Show customers a side of your farm they never see.
As the weather turns fall-like here in Pennsylvania, I've been thinking about how important the next six months are for a farm's marketing approach. You have spent all summer nurturing a strong, consistent customer base and you have formed rapport with each loyal customer. Now they are facing a winter back at the supermarket and they might feel a little lost. I remember customers at the CSA I helped run in western Colorado feeling a little betrayed at the end of season -- especially for the ones that were first discovering "real" food. They felt abandoned.

You won't see that customer for the next six months in person, but you need to make sure that your farm is in their thoughts. When it is Spring-time again, you want them to be excited for the first greens and the first farmer's market -- you want to count on their support again next year. An internet marketing approach with regular email newsletters and a dynamic, well-tended farm website will keep customers engaged and even more loyal next year because they will know about the long months of preparation it takes to bring that cage-free, local egg or ripe heirloom tomato to the market in the summertime.

I know it is a tired time of year and the freeze is sometimes welcomed because it assuages your guilt at leaving the rest of those peppers rotting in the field. At this point in the year, you probably feel like just getting away from the farm and doing anything else. But when you get back from that break, keep in touch with your customers. You did collect email addresses this summer didn't you?

Keep up the rapport: customers will love to hear what the farm looks like and feels like during the winter. What do you do on those coldest days of winter? Do you have big plans for next year? Take winter communication as a chance to clear your mind and write down what you are feeling about the farm -- the future and the successes of last season. It is a great exercise to explain these thoughts to customers because you will often uncover some insights that you didn't quite fully grasp before.

I do the same thing here a few times a week!

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