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5 Steps to Success with Delivery-as-a-Service
247 Plays4 days ago
Stop wasting hours in parking lots! Discover how DaaS helps Farmers automate local logistics, reach more Buyers, and look like a pro with doorstep delivery.
For more Farm resources, visit:barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to Independent Farmer Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer podcast, the go-to podcast for do-it-yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman, and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers.
00:00:20
Speaker
This podcast is hosted by Barn to Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand, and sell online and in person. Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer podcast.
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barnador and your host for today's episode. As you may be aware, Barnador all about helping independent farmers make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro. By getting a system of place to sell direct, market, and under their own brand and manage orders, farmers can skip the middleman and build a strong local business ah with recurring sales. And we just debuted a new capability, helping farmers with local delivery.
New Delivery as a Service by Barn to Door
00:01:07
Speaker
In today's conversation, we're going to cover the five steps to success for a newly launched Delivery as a Service. Now, farmers who use Barnador can leverage a third-party logistics partner to actually pick up food from their farm and deliver it directly to their buyer's doorstep. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Ryan Grace from Barnador's success team, who's helping many of our farmers on this new Delivery as a Service initiative. Welcome back, Ryan. It's great to see you. Thanks, James.
00:01:33
Speaker
Always great to be on here. Well, I'm really excited about this topic because i know many farmers have been asking for this for a long time, and it's fun to finally see it come to fruition. But before we dive into delivery, why don't you share a little bit more with the listeners more about your role here at Barn to Door? Yes, I've been with Barn to Door for two years now, actually. I think I had my two-year anniversary on the 1st, which is exciting. My role has changed a time here, and I've been able to grow into the account management role where i work with farmers on that. day-to-day basis, helping them implement best practices, utilize the tools that we give them to help them save time look like a pro and excel their business into what's next for them.
00:02:10
Speaker
Well, that's exciting. And I know you had a lot of experience before joining Barnard Door, because I know you used to do point-of-sale systems and integrations for Toast, too. So you've had a lot of experience of working with small business owners. Yeah. Even before Toast, working for Apple, I've had a lot of hands-on experience with getting people comfortable with the tech that's out there that will help them save that time and earn more money. I look like a pro. So that's the goal here the account managing side of things.
00:02:31
Speaker
Well, now I know you manage hundreds of farms and you speak with dozens of farms every week. Today, we're gonna dive into our new deliveries of service capability. So let's dive in right away, because we're gonna talk about the five steps to success for building a delivery for your farm. So for listeners who are not familiar with deliveries and service, can you just give a quick summary what deliveries and service
Breaking Convenience Barriers for Consumers
00:02:52
Speaker
entails? Yeah, delivery of service makes it so easy for our farms to be able to get their products into their hands of consumers. When we're looking at a lot of the analytics that we get back from buyers, the main thing that keeps them from buying from local farms is the convenience. And so this solves that big barrier, right? What's more convenient than getting something dropped off at your door? And six out of seven Americans are getting stuff delivered to their house on a regular basis as is. So it's the way the world is moving. People want things easy. They want it convenient and they want to buy from a local farmer. They want to support farms and get good food that they know where it comes from and that it's high quality. So delivery as a service is a way that our farmers can offload all that work onto our delivery partner. They can come pick up directly on their farm, do the drop offs. Customers will get nice updates. The farmers will get updates on where those deliveries are at, why, when they're at that route, be able to put in notes and then details to let the driver know if there's anything that they know about that customer to drop it off for. So it's really going to streamline a lot of businesses. When you think about the time that saves from a farmer who would have to go door to door for 20 plus deliveries, it's a game changer. Yeah, it's a game changer. I know we have many farms who are doing 20, 50, 100, and even several hundred. Some of our largest farms do you all almost 1,000 deliveries every week. And so I know this is just a huge shift. Like you said, time back to focus on farming and handing out those logistics to a third party. Now, before we dive in further on some of the tactics, I know one of the things you've done is you've talked to several farms who were just getting implemented, getting started. In terms of the enthusiasm people have for this, what are are the ideal use cases do you see for deliveries of service? Because I know many farms have a large base of
00:04:33
Speaker
customers. But like you said, maybe only 5% to 10% of their email list is even buying from them on a regular basis. Yeah. This solves on two fronts. You can win back some lapsed customers. Some of those who maybe have bought from you at the farmer's market, loved your product, but aren't able to make it every Saturday to go and see at the market. So you can win back some of those customers who have purchased from you before, but may or maybe fell off because of that convenience. And then you can also expand that delivery because as you know, depending on the neighborhood you live in, getting to talk to my neighbors when we're out mowing the lawn and they see a delivery coming in and we talk about it, tell them work from a local farm. Most neighborhoods have a community page you can post on. And I'm always excited to talk about the farms that I'm ordering from. And I know you are as well.
