Emergency Preparedness – Agritourism, Festivals & Events

Greetings –

Emergency preparedness for agritourism translates to events, festivals and fairs. All of these tend to have large numbers of guests, whether it is a farmers market, a farm with a corn maze, or a downtown wine festival. Planning for potential emergencies is important for guest safety and business continuity. This workbook will help participants think of potential emergencies to plan for when developing a flip chart plan for their specific business or festival.

Download the work book here: 2021 Emergency Preparedness – Scenario Workbook

To learn more about our work in this area, read our journal article at: https://www.nacaa.com/journal/index.php?jid=975

Awesome Customer Service – Kentucky Farm Bureau

Greetings, Kentucky Farm Bureau!

We’re excited to share our enthusiasm for Customer Service and our process for improving customer service at agritourism farms. Our goal for this presentation is to help you Develop and integrate a customer service plan that creates connections with your customers. We’ll cover the process of preparing a plan, responding to customers, recovering from challenges and improving practices to enhance the customer experience at your farm. A key component to this process is determining your farm’s values and developing this into keys that can be a basis for decision making in the customer service model. You can download the slide deck here:

Awesome Customer Service – KY II – Slides

The handouts for this program will help your agritourism team develop a framework that will lead to your plan development. This workbook was developed for use by the agritourism management team in developing and preparing a customer service plan that can be used to prepare, respond, recover, and improve customer service on your operation. Download the handouts at:

Awesome Customer Service Handout – KY – Web

Marketing Lessons from the 2021 Super Bowl

Marketing Lessons from the 2021 Super Bowl

With applications for Direct Food & Ag Marketing Businesses

Super Bowl LV was again one for the record books, with the smallest stadium crowd ever, the lowest TV rating in fifteen years and the first one to be played in a home stadium. Many would say it solidifies Tom Brady’s GOAT status even further.

The ratings and big swings in who advertised in 2021 shows us that uncertainty may be the driver of many aspects of marketing. It also says something about what is going on with our customer base today. People’s lives are uprooted. Consumer habits are being changed forever, we are just not sure what forever means. Gauging consumer trends has been difficult this year due to the speed of change.

Advertising changes were big. Ford advertised in the playoffs, but not the big game. Budweiser did not market their core product, but instead focused on public service announcements for COVID-19 vaccinations. Pepsi did the half time show but did not purchase ad time.

Each year, the commercials give us a bearing for where marketing is going on a large scale. It sets the tone for marketing in the coming year and helps smaller businesses gauge what marketing firms with great data know. So, with a keen eye on the ads, we watched for trends and gave lots of thought to translate trends to direct farm marketing in the coming year.

As you review our analysis of trends, consider these questions for your business:

  • How does this relate to your business and your brand?
  • How can you use these trends to update your online presence (webpage, social media, etc)?
  • What trends can you take advantage of and how can you make a plan to use them?

Download the handout for this presentation, here: 2021 – Marketing Trends We Saw in Super Bowl Ads – handout

South Dakota Specialty Producers Association – Marketing For Retail Agriculture

Greetings, South Dakota!

We’re excited to share some ideas for marketing the farm at farmers markets – from displays to signage. We’ll share details to help farmers markets be the best they can be to promote our farms and bring in more customers. We’ll start the program by reviewing some trends, sharing resources and talking about marketing in today’s environment. Then, we’ll share tips and photos from farmers markets across the United States to explain the Top 10 Strategies for Farmers Market Vendors. Telling your farm’s story, educating customers, providing convenience and detailed examples will be shared. Then, on to the Top 10 Attributes of the BEST farmers markets will be shared. This includes educational sessions for vendors, having a great market manager, a marketing plan to ensure high customer demand, and more will be shared with detailed examples. Handouts for the program are:

Marketing for Retail Agriculture – Farmers Markets – Slide Handout

Top 10 Strategies for Farmers Market Vendors – Handout

Top 10 Attributes of the BEST farmers markets – Handout

More resources are available here on our blog – from the one page marketing plan to planning for operating the farm during COVID. There are many opportunities to learn more to grow the farm business!

Retail Agriculture – Guidance for Operations during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In big or small ways, COVID-19 has impacted aspects of farming and agribusiness. Safety, health, and wellness have become necessary concerns for all farm operations. Inviting the public to an agricultural operation for activities requires farm businesses to take additional safety measures for employees and customers. The focus of this guide is agritourism, but the concepts are the same across retail agriculture – whether a farm market, farmers market, pick-your-own operation and related.

