In the past twenty years or so, the number of so-called “eco-labels” used for marketing earth-friendly or people-friendly food and fiber products has mushroomed. While the most widely-known eco-label today might be the federal organic label, there are numerous others that have appeared on the scene and, in some cases, disappeared just as quickly.
Which raises the question: do eco-labels really sell products? And that fundamental question leads to even more. Do consumers look for these labels? Do they understand what they mean? And do these labels help growers carve out a niche for themselves but hurt other growers in the process?
It seems like there’s an eco-label for just about every possible issue facing modern agriculture. Beyond organic, there are labels for sustainable agriculture, integrated pest management, no genetic engineering, animal welfare, and social responsibility (which stretches the “eco” concept just a bit).
Eco-labels have been established and promoted by a wide variety of government agencies, non-profit organizations and private businesses. But all are based on the premise that consumers would choose to buy environmentally-friendly products if only they could identify them.
That puts a lot of pressure to perform on a little sticker. The consumer has to know what the little ladybug or apple tree or blue ribbon symbolizes. And if words, phrases or acronyms are included, the consumer has to understand what they stand for and why they should care.
Take a concept like integrated pest management, for example. IPM is a complex system of pest management practices that may include monitoring, cultural controls, biological controls, mechanical controls and possibly chemical controls. How do you convey all that on a half inch label?
If you’re designing the label you have to boil it all down to a simple picture, word or phrase and hope that the basic meaning gets across. And you have to have a public education campaign and informational resources to support it.
Perhaps because there are so many eco-labels around today touting such an array of complicated concepts, the Consumers Union has a website (www.eco-labels.org) devoted to informing the public about what each label means, the standards on which it is based and who is behind it.
Each label referenced on the site has a report card that assesses the meaningfulness of the label and a detailed description of what it means, the history behind it, the organization that promotes it, and where you can find it.
After you do a little searching on the site you’ll likely be amazed at just how many eco-labels are out there. Although some labels have come and gone, the fact that there are still so many might be a clue that they are working for some growers and organizations.
If you’re a grower contemplating getting into a program that would allow you to use an eco-label, you might have some conflicting feelings about it. By telling consumers that your products are grown with fewer pesticides, are you just alerting them to the fact that you use pesticides at all? Or are you portraying yourself as the “good farmer” and your neighbor as the “bad farmer” if his or her products don’t bear the eco-label?
Some growers who practice IPM or are certified organic or install conservation practices do so because they feel it’s the right thing to do, not to get a marketing edge. But if you’re doing good things, why not tell the public about it?
For what it’s worth, a study on eco-labels by Iowa State University showed that while most consumers understood the eco-labels that they were shown, they were most responsive to labels with the least about of information. Consumers were also most responsive to those labels that conveyed a message about local produce and freshness as opposed to labels with an environmental risk context.
Like anything else in marketing, the decision to use an eco-label or not goes back to knowing your customer. If with a little research you find that your customers are informed on agricultural practices and care enough about environmental risk factors to base their buying decisions on them, then eco-labeling might be right for you.
Otherwise, just reminding folks that your produce is locally grown and fresher might be the only marketing edge that you need.
Copyright Diane Baedeker Petit
This article originally appeared in the March 2006 issue of Growing Magazine.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Charity as a marketing tactic
A while back, a Greenfield, Mass., radio station ran a story about a family left homeless by a house fire. The story mentioned that a local restaurant was donating 10 percent of their profits on a given day to the family. While that was a very kind, charitable thing to do, it was also a savvy marketing move.
First of all, the restaurant name was mentioned on the radio as part of a news story, which amounted to free advertising. Secondly, the news no doubt motivated some people to patronized the restaurant on that day who otherwise might have dined elsewhere, increasing overall sales. And lastly, the charitable act surely created a positive image for the restaurant and it’s owners within the community, which could boost business in the long run.
Charity as a marketing tactic, also known as cause-related marketing, has been around for a long time but continues to grow. The concept can take many forms. There are corporate sponsorships of charitable events. There are outright donations of cash, goods and services. And then there are guerrilla tactics like the restaurant example.
Think of all the companies that donated products to hurricane victims. Their actions benefited the companies as well as the people who needed water, food, clothing, medicine, tools, lumber, etc.
While you might think that only large corporations can afford to be charitable, one could argue that small and medium businesses – like family farms – can’t afford not to be. According to an article by David Frey on FrugalMarketing.com, many small businesses are affiliating themselves with charities to market their products and services. He points out that it’s not only a primary means for developing a powerful network but also helps others in the process.