00:05:15
Speaker
And so it just then expands and grows. And it's really just putting in the investment, the time early to market and to push this that will pay dividends in the long run. Well, that's a great starting point. So let's talk about market analysis because just like you said, i too am excited to share about the farms that I buy from. i have three that deliver directly to my door here in Nashville. And I happen to also be in a neighborhood Facebook group, which has 200 neighbors in it. So I happily post those farms into those neighborhood Facebook groups and they get more purchases and more buyer density. So many farmers struggle to reach their full customer base due to lack of
Five Steps to Create a Successful Farm Delivery Service
00:05:50
Speaker
resources at bandwidth. So Ryan, let's talk a little bit more about the five steps to help farmers build a successful delivery business. And i'd love for you to share a little bit more with our listeners about what we do to come alongside the farmer help them to get started. The first step I know is market analysis. What does that entail? Yeah, the first step to market analysis is knowing who you're trying to market to. So identifying your ideal customer profile, That's the customer that you we want to be reaching.
00:06:13
Speaker
You don't need to be selling to everybody. There is a customer that is looking for your products that you can be capitalizing on. Identifying what businesses is that customer also spending their money with that compliment your products that you could set up some partnerships with.
00:06:25
Speaker
Maybe drop off some flyers, do some raffles to help build some of that demand to get the word out there. And then the other piece is being selective with the offerings. Because the goal here is to have local buyers who choose delivery as a service before they head to the big box grocery store. So.
00:06:40
Speaker
You want to have products that draw that customer in, that increase your average order value. Simplified for people to go in, pick a couple of different box options. That really would make sense for delivery because the customer who is drawn to delivery, they're drawn to the convenience piece. Decision fatigue is a real thing. They don't want to scroll through every a la carte item. They want to see a couple different boxes that would work best for their family and their household style.
00:07:02
Speaker
Bingo. So the big thing here is you don't have to offer your entire inventory for delivery. Like you said, you might pin a few of those kind of key boxes or delivery boxes or bundles that are available for delivery that are going to have a high AOV because who wants to spend $5 on a product and then pay a delivery fee? That doesn't make any sense. But if I'm spending $200 on a meat box, which I do, I have a $250 meat box that gets delivered to me each month that I pay, I think, 12 or 15 bucks for delivery on.
