I still remember the first day of our first week of CSA this season.
It felt electric! I woke up with so much excitement. I had a big to-do list, and not enough time. But I was excited to get started.
My crew was out harvesting super early that morning, and with so many different things to harvest, I had a chance to tell so many visual stories in my CSA Facebook group, on IG stories, and newsletter.
It's always exciting when we start something again, isn't it?
I could tell my customers were feeling the excitement too.. They have been looking forward to seeing us again for months. I loved feeling the brand energy soar. Marketing felt easy.
This week, on the podcast, I talk about these periods throughout the year when you might experience a burst of organic brand energy. I share 4 different places I typically see them. I want you to LOOK for these moments, and capitalize on them! Don't just let them go by. Milk them for all they're worth. They can catapult your brand energy, and you'll ride that wave til the next one.
This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, my preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy to use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise, Local Line should definitely be one of the e-commerce solutions you consider as you switch. Local Line is offering a free premium feature for free for one year on top of your paid subscription. Claim your discount by signing up for a Local Line account today and using the coupon code: MDF2024. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline
Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:
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Beginner's Guide to CSA Guide -- Use my Canva template and share it with your CSA members in your fulfillment process. This quick read guide shares the quick tips from my CSA master members, for how to be successful as a new CSA member. https://www.mydigitalfarmer.com/csasuccess
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brand energy. Does your farm have it? There are certain seasons of the year when out of nowhere the universe will send me brand energy and these are so powerful. I want you to learn to take advantage of them. Today I'm gonna talk about four places where this brand energy magically appears so that you can leverage it. Let's get started. Hey there this is Karina Bench and welcome to the My Digital Farmer podcast. In today's market it's not enough to just grow your product. You've got to know how to sell it too. Welcome to the My Digital Farmer podcast where we reveal online marketing strategies and tips to help farmers like you get better and more confident at marketing. Learn how to find more customers, increase your sales and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show! Well welcome to episode 268 of the My Digital Farmer podcast. I am your host Karina Bench, one of the farmers that shared legacy farms out in Elmore, Ohio. I'm also the founder of My Digital Farmer.com which is all about trying to help other farmers like you get more confident in your marketing and sales strategies so that you can grow a profitable business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show. Big shout out to all of my regular listeners, my binge listeners and if you're new to the show I'm really glad you're here. Welcome to the community. Make sure that you subscribe to the podcast. You're gonna want to do that and then go check out some of my back issues. You can scroll through. I've got over 250 of them now and I'm sure you can find something there that piques your interest. If you're really new to the marketing space though and you need kind of a 101 crash course I recommend that you go listen to the first 10 or even better get on to my email list because when you do I'm gonna send you a weekly email for like three months that's gonna walk you through the marketing jungle and kind of get you onboarded into what you need to know and you can do that by going to mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe I get really good reviews for that so definitely take advantage of that. Today's episode is sponsored by my friends at localline. Switch to localline and grow your farm to new heights this season. Localline is the most comprehensive sales software built for farmers and food hubs. Its features include e-commerce, automated inventory management, subscriptions, a website builder, point of sale and more helping you increase your sales and streamline your processes. So whether you're a CSA farmer or you sell meat you run a food hub or maybe you sell whole sale or offer a hard share localline has the tools and features that you need to succeed. We're a big fan. Are you looking to switch to a sales software that does it all subscriptions start as low as $49 a month with no set of fees or sales percentages? That's huge for me. Plus if you join localline today your onboarding manager will migrate your storefront at no cost so you can be up and running in no time even in the middle of the season. As a bonus if you are a podcast listener localline is also offering a free premium feature for one year with your subscription when you use my coupon code MDF 2024. So go to mydigitalfarmer.com forward slash localline and then enter the coupon code MDF 2024. Make the switch today and now back to the show. Today I want to talk about brand energy and this is coming up for me because we just started our CSA this week. I'm recording this on May sorry June 17th which is a Monday and it's our first harvest and pack day. Tomorrow our customers pick up the boxes and so there was a lot of energy and excitement among the staff and between Kurt and myself this morning when I woke up. I have a huge to-do list not overwhelming but there's a lot of last-minute things that I have to put together that I could only put together on this day and so as I'm going