Of course, for your charitable actions to have a marketing benefit, you’ll have to let people know about it. That means publicizing your donations by sending out a news release, including information and photos in your newsletter and other marketing materials, and asking the recipient to do the same, if appropriate.
According to Frey, charitable organizations are not oblivious to companies’ marketing motivations. They understand that there is a secondary purpose to your participation.
The public and the media also understand, all too well, that there is a secondary purpose and that, can be a pitfall, according to David Zucker on onPhilanthropy.com. Zucker claims that the public and the media can suffer cause-related marketing “burn-out,” no longer being impressed by a company writing a check to a charity. These days the media are less likely to see that as newsworthy. For that reason, he says businesses must come up with unique charitable activities.
My guess would be that the burn-out factor is more likely to occur with larger city media than it is with your small local newspaper. If you do something that benefits someone in your community, the local paper is likely to cover it.
Another pitfall might be the charity you choose. If you pick a cause that’s controversial, your good intentions could backfire on your bottom line. Luckily, farms are well-positioned to participate in causes that anyone who eats can support. Food banks, senior meal programs, homeless shelters are just a few food-related causes that might accept produce donations.
Some farms and charities have teamed up for gleaning programs, where volunteers pick up any produce that remains in the field after the harvest and deliver it to the needy.
Worried about the liability of donating food to the needy? Could you be sued if someone gets sick after eating produce that you provided? The Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act is a federal law that protects donors of food products, except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
So, there is little to lose and much to gain, for you and your beneficiaries, by doing something charitable.
If you feel guilty about having a marketing purpose behind your good works…think about the alternative. What if no one did anything at all?
Copyright Diane Baedeker Petit
This article originally appeared in the February 2006 issue of Growing Magazine.
First of all, the restaurant name was mentioned on the radio as part of a news story, which amounted to free advertising. Secondly, the news no doubt motivated some people to patronized the restaurant on that day who otherwise might have dined elsewhere, increasing overall sales. And lastly, the charitable act surely created a positive image for the restaurant and it’s owners within the community, which could boost business in the long run.
Charity as a marketing tactic, also known as cause-related marketing, has been around for a long time but continues to grow. The concept can take many forms. There are corporate sponsorships of charitable events. There are outright donations of cash, goods and services. And then there are guerrilla tactics like the restaurant example.
Think of all the companies that donated products to hurricane victims. Their actions benefited the companies as well as the people who needed water, food, clothing, medicine, tools, lumber, etc.
While you might think that only large corporations can afford to be charitable, one could argue that small and medium businesses – like family farms – can’t afford not to be. According to an article by David Frey on FrugalMarketing.com, many small businesses are affiliating themselves with charities to market their products and services. He points out that it’s not only a primary means for developing a powerful network but also helps others in the process.
Of course, for your charitable actions to have a marketing benefit, you’ll have to let people know about it. That means publicizing your donations by sending out a news release, including information and photos in your newsletter and other marketing materials, and asking the recipient to do the same, if appropriate.
According to Frey, charitable organizations are not oblivious to companies’ marketing motivations. They understand that there is a secondary purpose to your participation.
The public and the media also understand, all too well, that there is a secondary purpose and that, can be a pitfall, according to David Zucker on onPhilanthropy.com. Zucker claims that the public and the media can suffer cause-related marketing “burn-out,” no longer being impressed by a company writing a check to a charity. These days the media are less likely to see that as newsworthy. For that reason, he says businesses must come up with unique charitable activities.
My guess would be that the burn-out factor is more likely to occur with larger city media than it is with your small local newspaper. If you do something that benefits someone in your community, the local paper is likely to cover it.
Another pitfall might be the charity you choose. If you pick a cause that’s controversial, your good intentions could backfire on your bottom line. Luckily, farms are well-positioned to participate in causes that anyone who eats can support. Food banks, senior meal programs, homeless shelters are just a few food-related causes that might accept produce donations.
Some farms and charities have teamed up for gleaning programs, where volunteers pick up any produce that remains in the field after the harvest and deliver it to the needy.
Worried about the liability of donating food to the needy? Could you be sued if someone gets sick after eating produce that you provided? The Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act is a federal law that protects donors of food products, except in cases of gross negligence or intentional misconduct.