00:07:27
Speaker
It's a no brainer. Makes sense. It's convenient. It's also worth the farmer's time. Can you share with our buyers a little bit? Are there any other things you think about or any examples of farms who've had success with this? Yeah. So one farm that comes to mind, Brass Fed Cattle Co., they were able to expand from serving a 10 mile radius 45 mile radius. And a lot that came when they were handling everything on their own. The time is limited. It was hard for them to invest the time on the farm, on the marketing, farmers markets, and do all the deliveries that they wanted to be able to scale to. They had a strong buying base. So they had customers who wanted their products. And like we said earlier, some of them maybe fell off, not because they didn't like the product or didn't want to buy. It just wasn't as convenient for them to meet them at a pickup location. So by reaching to their already existing customer base, letting them know that now they have home delivery. picking a launch date and then that help them grow from that 10 mile radius down to a 45 mile radius. And I'll continue to expand as they grow their customer base. That's great. So instead of having to run all the dealers themselves, now they can have a partner that can reach much wider audience. So that's fantastic. That kind of leads into the next step to success, which is like your delivery zone. How did they know even expand it to 45 miles? So there must've been some analysis based on their but buyers that they had. How do we help with that? When we look at a farm, when you get started, you talk to our farm who's interested in delivery, how should they be thinking about their delivery zones? Yeah, I would scale into the delivery. You obviously want to start with your local market. What's doable? People closest around to you, that's going to be your lowest lift. and That's where you can really maximize your efforts.
00:08:55
Speaker
And then looking as you start getting data, our team will put together some really cool mapping tools that will show you where your buyer density is, where are most people buying from Where are some other pockets that may be some high income areas in a downtown that we can start marketing to and start doing some promotional campaigns to that. So we'll bring that heat map in for you. We'll show you where your buyers are already purchasing from what the zip codes are. And then we'll start to market heavy to some of those other ones that are close by that maybe we can expand on. Well, I know this is a big deal because lot times farmers have a perception of where they think their buyers are and they set up their pickup locations based on that perception. But to your point, some of the more sophisticated mapping tools that we have, we can actually do it by zip code to every individual buyer. And those heat maps, I've seen some of these that you and the success team members use. It's pretty profound. There's no hiding from the truth of like, oh geez, I thought my buyers were in this section of the city, but they're actually, they're over here and over there, right? Like you said, that ability to expand or reach wider audience of buyers is a big deal. You mentioned pickup, because I know this is also something we've seen farmers use with setting the delivery zone, thinking, hey, today I drive, maybe you're farm that's located one or two hours away, and you drive into the city or to a suburb, and have a pickup, have to stand there for two or three hours and then wait for buyers to come through. Have you seen some farms flip that into a delivery model going forward to make more convenient for them as a farmer and for the buyers? Yeah, one of the farms we work really closely with Veterans Liberty Ranch, some of my two favorite people to meet with a regular basis, but they were able to convert one of their pickup locations where they're having 30 to 40 people meet them at a spot. And like you said, sometimes you're there for longer than you want to be because maybe a customer, their car broke down, they're little bit delayed, they had a sick kid, they're not able to get there. so you're waiting around this park a lot for those people to come pick up their orders. So they just converted all those buyers into even more convenient than meeting us at this parking lot or meeting us at this location. We'll drop it off at your door. So it was very easy switch for them to just convert those people over and saved them a ton of time. And it just from an environmental standpoint, it's also a win because if you're just having one vehicle go out and do these deliveries, that's a lot better than having 30 to 40 cars driving out to meet you at one location. And like you said, way more convenient. People are so busy today. Kids soccer practice, music recitals, whatever it may be. Things go long, people get stuck in traffic, and too often farmers, they're already spending an hour driving into the city or more than having to stand around, wait two, three hours. It's like, get all that time back. And it's so much more convenient for the buyer too because they could just show up at home after soccer practice or after picking up the kids for music recital and the food's on their doorstep just waiting for them. So it seems to be, again, another... Super convenient, no-brainer option for both the farmer and the buyer. So you got me convinced. Now let's say I want to get started as a farmer.
00:11:39
Speaker
What's next? You mentioned the word launch date earlier. Why is picking a launch date such a big deal when it comes to getting started?