Agritourism Guidance for Operations During COVID-19 – Web

Agritourism Trends & Activity Decision Making

This is part 3 of 3 sections from the Minnesota Fruit & Vegetable conference.

Looking at trends can be a great way to determine next steps for agritourism at the farm level. This section will help you gain new ideas and help explain what is happening in the agritourism industry across the country.

Many of us get excited about trends quickly. We want to plan a new event, or add a new activity to the farm. But, wait! There are many decisions to make before determining if an activity is best suited for your specific farm. We’ll review a decision making chart for use with your farm team to be sure you are analyzing each activity and choosing the ones that best fit your farming operation.

Find out more information through the links below for use to get ideas for your farm based on today’s trends in agritourism and a guide to decision making for agritourism activities.

2021 – Agritourism Trends & Activities – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

2021 – Agritourism Trends & Activities Slides from the presentation

Marketing and the Senses

This is part 2 of 3 sections from the conference.

Marketing is a difficult task. Writing a comprehensive marketing plan is a difficult task. So, we’ve provided a format to make this a one-pager! Yes, you’ll have lots of other notes, but this one-page marketing plan will help you focus and take action for the coming season at the farm.

To implement this plan, we encourage you to think about all aspects of your farm in terms of engaging customers through the five senses. The presentation reviews things you can do at the farm, and even gives specific ideas to help you think of customers and marketing in new ways.

Find out more information through the links below for use to develop a one page marketing plan for your farm.

2021 – Marketing and senses – Minnesota – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

2021 – Marketing and senses – Minnesota Slides from the presentation

Customer Service – Minnesota Fruit & Veg Conference

This is part 1 of 3 sections from the conference.

Customer service is the brand in action. Knowing what customers think of you and how they interpret your image is a great way to start a plan to improve customer service at  your farm this coming season.

There are four steps to providing excellent, awesome customer service:

  1. Prepare – Write a plan, train and empower employees.
  2. Respond & Mitigate – Understand it is a long term relationship, not just about the issue at hand. Fix things. Respond on social media.
  3. Recover – Have a plan for potential customer service fails. Designate who is in charge. Communicate.
  4. Improve Practices – Update the plan. Prepare for next time. Anticipate future customer service issues.

Find out more information through the links below for use to develop a customer service plan for your farm.

–  2021 – Awesome Customer Service – Minnesota – Handout Activities to be used with the farm management team

2021 – Awesome Customer Service – Minnesota Slides from the presentation

Awesome Customer Service

 

Customer service is the brand in action. Knowing what customers think of you and how they interpret your image is a great way to start a plan to improve customer service at  your farm this coming season.

There are four steps to providing excellent, awesome customer service:

  1. Prepare – Write a plan, train and empower employees.
  2. Respond & Mitigate – Understand it is a long term relationship, not just about the issue at hand. Fix things. Respond on social media.
  3. Recover – Have a plan for potential customer service fails. Designate who is in charge. Communicate.
  4. Improve Practices – Update the plan. Prepare for next time. Anticipate future customer service issues.

Find out more information through the links below for use to develop a customer service plan for your farm.

Awesome Customer Service Handout – OEFFA – Final – Activities to be used with the farm management team

Awesome Customer Service – OFFA 2020 final – Slides –  Slides from the presentation

Marketing Lessons from the 2017 Super Bowl – With applications for Direct Food & Ag Marketing Businesses

Super Bowl LI was one for the record books. More interesting for us, though, is the commercials! They were a snapshot of what is happening in marketing and showed us signs of the hot trends in marketing for 2017. Each year, our team watches with a keen eye to see what collective trends develop, how far marketers are willing to think outside of their brand, and how these trends can be used with food and agriculture direct marketing.

As you review our analysis of the trends, consider these questions in regards to your business:
• How does this relate to your business and your brand?
• How can you use these trends to update your online presence (webpage, social media, etc)?
• What trends can you take advantage of and how can you make a plan for promotions?

Read our entire analysis and get ideas for your 2017 marketing plan in this document: Marketing Trends We Saw in Super Bowl Ads 2017-1a2hq38