So, there is little to lose and much to gain, for you and your beneficiaries, by doing something charitable.
If you feel guilty about having a marketing purpose behind your good works…think about the alternative. What if no one did anything at all?
Copyright Diane Baedeker Petit
This article originally appeared in the February 2006 issue of Growing Magazine.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The ancient arts of the up-sell and the cross-sell
When people first started selling things many thousands of years ago, no doubt it wasn’t long before someone invented the up-sell and the cross-sell. You know the up-sell drill: you order a burger, fries and a coke and the voice coming through the drive-up speaker asks if you want to super-size your order.
The up-sell – suggesting more expensive item – and its close cousin the cross-sell – suggesting a related item – are practiced everywhere these days. Whether you’re buying a toaster or a DVD player, you can’t check out of a store without being offered an extended warranty. You finish a meal at a fine restaurant and the server wheels over the dessert cart. And let’s not forget all the options available on a new car.
The up-sell and cross-sell have even been automated. Before you click to finalize a web order, often you’ll be prompted with suggestions for alternative or complementary items.
Some on-line merchants are giving the up-sell concept a bad name, particularly some unscrupulous sellers of digital cameras and other electronics. They lure customers in with ultra low prices, then require them to call to confirm their order at which point the hard sell for various accessories begins. Internet discussion boards are filled with e-commerce horror stories of harassment, phony penalty fees and fraudulent credit card charges for those who didn’t cave in to the up-sell.
But the up-sell and cross-sell ideas aren’t inherently evil. It’s just a matter of a seller trying to increase his or her profits by offering the customer a higher value item or additional related items. If done right, the customer feels like the seller was being helpful not abusive.
There are countless up-sell and cross-sell opportunities for growers, and that’s nothing new. When bottled salad dressing was first invented, I’m sure that a grower somewhere started selling it next to his lettuce.
Look around any farmstand (including your own) and you’ll likely find kits for making caramel apples, pumpkin carving kits, cider mulling spices, and pie making ingredients. Holiday time is especially ripe for up-selling. Along with the apples, cider, squash and Christmas trees, many farms offer wreaths, ornaments, gifts, and holiday centerpieces.
It may not be enough to simply display these add-on products. If your staff is trained in helpfully suggesting items that would complement a customer’s order, the chances of a sale increase. If employees can describe the advantages of a superior or extra product, all the better.
The hard sell isn’t really necessary when it comes to produce. Even though consumers are likely to be more jaded about these selling practices today, especially if they have had a bad experience elsewhere, they are surely less likely to be guarded when patronizing a farm and therefore more receptive to point-of-sale suggestions.
For one thing, you’re selling a relatively low-priced product. The decision to buy a bigger pumpkin or some cornstalks to go with it doesn’t represent a major investment for most folks. And visiting a farm is a friendly, enjoyable experience, not stressful like buying a car or a house, for example.
Like all sales, up-selling and cross-selling are all about knowing your products and knowing your customers. What collateral products would your customers find most useful or attractive? What higher-value products could you offer them? How can you suggest a different or additional product without turning a customer off? These are marketing considerations that can be continuously evaluated.
As many business people will say, it’s easier to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. So increasing your sales with existing customers should prove more cost efficient than cultivating new ones. Practicing low-key up-selling and cross-selling will help you do just that.
Copyright 2005 by Diane Baedeker Petit. This article originally appeared in the December 2005 issue of Growing Magazine.
The up-sell – suggesting more expensive item – and its close cousin the cross-sell – suggesting a related item – are practiced everywhere these days. Whether you’re buying a toaster or a DVD player, you can’t check out of a store without being offered an extended warranty. You finish a meal at a fine restaurant and the server wheels over the dessert cart. And let’s not forget all the options available on a new car.
The up-sell and cross-sell have even been automated. Before you click to finalize a web order, often you’ll be prompted with suggestions for alternative or complementary items.
Some on-line merchants are giving the up-sell concept a bad name, particularly some unscrupulous sellers of digital cameras and other electronics. They lure customers in with ultra low prices, then require them to call to confirm their order at which point the hard sell for various accessories begins. Internet discussion boards are filled with e-commerce horror stories of harassment, phony penalty fees and fraudulent credit card charges for those who didn’t cave in to the up-sell.
But the up-sell and cross-sell ideas aren’t inherently evil. It’s just a matter of a seller trying to increase his or her profits by offering the customer a higher value item or additional related items. If done right, the customer feels like the seller was being helpful not abusive.