Marketing Strategies for Launching Delivery Services
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, picking a launch date is crucial. Not only for the farmer's accountability to have something to work towards, to have a goal to go to. but also from the buyer. We want to know when this is coming out. And you'll see this across any industry. You look at Apple before they launch a new phone. There's lots of promotion. There's hype behind it. There's building demand. You'll see it where any new car company that's putting out a new model, it's the preview. So really having that as a way to drive excitement, drive demand to a certain date is going to help with your conversion rates. So that's the goal with selecting a launch date. Pick a date, stick to it, and then we can start working into how do we market towards that date. That is such good advice, Ryan, because you're absolutely spot on. I love your examples of both, whether it's a new Apple iPhone comes available on this date or the new Jeep Scout vehicle is going to come available on this date. Gets people excited. There's anticipation. It also provides a real goal, like you said, for a farmer to work towards. How far out do most people plan their launch dates? Are they doing in this two weeks out, three, four weeks out? How far in advance do you think people typically are planning when they're thinking about getting started with this? I think giving yourself a couple weeks, so a month tends to be pretty successful. That gives you some time to ramp into things, get all the logistics figured out. So that's what I've been seeing on a more consistent basis.
00:12:55
Speaker
Because you'll also see buyers fall into a couple different categories. You have your early adopters who will want to jump right away, the first to get whatever is new and coming out. And then you have large group that will wait until that last minute. So you want to make sure you're capitalizing on those and having that date push people to a point where they need to make that decision. They can't just linger around and push it off and push it off.
00:13:16
Speaker
Perfect. Well, really great feedback. So you've got a launch date now. I imagine the next two steps I see here, one is about driving email campaigns and the fifth one is social media. Let's start with email because I know that's something that's an active form of marketing. Everybody has an inbox these days. So what are you doing with the farmers? How do you come alongside a farmer and help them drive outcomes to that specific launch date with email campaigns? Yeah, our design team is absolutely incredible. Not only do they build more websites than anyone in the world, we also build really great targeted campaigns for our farmers. So we have these templates that are made mobile friendly, easy to use, eye catching, clickable buttons, call to actions. And so what we'll do is we'll help you set those campaigns up, get them preloaded into your MailChimp, customize them a little bit to your farm. And what those campaigns are doing is they're trying to drive that conversion. We're hitting on them on a couple of different levels. Some of the things we're sending out, again, early on maybe is a early bird special. The first 10 people to sign up get a certain promo or exclusive offer. And then as we start getting closer and closer to that launch date, we want to start hitting some of the fear of missing out. We want to say last chance, don't miss out, your neighbor's getting this, are you missing out on the same thing? Don't be last in line. So start hitting those until we get to where the launch date is. Well, and I imagine those email campaigns too, FOMO and limited offers are really compelling.
00:14:33
Speaker
But I also know just the convenience of farm food is also very appealing. Every farm I've talked to who's thinking about doing this, I always ask them, how big is your email list? And I was talking to a farm the other day, they had over a thousand plus people on their email list of people who had purchased from them at some point in the past one to two, maybe three years. And then I asked the farmer, how many people are purchasing from you today? And she said 50. And I was like, wow, think of all these people who would love for your product, probably love it, but it's just not convenient. So aside from fear of missing out and limited chance, I think convenience by itself has got to be an attractive offer. Is that correct? I mean, you guys have templates to that effect too?
