Farmers AFTER the market.
You had a day out at the Farmers’ Market and you moved more than half of the produce that you took with you to the event. You chatted with some other stall holders, you can bank some decent cash and pay some of your bills that you had in getting there. What happens next?
You come back next month and you repeat the process again for just the same results.
Or do you?
Instead of repeating what sort of works, why not start to get better results with the same time commitment on the day? Here’s how.
You still need to do all the things you were doing in the first article I wrote about this.
You grab their attention, your hold their attention, you tell your story and you sell your prospect some produce from your stall.
The only element I want you to add to this is a simple one. You need to do something that allows you to stay in touch with them in the future when you are not at the market or at your stall.
Ask for their email address. This is a simple sounding exercise, so how can it be difficult and why are you not doing it already? You probably think it is an intrusion, or that they would not give it to you.
Can you offer them a recipe for what you produce? Can you provide them with an easy A – Z guide on your topic or specialism? How about offering to send them a few images of your farm, workshop or community enterprise centre along with a price list and details of your mail order service? Maybe you could offer to send them product updates, or the results of a prize draw for the month?
All you are doing here – and it is a subtle but important point – is asking for their permission to stay in touch with them.
Once you have this you can send out a monthly mailing, you can sort the names by the locations the people come from in order to promote events by geography (ensuring you have more people come to see you at each market place).
With the details of their name and email address you can start to plan for more revenue from more products, from fresh production and from events that you can organise just for the mailing list people who – provided you look after them - will become your most loyal clients.
Learn more about Food and Farming and listen to podcasts here.
Nick Sturgeon is a small business owner who has benefitted from the experiences of success, failure and financial recovery. The author of “Small Business BIG Profit” published by FT Prentice Hall, Nick writes and speaks from the heart about Risk, Reward and the Power of Personal Enterprise. nick@smallbusinessbigprofit.co.uk
