Email marketing is a powerful tool for farm businesses looking to engage their audience and keep them up to date with new products. This involves sending targeted messages to a list of subscribers, allowing you to communicate directly with your customers in a personalized way.
By leveraging segmentation and automation, farms can tailor their content to specific interests and behaviors, ensuring higher open and click-through rates. With a strong emphasis on building quality email lists, crafting compelling subject lines, and providing valuable content, email marketing not only nurtures customer relationships but also fosters brand loyalty.
As one of the most cost-effective marketing channels, it enables farm businesses to reach their sales goals while also measuring email campaign results, making it an essential component of any comprehensive farm marketing strategy. Here are 8 ways to use email marketing to sell more products, build your brand identity, and offer more personal service to your customer base.
Here are 8 ways to build an email marketing list to touch base with your customers.
Step 1: Build An Email Contact List
Where do you begin? Well, start with building a really great contact list. Dig around and find all those past customers, new customers, repeat customers, prospects, and your surrounding community. By sorting through your emails you can easily start building an email list so that you can keep your customers up to date with what items you have available and what events you might have going on.
Create an Email Sign up: Next, create an email sign-up form on your website. Customers might come to your site but not buy anything right away. But they might want to be contacted to buy something from you later.
Segment Your Audience:
Add segments to your list where to group customers that have similar interests and behaviors. This way you can send targeted email content to them all at once.
Create a Paper Sign-Up:
If you don't have a large following to begin with you can have people sign up at events. Another way of adding contacts to your email list is to invite customers to sign up at events and the farmers market. Call it your VIP list and make them feel special about signing up.
Step 2: Create Fun and Engaging Emails
This is the fun part. This is where you get to talk about your farm! You get to show your audience your personality and get them excited about your farm. Don't forget to use compelling subject lines to get them to open your emails.
Here are some ideas for creating email content.
Give updates from the farm - Give them updates on new employees, what the (goat) kids are up to, and other items going on around the farm. If you're weeding make it seem fun!
Promote product availability - Make it easy for them to purchase from you. What CSA items are available this week or month? Where can they get them? This is your time to shine! What's new?
Share farm photos - Who doesn't love to see an old tractor, a repaired fence, or a freshly weeded garden bed?
Share your hard work - Tell them about your story. This makes you human and they will be repeat customers. They want to know the face behind the products.
Share recipes and tips - Think of this as a valuable add-on. Add recipes and tips on preparing and using your fruit, vegetables, or meat products. Sometimes folks don't know the best way to cook with a turnip, share some ideas!
Step 3: Include a Call to Action in Every Email
This is an important step. You are sending them an email for a reason. Be clear about what you want them to do. Have a few points in your email and maybe some valuable information (Hey what about a coupon for being a subscriber to your newsletter?) but at the end of the email ask them for something. Do you want them to sign up for a CSA, stop by the farm store for some yummy honey or jelly, or tell them about an upcoming event they can sign up for? This is your time to ask.
Don't forget to add an interesting subject line so that people will open your email. And always include an unsubscribe link in case people don't want your emails anymore :(
Step 4: How Often Should You Send Emails?
How often do you need to communicate with your customers is a question you'll need to answer. You may only want to communicate quarterly but if you have time make this a priority to market your farm to your customers monthly.
That might not work for your schedule though. Sending a quarterly email campaign might be better for you. Do what feels right for your business. Better yet, ask customers how often they want to hear from you.
Step 5: Review Email Metrics, Test and Repeat
Make sure you've said all that you want in your email and that you've said it well. Don't make the mistake of hitting the send button too fast and end up sending out an email with a mistake in it. Take the time to rewrite and revise before you send it to the world.
If you're using an email platform to help you manage your contact list and send your marketing emails, it's a good idea to review your email metrics to understand which emails are working and how engaged your customers are.
Here's some tips:
Look for emails with high open rates to find subject lines that work.
Emails with high click-through rates indicate a good offer or CTA (call-to-action)
Watch for high bounce rates and be sure to unsubscribe customers whose email bounces or ask to be removed from your list
Test different formats with just text or with images and graphics and see which perform best
Step 6: Optimize For Mobile
There are plenty of people now who do not use computers as often as their phones. If you optimize your emails to fit on their mobile devices this will help them read your emails while they're out and about. Your content doesn't have to be very long and wordy. You can give them some interesting pictures, a recipe, and a bit about what's going on, on the farm. This will keep their interest in your farm and will remind them of what you have for sale.
Step 7: Maintain Consistency
Put these newsletters or check-ins on a regular schedule. That will make it easy for you to remember, it will also be something they look for. Keep your tone and style the same with every email. This shows your unique brand and provides consistency to your format. It doesn't mean you can't change later, it might even be something you point out!
Step 8: Follow Legal Guidelines
It's important to make sure that your customers have opted into your mailing list. There are legal email guidelines from the GDPR and CAN-SPAM that you need to adhere to. You can add an unsubscribe button on your emails and be transparent about the use of their data.
Taking time to dive into your email marketing plan will benefit you in the long run. Here are some tips from Mailchimp on developing an effective email marketing strategy not only by letting your customers know what you have available to buy but also that you are busy filling orders, and helping others in the community. Being part of the community they will appreciate hearing from you.
Communication with your customers is a great way to make connections. In a time when we all feel a little separate reaching out to your customers might be exactly what they need. By implementing these tips, you can enhance your email marketing efforts and foster stronger connections with your audience!
Happy Farming!