There are countless up-sell and cross-sell opportunities for growers, and that’s nothing new. When bottled salad dressing was first invented, I’m sure that a grower somewhere started selling it next to his lettuce.
Look around any farmstand (including your own) and you’ll likely find kits for making caramel apples, pumpkin carving kits, cider mulling spices, and pie making ingredients. Holiday time is especially ripe for up-selling. Along with the apples, cider, squash and Christmas trees, many farms offer wreaths, ornaments, gifts, and holiday centerpieces.
It may not be enough to simply display these add-on products. If your staff is trained in helpfully suggesting items that would complement a customer’s order, the chances of a sale increase. If employees can describe the advantages of a superior or extra product, all the better.
The hard sell isn’t really necessary when it comes to produce. Even though consumers are likely to be more jaded about these selling practices today, especially if they have had a bad experience elsewhere, they are surely less likely to be guarded when patronizing a farm and therefore more receptive to point-of-sale suggestions.
For one thing, you’re selling a relatively low-priced product. The decision to buy a bigger pumpkin or some cornstalks to go with it doesn’t represent a major investment for most folks. And visiting a farm is a friendly, enjoyable experience, not stressful like buying a car or a house, for example.
Like all sales, up-selling and cross-selling are all about knowing your products and knowing your customers. What collateral products would your customers find most useful or attractive? What higher-value products could you offer them? How can you suggest a different or additional product without turning a customer off? These are marketing considerations that can be continuously evaluated.
As many business people will say, it’s easier to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. So increasing your sales with existing customers should prove more cost efficient than cultivating new ones. Practicing low-key up-selling and cross-selling will help you do just that.
Copyright 2005 by Diane Baedeker Petit. This article originally appeared in the December 2005 issue of Growing Magazine.
Friday, February 13, 2009
E-mail marketing: does it really work?
These days we are all barraged with e-mail messages from people we don't know trying to sell us something. Every day our inboxes are full of offers for stuff that we don't want, don't need or find downright offensive. It's like the old days of door-to-door salesmen gone out of control. (Though in the old days we couldn't hit a delete key to get rid of the salesman.)
Yet among all the spam, there are probably offers that you are glad to get. A major office supply store sending a coupon off your next purchase, an on-line bookseller telling you about a new release on a topic you've purchased in the past.
Maybe you've thought about using e-mail as a marketing tool for your farm. Maybe you've even tried it. It's certainly a cost effective method of getting a message to potential customers. Other than your monthly service fee, sending e-mail costs nothing. That's why there are so many spammers out there.
But because spam is so pervasive, it leads one to wonder whether the spammers have ruined a good thing for the rest of us. Has the peak effectiveness of e-mail marketing come and gone? Not necessarily.
No doubt spam has made people annoyed, jaded and all too quick to hit delete. But if there is a deciding factor in whether you hit delete or print, it has to be trust. Most likely those messages that you're glad to receive are from companies with which you've done business. You recognize the name, you have a relationship and you probably signed up to be on their e-mail list.
That's why e-mail marketing can be effective for farm businesses in particular. For one thing, trust is easy to establish. Most likely you'll develop your e-mail list from customers who sign up at your farmstand, at a trade show or on your website. They've opted in to your list and will recognize your name when the message arrives. You're not likely to join the ranks of spammers unless you purchase a mass e-mail list from someone or use web spider software to harvest e-mail addresses from websites like they do.
And the immediacy of e-mail can be a real communications advantage in an industry where product availability can change with the weather. If the strawberries are late, or the tomatoes are coming in early, or the blueberries are all picked out, you can let your customers know right away.
There are a few things to consider if you're going to get into e-mail marketing. How are you going to manage your e-mail list? The most basic way is to add your customers to the address book in your e-mail program and set up a distribution list if your software provides that function. As your list grows, however, it will become more and more unwieldy to manage.
If you do address your e-mail to a list of contacts from your address book, it's a good idea to put the list in the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field rather than the To field. That way everyone on the list won't have access to your list and you'll protect their privacy.
For a maintenance free list, consider using list server software, which your Internet service provider may offer, or use a list server service. In either case, customers can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves.
Format is another consideration. Most e-mail programs now to send and receive e-mail in HTML (hypertext markup language) format. That means you can design the body of your e-mail message in much the same way that you would design a web page, with fonts, colors and images. That ability can really enhance your marketing message but you do have to take into consideration the folks out there who may still be using plain text e-mail.
