Hippo camp // Step 6 // Sales and Marketing Plan

Most people who start farms do so because they enjoy growing food, working outside, or creating with their hands. Most aren't in it to sell stuff. The problem with that is that we need to sell stuff in order to create a business rather than a large, exhausting hobby. It takes a lot of bunches of kale to pay a mortgage, people!

Making a marketing plan to help sell those kale bunches can be an even harder ask on a farmer. It makes sense to build a budget and crop plan, but a marketing plan? When I read "Marketing Plan" it evokes thoughts of designing brochures, sending weekly emails that will get passed over or deleted, and giving away free things to convince people to sign up for my CSA. I've tried those things and they haven't worked for me, maybe because I did them halfheartedly and ineffectively. Or maybe because I was sending them to the wrong people, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way. Instead of telling you how to create an effective email marketing plan, today we're going to do an exercise like we did with our "Ideal Farm". In this step we're going to dream up our "Ideal Customer". Then we're going to sell them kale.

Read More