through it it's just starting to ramp up the excitement. I walked around the farm this morning taking a bunch of video and photographs as they were harvesting documenting the story I was on Instagram stories a lot. It's actually going to be really hot here for the next four or five days a huge heat wave in the upper 90s so we've been irrigating all night there's just a lot of activity and so as I'm walking around taking pictures sharing video talking to my customers doing Facebook lives for my private Facebook group I just felt this palpable energy of we're getting started lots of engagement lots of likes people high-fiving clapping you know doing all the emojis and I thought to myself oh I love this this is so easy. Have you ever had that happen in your brand where you have moments where it just feels easy to sell it feels easy to promote yourself it feels easy to tell your story because yeah something's happening something new has begun or you've had a really cool event happen in your life and it doesn't even feel like you're selling you're just excited to talk about your farm your story your brand and everything about it well that's what's happening right now for us and it made me reflect on how much I love when these moments happen because it's a huge momentum builder in our business doesn't feel like an energy drain for me to go out and document these stories or take pictures or connect with our customers or write a bunch of emails or write that first newsletter all those things that begin to feel like a drag when I get to week seven or eight doesn't feel like that when I start and so I was thinking about how can I take advantage of these moments where there is already so much energy and I wanted to talk about that today on this podcast now I am trying to keep these podcasts short until my voice comes back so if you notice that my voice is a little bit horse or scratchy I'm straining it a little bit chewing gum helps so you might actually hear me chew gum a little bit I'm sorry I know that's so unprofessional but I'm just trying to manage through the next few weeks as my esophagus continues to heal so this is gonna be a shorter episode actually what I wanted to talk about today where it was four examples of where I see energy naturally appear in kind of the brand cycle and the reason I want to point these out there's probably more but these were the four that came to me when I was brainstorming the reason I wanted to point these out is because I want you to identify if these happen to you if you recognize them as I talk about them and then I want you to plan for them or when they occur I don't want you to just let them pass you by and not grab them by the hand and make lemonade out of them right like we want to squeeze every last bit of lemon juice out of these lemons and try to create extra energy for our business and it's not going to feel hard that's the beauty of it right normally we're always trying to create energy for our business but in those seasons when we can't think of things to talk about there's not a whole lot going on there's nothing new going on it feels so exhausting to do that and yet we still need to try to keep that energy up I love taking advantage of these moments because the energy is just very organic and you don't have to work very hard to catapult it it just sort of happens all you got to do is direct it and steer it so listen to these four ideas that I share and then I want you when they happen I want you to latch on and make the most of them so promote them on social media talk about it follow that energy I always say to my family and to my students that I'm coaching I'm like follow the energy wherever you have energy just follow it because it's just an automatic asset okay so let's start with the first place that you're gonna find energy in your brand and that's what I would call beginnings anytime you start something so this could be the season start right that's what I'm experiencing right now the beginning of the season there's been for us we we don't go all year long we have a good four months off and so our customers are hungry for connection with us and our products by the time we get the spring going and so there's just a lot of excitement for us to see one another right so the start of a season the start of a new crop maybe you have a particular crop that's very popular like anytime the first tomatoes come out we get a lot of energy whenever the first sweet corn is planted or harvested we make a big deal about it it's not hard to make a big deal about it because it's so exciting and everyone's like ah and we see this huge surge and spike in sales because of it it could be a new product launch something brand new that you've never tried before whether that's a completely new type of meat that you're now producing and selling or it could be a way that you package it maybe you're introducing bundles for the first time right so sometimes we can create energy around a very popular kind of product packaging or style of product a product launch and then also just like a new process maybe you're the way you're harvesting or you got a new piece of equipment that's going to make things a whole lot easier or you put up new fencing or you bought new property or you have a new location for a drop-off or delivery or a new service like delivery or just expansion in some capacity in your brand anytime we have something new it creates natural energy it's a something we're excited to share and talk about I want you to remember this little formula this is almost like a mathematical equation new equals momentum okay just write that down somewhere new equals momentum so if you ever want to create momentum and energy in your brand just start something new create a beginning okay so that's number one hopefully you can think of some examples where that's actually been true for you or you can