Here's a tip to ensure that your information will be easily readable for all. Before you send your first e-newsletter or announcement, send a draft of your message to a few friends who have different e-mail services and software. Then find out how it looked on their end. This will give you the opportunity to make adjustments before sending to your entire list.
There are a couple things you can do to bolster the authenticity of your message. Make sure that the identity that you specify when setting up your e-mail account on your computer is something that your customers will recognize, for example your farm name. (This can be changed at any time.)
The subject line is also important. Spammers have all kinds of tricks to make a message look like it's from a friend or business associate. They also use very vague subjects to fool spam blocker programs. The clearer and more specific you can make your subject line, the more likely your customer will recognize the message as relevant to them.
So, with the trusting relationships that you've already established with your customers, the great seasonal products you have to offer, a few technical considerations and no cost involved, e-mail can be another effective marketing tool at your disposal.
Copyright: Diane Baedeker Petit
This article orginally appeared in the November 2005 issue of Growing magazine.
Yet among all the spam, there are probably offers that you are glad to get. A major office supply store sending a coupon off your next purchase, an on-line bookseller telling you about a new release on a topic you've purchased in the past.
Maybe you've thought about using e-mail as a marketing tool for your farm. Maybe you've even tried it. It's certainly a cost effective method of getting a message to potential customers. Other than your monthly service fee, sending e-mail costs nothing. That's why there are so many spammers out there.
But because spam is so pervasive, it leads one to wonder whether the spammers have ruined a good thing for the rest of us. Has the peak effectiveness of e-mail marketing come and gone? Not necessarily.
No doubt spam has made people annoyed, jaded and all too quick to hit delete. But if there is a deciding factor in whether you hit delete or print, it has to be trust. Most likely those messages that you're glad to receive are from companies with which you've done business. You recognize the name, you have a relationship and you probably signed up to be on their e-mail list.
That's why e-mail marketing can be effective for farm businesses in particular. For one thing, trust is easy to establish. Most likely you'll develop your e-mail list from customers who sign up at your farmstand, at a trade show or on your website. They've opted in to your list and will recognize your name when the message arrives. You're not likely to join the ranks of spammers unless you purchase a mass e-mail list from someone or use web spider software to harvest e-mail addresses from websites like they do.
And the immediacy of e-mail can be a real communications advantage in an industry where product availability can change with the weather. If the strawberries are late, or the tomatoes are coming in early, or the blueberries are all picked out, you can let your customers know right away.
There are a few things to consider if you're going to get into e-mail marketing. How are you going to manage your e-mail list? The most basic way is to add your customers to the address book in your e-mail program and set up a distribution list if your software provides that function. As your list grows, however, it will become more and more unwieldy to manage.
If you do address your e-mail to a list of contacts from your address book, it's a good idea to put the list in the Blind Carbon Copy (BCC) field rather than the To field. That way everyone on the list won't have access to your list and you'll protect their privacy.
For a maintenance free list, consider using list server software, which your Internet service provider may offer, or use a list server service. In either case, customers can subscribe and unsubscribe themselves.
Format is another consideration. Most e-mail programs now to send and receive e-mail in HTML (hypertext markup language) format. That means you can design the body of your e-mail message in much the same way that you would design a web page, with fonts, colors and images. That ability can really enhance your marketing message but you do have to take into consideration the folks out there who may still be using plain text e-mail.
Here's a tip to ensure that your information will be easily readable for all. Before you send your first e-newsletter or announcement, send a draft of your message to a few friends who have different e-mail services and software. Then find out how it looked on their end. This will give you the opportunity to make adjustments before sending to your entire list.
There are a couple things you can do to bolster the authenticity of your message. Make sure that the identity that you specify when setting up your e-mail account on your computer is something that your customers will recognize, for example your farm name. (This can be changed at any time.)
The subject line is also important. Spammers have all kinds of tricks to make a message look like it's from a friend or business associate. They also use very vague subjects to fool spam blocker programs. The clearer and more specific you can make your subject line, the more likely your customer will recognize the message as relevant to them.
So, with the trusting relationships that you've already established with your customers, the great seasonal products you have to offer, a few technical considerations and no cost involved, e-mail can be another effective marketing tool at your disposal.
Copyright: Diane Baedeker Petit
This article orginally appeared in the November 2005 issue of Growing magazine.
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