It's always interesting to confront people with their worst nightmare early on a Saturday morning.
I ran a marketing workshop on Saturday on behalf of the Soil Association, for a group of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects. I'm a big fan of the CSA approach - the main idea being that local people share some of the risk with the grower by paying up front, in return for a regular share of the harvest over that year. I was a member of a CSA at Swillington Farm - and they've also recently set up a CSA arrangement (to rear a pig) with Salvo's - a local Italian restaurant which you may recently have seen on Gordon Ramsey's F Word. There are plenty more businesses which have adopted the model - including a Community Supported Bakery which I wrote about here.
The marketing workshop was themed around the title - Grow it - and they might not come. This in turn was inspired by the Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams - in which rookie farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice which tells him to build a baseball pitch in his field. The voice tells him "If you build it, he will come" - and sure enough the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven other Chicago White Sox players turn up to play on his field.
As you can imagine people thought Ray was nuts. People who want to set up CSAs sometimes meet with a similar response. Getting people to pay up front to buy veg from you - when all that currently exists is a sketch of your planting plan and a seed catalogue - can be a challenge. That's where an effective marketing plan can help.
A do-able marketing plan for your CSA
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I talk about marketing as building relationships with customers. This concept sits well with CSAs. You need to build relationships if people are to trust that you will grow food for them. I take people through my step-by-step plan - which requires you to think carefully about your business - and in particular your customers - but doesn't require you to have any formal marketing background.
During the workshop we split into groups and each group creates a plan - using an innovation which, even if I say so myself, I'm very proud of - upcycled wallpaper - used in place of flipchart paper. £2 spent in Oxfam has to be better than £10 spent in Staples, surely?
Aside from the eco-benefits (which won me early greenie points with my organic audience), I'm a big believer in thinking sideways along a page, rather than down a page. There is something about a portrait flipchart which makes you anxious - you get to the bottom of a page and you start losing the will to live - because the stuff at the bottom feels weighed down by what's gone before (and you're now kneeling on the floor, writing like a four year old). You're also wondering whether to squeeze a few more words on - or start a new page. Whereas, with a roll of Upcycled Wallpaper Flipchart TM you can keep on writing - and keep referring back, drawing lines where there are connections, etc etc.
The risk I take with this workshop is that I spend very little time talking about the things that some people expect me to talk about. Some people want clear guidance - a top ten of the best ways to market your business - that kind of thing. I don't believe in that stuff. As my Iced Tea slide suggests, what works in one place doesn't necessarily work in another. That's why I talk people through what they need to think about - so that they can then make their best judgement about what it's best to do. That way, you also start thinking about ways to market your business which don't cost a great deal of money.
My four year old son was a bit confused on Saturday morning, given that I was going to work. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was running a workshop.
"Is it like Santa's workshop?" he asked.
"Son", I said, "Today I will give people a gift greater than any that Santa could give. A do-able marketing plan." He looked at me a bit confused, and carried on eating his breakfast.
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