identify something coming soon that could qualify as a beginning or a start number two is wherever you see scarcity or urgency you'll find energy now I don't mean like scarce thinking this is not like scarcity mindset that's a major energy suck but if you have products that are scarce or you create urgency around an offer maybe like this product is only going to be around for 48 hours or until this weekend that creates all kinds of brand energy and momentum I was thinking about when I was in Kentucky on vacation last year and how we were drinking this soda called ale 8 and apparently that's a huge thing there we fell in love with it so kind of like a ginger ale on steroids it's really really good you can send me a free bottle that would be awesome if you're a big fan my family will thank you I actually can't drink it right now but my family can't um what was I saying okay so ale 8 while we were there they had this special limited edition blackberry flavor and it was so good and there was this kind of run on the blackberry version of this and they had limited edition limited season all over the packaging and there was just a buzz around it right we could always get ale 8 everyone loves ale 8 but even in Kentucky the blackberry version is only around for a short amount of time and so there's this amplified energy around it so create scarcity or urgency in some of your offers and that might just be the ticket for getting people excited today's podcast is sponsored by farm marketing school this is my monthly membership where farmers can come in and build marketing assets one at a time in special 30-day build projects that I've created for you right now there are like eight projects inside a farm marketing school and every month a new one gets added and you basically subscribe for 30 days or you can stay in for a couple months or three months you can stay in the whole year but what you're doing is you go inside and you decide this is the project that I want to work on you take the class the workshop class that's recorded you just watch it and then you build it yourself so this is the DIY version of accelerator there's no coaching element or mastermind or zoom meetups it's just you going in there watching the class that the accelerators saw live with me and then working on it on your own so if you're a DIY type of person and you think you can do it yourself this is an amazing resource there are projects in therefore how to build a promotion plan how to build your email nurture sequence how to write a great weekly email how to build the website homepage messaging what goes on that home page how to build a lead magnet and more so if you want to see what's in the farm marketing school you can head to my digital farmer dot com forward slash fms and I encourage you to subscribe for one month check it out I have a whole onboarding like a crash course in marketing that I encourage you to take in your first week there is an assessment inside of there that's gonna help you know which elements you should build first it's so good and I would love it if you would give it a shot for a month let me know what you think and if you decide you like it you can stay in there for several months in the offseason and get a ton of your marketing stuff done number three certain people will bring energy into the room for your brand you'll discover this over time if you haven't already this could be customers that just have large personalities or who bring a huge network with them and they are huge promoters or they just make things happen or wherever they go like they have like the magic touch and things just blossom I have a few customers that fall into that category if I can have them at my farm events you know sometimes I just say I just make sure that they're there I'll make the event like the farm dinner free for them because I know that when they're there they're going to create a huge dynamic at that end of the table they're going to be the conversation driver they're going to be energy and take care of that part of my audience over there so certain people who are customers will bring energy into the room but also staff you might be lucky enough to have someone on your team that's a creator and that isn't afraid to take risks and I'm thinking of Noah who's on our team and how yesterday he planted his upland rice this is the first time we've ever planted rice on the farm it's an experiment he got really excited about it when Kirk kind of introduced him to it and yeah we know about the farmer in Maryland I'm forgetting his name now but we gave all that information and Noah and Noah is running with it and he's piloting it for us this year well I got on to Facebook live and I was filming it put it on Instagram stories and there was so much energy like oozing out of Noah like you could just see him he was so giddy that Kurt was actually giving him acreage to actually play around with this idea and trusting him and then there was this energy translating into the comments of this video people are like oh my gosh I can't wait I hope this works I would totally buy this many pounds from you and XYZ so it just was an easy it was an easy lift to talk about the rice and to put that in the ground and get that going and and promote it so yeah really excited about that so look for who are the people in your environment that bring energy and who are the energy suckers the ones that just pull it out of you and drain you we want to get rid of those people sometimes that means getting rid of them as customers okay number four this is the last one sometimes you'll see energy being created by what I call breakthroughs and this could be like a mindset shift that you have I have a weekly call with my coach Rebecca and periodically I would say it's maybe like every three or four months I will have what I call a mindset shift breakthrough where there's just this