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Copy, Paste, and Post: The Barn2Door Marketing Toolkit
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In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're joined by Joelle Orem of Orem Farm. We’re chatting about the Barn2Door Marketing Toolkit and how it can help make Social Media simpler for your Farm Business.
barn2door.com/marketing
barn2door.com/blog/new-monthly-marketing-toolkit-for-your-farm-business
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Transcript
Introduction to Direct Farm Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the go-to resource for farms across the US looking to grow and manage their business. Tune in weekly to hear tips and tactics from our most successful farmers on how to increase sales, access more customers, and save time and money. We'll
Meet Host Richard and Guest Joel Orem
00:00:18
Speaker
also speak with industry experts, business leaders, and partners to share the latest farm business trends selling direct to market.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to the direct farm podcast. I'm Richard, your host for today's episode. We have a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Joel Orem from Orem farms in Indiana. Welcome Joel. Hi, it's so great to be back. It's been a while.
00:00:43
Speaker
It has been. Well, this is actually the second episode in a mini series on the Direct Farm podcast, Barn to Door Social Media Tactics. In this series, we'll hear from Barn to Door experts and farm leaders like Joelle to hear tips and tricks to save time, grow your social media following and drive sales with social platforms. Today, we're going to talk about the Barn to Door Marketing Toolkit and how you use it, Joelle, to contribute to your social media and email strategy here.
Social Media Strategy with Barn to Door
00:01:12
Speaker
But before we dive in, Joelle, why don't you reintroduce yourself and give an overview of your farm and background. Sure. So my husband and I live in central Indiana and we own and manage Orem farms and we really work closely alongside his parents and of course our two kiddos. So we basically focused on pastured beef and we sell direct to our customers online and through lots of other different channels as well. We also haven't.
00:01:41
Speaker
custom hay baling business that keeps us really busy during the summer. We grow some of our own grain and some row crops here and there. We also just started doing certified organic. That's been an adventure for sure. But we've been customers with Barnadore for almost three years now.
Building Customer Trust through Genuine Engagement
00:02:00
Speaker
I think it was actually 2020 that we signed up. Yeah, three-year anniversary with Barnadore. It's great to be here and I'm excited to have a conversation about the marketing toolkit.
00:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. We're always excited having you as well. And you're also part of the Barnador farm advisor network and marketing development expert. You know, we were just mentioning prior to recording here that you help teach our Academy courses, you've been on some of our Barnador connect programs as well. So
00:02:26
Speaker
We can't get enough of you. Awesome. So to dive into today's topic, for listeners who may not know, the Barnadore Marketing Toolkit is seasonal marketing materials and assets that are shared each calendar month for your farm's use. The toolkit includes images, graphics, and sample prompts for emails, newsletters, and social media posts. The toolkit is available for farmers who use Barnadore for $29 per month here. But to start, Joelle,
00:02:55
Speaker
Why are social media and email marketing essential to running a successful direct farm business? So it's really important to keep a constant and consistent contact with your customers. And that not only builds trust with them, but it also gives them an inside look at what they're going to be purchasing.
Monthly Social Media Planning with the Toolkit
00:03:14
Speaker
So with social media and really just any online presence nowadays, it's it's completely saturated with content. And so
00:03:23
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Anytime you can be extra genuine and really show the heart behind what you do and how you do it is going to set you apart from all of the noise that's going on. So people can see when you're just posting to post and when you're actually taking the time and putting some effort into it and giving them a little bit of a inside look on what you do.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think you're bringing up a really good point in terms of being genuine. As an account manager here is something I mentioned all the time is, you know, people can pick up your tone of voice, they know when you're being authentic, they know when, you know, the marketing is coming from the farmer.
Link Between Consistent Engagement and Sales
00:04:02
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So I think that's a really, really important thing to bring up as well. So how do you use the toolkit to assist you in executing your social media and email strategy here?
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I've actually gone back and forth and I've tried a couple different tactics, but really the way that I'm using it right now is I'm using it as kind of a jump off point for the month. So I'm sitting down when it comes in and looking over all of the prompts. So in the toolkit, there is actually, it's a big database of
00:04:35
Speaker
images already formatted for social media. So they're already the right size and the right colors and everything. There's a whole bunch of images, but there's also a huge list of social media prompts. So it's going to be anything from like a holiday, maybe it's a random holiday like National Chili Day, which we used last week, all the way to just some ideas for you to share on social media. So there's
00:05:01
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The social media prompts, but there's also an email newsletter template that you can use as well. And it might have like a recipe or just some fun information.
