Small Farm Central

Most farmers I talk to are already convinced that the web is an important part of their marketing. This is part self-selection (staunch Luddite farmers will just ignore me) and part osmosis from hearing about the importantance of the web at farming conferences and from other farmers.

I can think of three reasons why the web is important to farmers as a marketing tool. Perhaps you can think of others? Leave them in comments.

1. The web is a democratic medium - larger companies cannot buy attention from web surfers with money. The most interesting websites, content, and ideas will get the visitors. Luckily, interest in real food is on the rise and consumers are out there looking for your farm.
2. A web site bridges the geographic between rural producers and urban eaters. Your customers may be 50 or 100 miles away in the city, but they are working on computers all day and will take a break to search for authentic food in their area. It is not necessary to have a 24 hour customer relations representative waiting for calls -- your website can tell the story and collect email address of prospective customers while you work or rest.
3. The incremental costs of communication on the web is effectively zero; that means that once you have your website set up or your email campaign running, adding another visitor or reader costs nothing.You can reach more interested customers at a lower cost than ever before. If you paid 41 cents for each email to your mailing list each week, you would quickly silence your mailing list. Of course this is not only true for farms, but any small business.

Though the web is a perfect medium for marketing a farm, it is not in any way automatic. A good website takes time and energy and the results will not be paid back in a few weeks or months -- it will likely take years of consistent effort to build a good readership on a farm website. In this way, it is no different than building soil, refining herd genetics, or reducing weed load. It may take only a few seconds to send an email, but don't let that fool you: web marketing is as slow as anything else you do for your farm or your business.

Good luck with your farm website this Spring. We are seeing lots of new sign-ups and farmers with existing sites are excited about energizing their web presence.

Can you think of any other reasons to add to three above? Leave them in comments.