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, we're hitting on all of it. So there's the, from our farm direct to your door, doesn't get any easier than that. And that's one of the biggest selling points with the delivery as a service is it really removes that final hurdle that most people run up against when it comes to ordering from a local farm. Now, you mentioned some of these offers and things that you've got. With respect to some of these email campaigns and trying to build demand, do you have an example, any farms that you or your teammates have worked with that have success following these steps after they've picked a launch date? Yeah. Yeah, we have a farm out in Georgia who step by step took all these best practices we've been recommending. They picked their launch date. They did their targeted emails. They were consistent, which is one of the biggest pieces with this whole thing. Buyers need lots of reminders. So keep at it. Keep being consistent. And they eclipsed their goal, which was to hit that 20 order minimum within a couple of days. So it was... Pretty cool to see. And now the best part is most of those orders were her subscriptions that they set up in the store. So those are going to be reoccurring, continuous orders that they can bank on that's going to continue to grow because as those customers are getting their delivery, those neighbors are going to see those boxes. They're going to smell them grilling in the backyard and they're going to ask questions on where they got that meat. But it's just going to, I think, continue to explode for them. Yeah, that's a really great point. And I know talking with one of our other firms, Peter Bartlett, on a similar topic, it's the neighbors seeing the other neighbors. He was sharing with me that one of their most successful delivery zones they've set up is they started with just one buyer, but now it's his largest delivery zone a year later because neighbor after neighbor kept on seeing and hearing it. And again, now they're doing several dozen people in just one neighborhood. So that's just a really great example. i'm just really happy to see because that recurring revenue is such a game changer in terms of financial security for the firm, but also just streamlining the operations as well. Let's talk about this fifth tactic, social media. a lot of firms who have large followings and a lot of people, it's a little bit of a different form of engagement versus email. But how do we support farmers with social media and thinking about driving demand or awareness there? Yeah, you can think of social media as a great visual aid to what you're doing.
00:17:07
Speaker
within your email marketing. We love email marketing. You get about a 30% higher conversion rate. The social media is such a great compliment to that. What we've done is we've pre-built some really nice designs that are bringing in front of mind your customers. So if they miss you in the email, we're reminding them, hey, you want convenience? Our farm food dropped off to your door. We put together beautiful pictures, delivery design content that you can have posted on your Facebook. It's going to look good on your Instagram. And so we have a whole folder that all this content, and depending on what kind of farming you do. It's going to look really nice, professionally designed. And again, it's just keeping it front of mind for those buyers because they need a lot of touch points for them to make that decision. Well, on social media, like you said, the visual aspects of it are really exciting. And I also think what's really cool about it too is that buyers get to see other buyers' comments about their enthusiasm or excitement about this. I know you worked specifically with a farm down in Alabama recently who's had a lot of success with this. Can you share a little bit more about that their experience with this on social media? Yeah, similar to the farm I worked with in Georgia. It's all about putting in the best practices, being consistent. And so for them, they've done an incredible job building a community within their social media. They're asking for feedback. What other products would you be interested in? And so when they post their customers, they do a lot of engagement. When they were getting started on this, it was a, hey, we're doing a limited offer. First 25 people to sign up will be included. Hop on. I think within 20 minutes, hit that mark and had to expand their thresholds.
00:18:30
Speaker
They sold out in 20 minutes? Are you kidding me? Yeah, if you look at their posts, they sent out 40 comments, tag me in, I'm in, I'm in. People were eating it up. Wow. If you're a farmer listening to this, please don't expect those types of rolls. That's an anomaly. But I've heard of people selling out the first day, but 20 minutes is pretty impressive. That's great to hear.
00:18:50
Speaker
So now what are they doing? Have they expanded that even further? So the first 25 sold out so quickly, were they able to add additional capacity? Yeah. So after capitalizing on what they have in their existing market, the next step is going to the neighboring towns. They want to go to the next neighborhood and continue to expand in some of those markets where maybe they have a few customers, but there's some opportunity to grow. And then once you continue to grow in those other neighborhoods, it becomes, all right, I have this strong customer base. How do I continue to bump that average order value up to bring in add-ons, to do partnerships with other local businesses? Because you have a captive audience now who wants your products and you've become the local advisor in what products are best for them. That's how they got started. That's this farm was able to expand their offerings from just one protein to add in four different variety types, look into partnerships with produce as well, and it just blossoms from there.
