Being Retweeted?

It's not enough to create social media accounts - be it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or any of the others that exist.  You've also got to post and share content that your followers find valuable in some fashion.  On Twitter, value is often measured in retweets. If your followers find value in what you have tweeted, they will retweet it - sharing your message with their followers.

I recently came across the aptly titled article, "10 Reason I Don't Retweet You & Your Content."  I've picked out a few of the author's reasons (in bold italics) that I think hold water and added my own thoughts about each.

• Your blog stinks. Whether it's a blog or a website for your business, the site and it's content need to have a certain level of professionalism.  Make sure you're providing the information that you advertise is there (product info, contact info, helpful resources, etc), and in a visually appealing and easily navigated fashion.  Most people won't waste time going back to a site if they were unable to find what they were looking for the first time.  Make sure that content is readable (i.e. proper spelling and grammar) and appropriate for your target market.
• Your content stinks. What are you sharing?  Quotes? A running updates of your daily activities?  Some of this is fine, and even valuable from the perspective that it gives your followers some insight to your personality.  However, you need to tweet content that resonates with your followers.  If you run a garden center, think about tweeting answers to commonly asked questions, pictures of newly available plants, links to relevant Extension publications, etc. Get engaged in Twitter conversations that are in your area of expertise.
• The only time you talk is when you want me to share your content.  If your content is good and has value (see previous point), then when the time comes that you want to (explicitly) ask your followers to share a particular tweet they will be more likely to do so. 
• You make it hard to share your tweet. The Twitter limit of 140 characters can be challenging at times, but if you want people to retweet you need to make it easy to do so.  Aim for your tweets to only use around 120 characters.  This should leave plenty of space for the "RT" and retweeter's handle.  The last thing you want is for someone to a) not retweet because it would take too much effort on their part to re-craft your message or b) retweet after altering the post so that it no longer reflects your view or purpose.
• You tweet the same stuff everyday.  Contrary to the popular saying, you can have too much of a good thing.  People like variety.  So, first make sure your content is good and then vary it.  Perhaps a link or two to an educational article mixed with a notice of an event that you're hosting.  You want people to be happy that they're seeing you're tweets (or at least not unhappy enough that they hide or unfollow you).

 If you're using Twitter for your farm or food business and have been thinking about how to gain more traction with your tweets, I hope this has been helpful.