00:05:11
Speaker
And really what I'm doing is I'm starting my month and just kind of forecasting, like what do we have going on this month? What do we need to sell? What do we want to educate our customers about? And then I'm kind of just picking and choosing what works for us. So I'm not
Content Creation Efficiency and Delegation
00:05:27
Speaker
using every single thing, but I am using a lot of this as a jump point so that we can get a nice head start on scheduling things and customizing things for how we want to post throughout the month.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned something a little earlier as well of regular engagement with your customers. So why is it important to engage with your customers consistently, especially on social media and with email newsletters? Do you see any correlation between the frequency of your engagement, farm sales? Is it worth it?
00:06:00
Speaker
It's absolutely worth it. So we have to remind our customers that we're here. And like I said, there's so much noise out there and you have to be at the top of their mind. And a lot of times they forget about it and I know I do. And so an example that I share with a lot of people that are specifically talking about email marketing is a lot of times our sales are coming from.
00:06:24
Speaker
the link at the top of our email newsletter, even if it was sent a couple weeks ago. And so it just shows that people aren't always accessing your website directly through a search bar or even through your social media page. They're sometimes going in their inbox and using that almost as like a curated
00:06:42
Speaker
search just for them. I do that all the time. I'm going to jump in my inbox and type in shoes and try to see which coupon came up. Just keep that in mind that the content that you're posting, it's going to live there for a while and people will go back to it time and time again.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really, really good point as well with those folks accessing those emails two weeks after you've sent them out. That's a really good reminder that these things, like you said, are persistent. They stick around for a while and people can access them and plug into them at any time. How exactly does the toolkit help you save some time?
00:07:17
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So it basically helps because the work is already done. I actually have a background in graphic design, communications, email marketing. I've done social media for numerous organizations in the past and it takes so much time to think of ideas and copy. Like even just writing a caption can sometimes just take an hour. And we're probably overthinking it a little bit, but
00:07:44
Speaker
I think what's amazing is that it's already done. There's so many things that you can cover and so much content that you can post, but having that already worked through and all of the typos already kinked out. It's just really helpful so that I can focus on what I do best and that's managing our farm. And what I've learned throughout the past few years when we've really scaled our business is that
00:08:08
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Delegating
Customization and Simplification of Social Media Planning
00:08:09
Speaker
is really hard for farmers because we are scrappy people and we are used to trying to figure it out and fix it and put the pieces together. It's very hard for us to delegate something.
00:08:22
Speaker
We've actually tried delegating our social media and hiring that out. And it was nice for a while. We did it right when we launched our subscription box and it took a little bit off of our plate, but we found that we're not able to share the in the field news and the little, the little captions that we want to tweak the way that we want. I think the marketing toolkit is great because you can either post just how it is. You can copy and paste and just stick the image with it or.
00:08:51
Speaker
You can really customize it. So a lot of times I will add my own twist of things. Or if you look in the toolkit itself, there's actually a filler. So it's going to have the social media prompts, but there's a little spot that says type in your chores or what routine you use in the evening. So there's a lot of customized opportunity. I guess is what I'm trying to say.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And when you're working on the farm, you don't always have time to double check when national chili day is right. Exactly. Perfect. I love it. So I got to ask you as well, what is your favorite part about the marketing toolkit? I mean, it really is just like I said, it, it helps take the brain work out of it for me. And really, barnadore in general is like having a team. It's like having my own marketing team. So
00:09:44
Speaker
I love getting an email saying, Hey, your toolkit's ready. And then it's like, Oh, that means I need to schedule out posts. So it's a mental prompt for me, but it also helps me capture all that content that can be posted. And so I'm not.
00:09:59
Speaker
digging around, no pun intended, but I'm not digging around for all this stuff to communicate with my customers. And there's a lot of options too. So it's not, I personally don't love stock images, but the way that these are created, you can capture a lot of different topics by the graphics that are in here. So it's
Conclusion and Invitation to Barn to Door Connect
00:10:21
Speaker
not just posting like a stock image of a steak. It's got words on it. It's got some color treatments and things like that. I love that the work is just already done.
00:10:30
Speaker
Perfect. One, coming from someone like you with your background, that means a lot to us as well. So we're really happy that you're enjoying it as much as you are. I want to thank Joel for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Join us next time as we continue the social media tactics series on the Direct Farm podcast.
00:10:49
Speaker
Here at Barn to Door, we are humbled to support thousands of farms across the country, including Orem Farms. If you want to connect with Joel and other farm advisors, attend the Barn to Door Connect. Register for weekly sessions at barn to door dot com slash connect. And for more information on Orem Farms, you can follow them on Instagram at Orem Farms. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
00:11:18
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in. For more free farm resources, tips, and tactics that are most successful farms used to grow and manage their business, visit barnadore.com slash resources. Also don't forget to subscribe to the Direct Farm podcast to automatically download our weekly episodes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.