00:19:40
Speaker
That's fantastic. That's really great advice because I know that average American spends $500 a month. So if you've got a couple a living by themselves, I think to myself, we're going to spend over $1,000 a month on groceries. Well, how much of that $1,000 can you get? Like you said, you might start with $200, but can you get to $300, $400, $500 because we're spending money on something. So this has been really a great set of steps. So the five steps we heard from you just for our audience, again, to get started with delivery, things we'll do with farm is number one, market analysis, help them identify their target buyer, the specific types of products that would be ideally suited for delivery, et cetera, to drive a high order value. Secondly, we'll help assist them with getting all the delivery zones set up. looking where they have buyer density, et cetera. Third is getting a specific launch date that we can drive a conversion event. And then the fourth and fifth is setting up targeted campaigns, both for email and social media. Really great to see you. Thank you for all your hard work, Brian. Come alongside farmers, help them build success with Delveri so they can get more time back on the farm. Before we wrap up, is there any other piece of advice you'd like to share with farms as they think about this and about what it could look like for their future?
00:20:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think as you're getting started, taking it one step at a time, you think about your fundamentals and anything you do. You want to be diligent. You want to be consistent and let people know what you're working towards. That's a big part of why I enjoy buying from a local farm. I like to see what the next project is. what they're going to be bringing in, what their goals are for the next year. And so even if delivery isn't in the framework in the next few months, start putting in the the building blocks for it to be a possibility for you in the next
Embracing Delivery Services for Farmers
00:21:12
Speaker
year or so. Because it is the future. People want products dropped off at their door. They want convenience. And they want to know where the food comes from. You as a farmer have the ability to solve those problems for them. They aren't going to get that with a grocery store delivery. They're not going to have that connection, that relationship factor, but they do get that with you. They get to see where their food is raised. They get to know where it came from. And that is an incredible value. And then when you're dropping it off at their door, that's a no brainer. Who wouldn't sign up for that? Absolutely. Really great advice. And I can't agree enough about the relationship. the Relationship's a big deal and being able to know that you're supporting a farm family who's not just feeding you as a family, but you're also supporting them and supporting the local community. Really big deal. One last piece of advice for me that didn't get brought up is charging a delivery fee. I know that's also a really big deal. Maybe you can just share a couple of words on what do you see people charging for delivery fee? I know we've got some other blogs on this topic, et cetera, but for our listeners who might be driving in their car or on a tractor, What do you see as a typical charge for delivery fee for firms? Yeah, we're seeing anywhere from $10 to $15 pretty average. And when you think about going all the way back to step one, who your ideal customer profile is, that customer, they are paying for convenience. They want ease, but they also want quality. They will not bat an eye at the delivery fee. That ideal customer wants that product dropped off at the door. if My sister's listening. I apologize, but she is this ideal customer. She does not pay attention to what any delivery fee is. She gets everything sent to her house and is that ideal customer for a lot of farms. So charge the fee. It's something that people are used to. There's a lot of different ways you can manage that. You can build it into the cost of your items. The key with the delivery fee is making sure your average order value makes sense for that delivery fee. A $15 delivery fee on a $10 item, not going to make sense. So thinking about ways you can package and bundle your items to where it's a hundred dollar order for a $15 delivery fee is nothing. Yep. I'm the ideal customer too. I don't even think about the delivery fees. I get farm food from proteins, produce, and dairy all delivered to my home. And all of them charge me delivery fee somewhere between 12 and $15. I don't know the exact amount, but I don't really care because I care more about the quality of the food that I'm getting. So great feedback,
Resources and Contacts for Farmers
00:23:18
Speaker
Ryan. Well, i want to extend my thanks to Ryan for joining us on this week's podcast episode. You can check out more Barnard Door on our website at barnarddoor.com or follow us on social media and Facebook and Instagram at Barnard Door. We're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers all across the country and delighted to offer services and tools, including deliveries of service to help farmers access more customers, make more money, ditch the office work and look like a pro. If you're an independent farmer is just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, you can learn more at barnarddoor.com backslash learn more. Thank you for joining us for today's podcast episode, and we look forward to seeing you next week on the Independent Farmer Podcast. Cheers.
00:24:04
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn to Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
00:24:21
Speaker
For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodore.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.