thought that suddenly becomes clear to me and I realize that I've been looking at my life the wrong way or that there's another way I should say just another way to look at it that's so freeing and that launches me removes fear allows me to take action right sometimes it'll be a mindset shift like that that makes you change your feelings about something and then ultimately your actions sometimes it's a discovery that you make could be new information that leads to new action it could be a circumstance something that actually happens to you that you can't really change that changes the game and forces you causes you to pivot and have to try something new or it leads to a new rabbit trail rabbit hole that you follow down and you discover new people or new experiences new products new ideas right so I call these breakthroughs and you can't plan for these these are like the surprises that the universe just hands to you these happen to me now so I don't want to say frequently but so sort of on schedule that I almost count on them I like to talk about sort of to me like like a radar picture a radar screen and you're going through your life and you're constantly checking the radar like what's coming down the pike do I need to prepare for something is there a pending disaster looming that I need to watch out for is there something good that I'm hoping we'll show up soon on my radar so I'm always scanning my radar and every now and then something will just show up on the radar that I could never ever have thought possible like wasn't even like wasn't even something I was working on or working towards or on my gold chart and it just appears and it's a blessing and a boon and it just takes off right these are examples of breakthroughs and I believe that the universe just delivers them to us periodically I think we also call them to ourselves sometimes and I've come to count on them showing up and when they do oh my gosh take advantage of them like just squeeze every ounce of energy you can out of them because they're gonna set you on fire they're just gonna light you up I call this one of the metaphors that I like to use when I'm talking about this with my coaches I say for me it feels like a green lights go moment and this is that feeling that you have when you're driving down a busy street in a suburb or in a city that's got a ton of lights and you get nothing but green lights which is very rare right nothing worse than having to constantly stop a realize every now and then you'll just get complete green lights and you just have total momentum and nothing can stop you this is a green lights go moment and these breakthroughs will drive energy in your business so when they happen man just coast on them trust in them to continue they're awesome so I wish one of those upon you maybe you can think of one that's happened to you in recent history I want to close with this thought like our brand is sort of like a flywheel spinning okay and when you first start pushing a flywheel it is hard to get it going isn't it right lots of work involved to build up that energy and that momentum but then once it's going it's it's like a merry go around at the park it's just you know it's going around really fast it's whipping around it has energy and then all you have to do is occasionally just tap it to keep it moving so I want you to think of these examples new beginnings scarcity and urgency certain people breakthroughs right use those to accelerate the wheel there they show up to help you get that flywheel spinning fast and then all you'll have to do throughout the season is occasionally tap it which can sometimes take energy and thoughtfulness and intentionality but it's not as exhausting to do that because you've you've had the flywheel spinning and you've taken advantage of these these moments that are accelerators for your brand energy all right well that's all I got I hope this was helpful for you look for an example of those brand energy accelerators and push that fly wheel get it spinning I wish you all kinds of brand energy this season let me know what you think of the episode today's show notes can be found at my digital farmer dot com forward slash 268 if you liked the show please go leave me a rating or a review or tell somebody you know about this podcast maybe in a Facebook group or in one of your email listservs I would love that and if you want to get onto my email list and get some tips for how to keep your marketing strong and build a marketing machine a system around sales and marketing I can help you with that I can help you with that for free over my email nurture sequence that I'm gonna send you it's like three or four months of emails it's gonna walk you through the marketing jungle so go to my digital farmer dot com forward slash subscribe to get that it's really good I'm also on Instagram at my digital farmer I love showing up in stories and as my voice gets stronger I'll be there a little bit more often this summer but I'd love to connect with you there hey if you have a question you want me to answer on the show please send it to me at my digital farmers at gmail.com I'm looking for kind of like an ask me anything segment that I can throw on here those are great topics to allow me to do kind of some shorter episodes here as I allow my voice to heal or maybe if you'd like to get on this show another way that's kind of easy for me to do a podcast is to interview someone so I'm trying to get more interviews here lined up over the next few months again to help me heal so if you would love to share your story you have something cool that you're trying you just want to send it out into the world reach out to me and maybe we can set something up my digital farmers at gmail.com thanks so much for joining me today you guys have an awesome week I believe in you bye-bye (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
