I read the following quote about the fashion industry in a New York Times article a month or two ago:

"We as a business cannot afford to have a customer take a second look and ask, ‘Do I need this?’ ” said Bud Konheim, the chief executive of Nicole Miller. “That is the kiss of death. We’re finished, because nobody really needs anything we make as a total industry.”

This quote reminds me that as a farmer, rancher, or local food producer, the marketing is the exact opposite. You want people to take a second look at their purchasing habits and think why they have to pay a few dollars more on food or spend a few minutes searching for a local producer each week to eat more locally.

Your argument is that everyone needs what you produce for personal health, environmental health, a strong local economy, reducing the amount of oil used in this country, and all the other arguments that help people understand why they buy from you.

The most successful farmer's market vendors always find a way to offer a tasting to customers. This is a chance to experience the difference between, say a peach shipped in from California in February versus an August, tree-ripened, Redhaven peach is obvious and will be remembered for a lifetime after that first taste.

I don't think we need to bang people over the head with the differences between local food and airplane shipped produce and why each food choice is so important. People want to come to their own conclusions, so keep gently nudging your customers and the "lococurious". What you do is vitally important to many aspects of our lives and with a little suggestion over time it should be possible to bring many new customers in-line with your cause.

It is almost June. It is time to start or restart your summer mailing list.

Some thoughts, suggestions, tips. Feel free to add your own in comments.

Punctuality

How often do you send a notice to your mailing list? Perhaps once a week during the summer and once a month during the winter. It is important to create a clear schedule that you can communicate to new sign-ups on your website or in person. They want to know how often they will contacted and once you have made that promise, don't contact them more often or less often.

Unsubscribe

Mailing list recipients must have a mechanism to unsubscribe from further messages. A simple message at the bottom of your email to reply with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line is  sufficient. Professional mailing list managers, like Small Farm Central, will have an automated way for recipients to opt-out of your email so you don't have to manage the list.

Fill your list

Don't settle for a small list of committed friends and customers. If you are going to take the time to compose and send messages at regular intervals, it makes sense to send to as large a list as possible. I wrote many tips for gathering new email address late last year in Collecting Email Addresses.

Please don't BCC or CC

As you start your list, you may be sending your emails through a regular email client with all of the addresses copied and pasted into the BCC or CC fields of the email. This works for email lists under 100 recipients, but as your list grows, the technology solution must change. You run the risk of having your email message or worse, your email address, marked as spam if you are sending hundreds of emails through the BCC or CC field.

A professional solution sends each message individually. One positive aspect of this approach is that your mailing list members cannot see each other's email address. Also, many Internet Service Providers have a limit on how many messages can be sent per minute or hour; a professional approach will send the emails in small bursts to make sure the email gets to it's destination correctly.

Break it up

I imagine your farm has different kinds of customers: CSA members, beef buyers, regular Monday farmers market customers, or egg subscribers. It may be desirable to send different messages at different times to these groups of customers. One new aspect of Small Farm Central 2.0 (which came out in March of this year) is that each farm can create customer groups and send targeted emails to those groups.

For example, perhaps you send an availability list out to farmers market customers the night before the market. If you have one market on Monday and one market on Friday, it doesn't make sense to send the same message at the same time to both of those groups. So with the new system you can send a pertinent email to each group.

There are many other uses for this functionality: surely chefs at the restaurants you serve do not need the same information that farm stand customers want. Break it up as far as you want while still being able to manage the lists.

I presume that most stand-alone email solutions also provide a service like this.

Your customers love to hear from you!

You have a superior product and agricultural ideals - your customers want to buy your products, but it is often hard to remember to visit the farmers market, farm stand, or pick up the CSA box. It is not your customer's responsibility to remember that sides of beef are available in the Fall.

An email mailing list is a perfect way to remind customers of what you are offering, where you are offering, and why it is important. Americans check their emails numerous times per day (six times per day is the average), so an email is a great way to reach people and get attention.

More on sending mailing lists

Want to know how to get emails from here to there safely? There are lots of options, check out:
Sending Emails Professionally