Create a Marketing Plan
To start, you need to think about what you want to accomplish with your marketing. Perhaps it's simply to engage with our customers and ultimately increase sales. If so, we need to think about who those customers are, what are their demographics, and where do they get their information. Once we know that, we need to determine the length of the marketing plan or campaign.
In 2020 we launched a state association for farmers markets and on-farm markets called PA Farm Markets and we needed to build up the membership. This required having a marketing plan. The marketing campaign lasted over the winter when the markets were slow or closed.
So, where do market managers get their information? We manage an email listserv for market managers, a Facebook page and Instagram, and an email list to a newsletter. Also, there are farming conferences in the winter. That is a fair amount of marketing vehicle possibilities and we want to use them all.
Think of a marketing plan as a to-do list. We need to figure out what marketing vehicles we're going to use and when. We know when we're going to conferences. They happen at a specific time of year, but what about print ads or email or social media? When and how often? Without a plan, these things can occur haphazardly, if at all.
Kitchen Table Consultants is a company that works with farms and farm markets to improve their business and they have created a tool called a Marketing Calendar Template. This template allows you to list what marketing channels you want use, determine how often and when and who is responsible for getting it done. It allows you to examine the time frame, what marketing vehicles you'll use, and how often you will use them.
 Marketing Calendar Template
| Category | Vehicle | Quantity | Content | Task | Lead | Per Platform Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Markets | 1-5/week |
|
Create one email for owner to approve: replicate to reflect various markets/dates/times once approved by owner; replicate email and schedule all with corresponding images/links; prepare at least 3 days in advance | Marketing Assistant | ||
| Blogging | Website | 1/month | Choose engaging content that lets your consumer in on an industry secret or helps them connect with you | Draft blog using pre-determined prompt/suggested content for owner's approval; prepare for review a week before publishing; 4 per year to be submitted from professional external source, rest done internally by marketing assistant | Marketing Assistant | |
| Events | Varies | 1/month | See Special Notes/Themes | Speeches, tastings, festivals, etc. | Varies | |
| Reports | GoogleSheets | 1/month | Quick narratives and stats from Facebook, Instagram, Newsletters and Google Analytics | Pull stats from all platforms and summarize changes from previous month | Marketing Assistant |
From Kitchen Table Consultants, info@kitchentableconsultants.com
For instance, If you are using social media, schedule your posts in advance. Maybe it's a "tip-of-the-week" post or a recipe. Whatever you decide, it should be consistent in messaging and appearance, so it is always associated with your business. Consider creating a weeks' worth of posts all at once and then schedule them to be posted throughout the week.
An email list might be your most important vehicle. Basically, you have a group of people who already agreed to interact with you and it's probably your lowest cost marketing tool. They are waiting to hear from you. What do you want them to know?
So, like everything else in life, it's good to have a plan. A colleague, Penn State Extension Educator, John Berry suggests, "I believe we do well to start at the end. What is expected to be accomplished by our marketing?" What do we want to see happen by the end of our marketing campaign? Whatever we choose, we need to be able to measure how successful our various marketing vehicles were.
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