1. 30 Ideas for Direct Marketers
Bridget Kennedy

3.  Most businesses, even small ones, try to sell
their product “to everyone.”
 They seek out big ideas to reach as many
people as possible with the most generic
message.

4. Businesses…
 with a ton of money to invest because they are selling
something that costs a ton of money
 that naturally have a massive audience
 that are extremely relevant to people traveling on
that highway or road
 (gas stations, fast food, hotels, major attractions)
 Could make sense for a farmers market or farm
destination in some circumstances.

5. You want to do the exact opposite: sell your
product “to one person”.
You want your product or service narrowly
targeted to reach a focused segment of the
population.

6.  This narrow focus is called a “market segment”.
 You can segment people by all kinds of factors,
like:
 Gender or age
 Price willingness
 Interests
 Location
 Religion or ethnicity
 Income
 Size of Household
 Local vs. tourist
 Etc.

7. In the places they are already looking!

8.  Who is this woman?
Julie

9.  She is married.
 She has two children ages 7 and 10.
 They go to Emma Elementary, 2nd and 5th grade.
 She is trained as a CNA and works a 12 hour
overnight shift at the hospital 3 days per week.
 She spends a lot of time caring for her elderly
parents.
 Her interests outside of family & work include:
 Watching cooking shows on TV. Cooking.
 Clemson U. sports teams
 Weight loss
 Researching her family tree
 Facebook

12.  If you are a direct marketer, you could spend
the next year exclusive focused on this
market segment. This would be smart!
 How do we use the simple fact of affiliation
with a school to attempt to reach each
parent 3-5 times with your message?

13.  1: Sponsor school sports events in exchange
for logo placement/mention at those events.
 2: Advertise in the yearbook or monthly
newsletter if they have one.
 3: Sponsor school plays and other functions
that have a printed program.

14.  4: Offer cooking classes or classroom
demonstrations.
 5: Outreach to teachers and school
administrators about educational field trips
to your farm.
 6: Donate product to PTO fundraisers and
other school events.
 Your idea here. There are others.

15.  Parents of school-age kids will tend to follow
certain patterns in media consumption:
 7: Some cable TV consumption “over shoulder”
of kids, or with them. Classic example: Animal
Planet. Cable TV can be purchased by network,
by show, by county.
 8: Predictable drive time radio. Some
predictability to format choice, based on age and
other factors. Focusing on a specific drive time
on weekdays on a station with a local signal is an
affordable way to do radio.

16.  Parents of school-age kids will tend to follow
certain patterns in media consumption:
 9: Some communities have targeted print media
for this group, such as:
 WNC Parent (Asheville Citizen-Times)
 Summer camp guides or summer activity guides
(special inserts/editions of your weekly paper)

17.  10: “Buying Club” type marketing can work well
in any place with a critical mass of people – and
a school is a great example. You don‟t have to
call it a buying club.
 Create some kind of bulk presentation of your
product with a small discount over what you would
usually sell it for one at a time. Maybe it‟s:
 Apples by the bushel
 Side of freezer beef
 Case of 12 dozen eggs a week . . . Etc.
 Create a marketing piece that tries to recruit
leader/partner marketers to coordinate purchasing of
this item. Maybe this “captain” gets an extra discount
for pulling in 10 customers for you.
 Make it be “about them.”

18.  Don‟t just do one of these things. You are
creating a coordinated program.
 You are trying to reach the same person 3-5
times with a consistent message.
 In doing so, you are going to reach other
people like them, as well.
 Don‟t do anything just once unless you can
really convince yourself it was a bad idea.
 Be patient.

19.  She wants to lose weight.
 Therefore she has a focus on health/exercise
and is specifically willing to spend money
and time in those areas right now.

20.  11: Provide rack cards or bulletin board
material to local gyms. Especially good idea
for produce CSAs as you are seeking
subscribers during “New Years Resolution
season.”
 12: Introduce yourself to nutritionists, heart
health centers, and similar health providers.
 13: Sponsor athletic events like a 5k.

21.  14: Add lots of nutrition facts about products
offered and keywords to your website. Add a
recipe section (a good idea anyway).
 15: Connect with natural food stores
however you can. With consolidation of the
industry they may not be able to buy your
product, but they may be able to host you
for talks, print a story you wrote in a
newsletter, or put something on their
bulletin board.
 16: Use targeted radio, TV, or newspaper. TV:
food network in your county; Radio: health-
related call-in show; Newspaper:
health/exercise column.

22.  What can we do with that?

23.  17: Meet with their HR director. Talk about local
food as an employee benefit. Many major
workplaces have “lunch „n learn” type programs
that you could provide.
 18: This could open the door to have posters or
other materials in break rooms or public areas of
the workplace.
 19: Place paid ads in employee newsletters.
 20: Find one friend/ally on the inside. Offer
them a free share/product/etc. if they will be
the “captain” in spreading the word about a
direct-ordering/delivery system.
 21: Offer to provide a “farm stand” on a certain
day of the week – either just your farm or you
and a couple friendly producers.

24.  We‟re just listing ways to reach one person
(and similar cohorts) based on a narrow set
of characteristics, and it‟s STILL impossible
to do it all.
 You could spend all your marketing time and
money for the next year on the last 6 steps,
and you might have some hope of reaching
Julie, as busy and distracted as she is.
 So why have you been trying to reach
everyone! It‟s impossible!

25.  Let‟s depart from Julie and apply the same
kind of thinking to a different target market.
 How about second home owners in the
mountains?

26.  22:
 23:
 24:
 25:

27. “Hey Bridget, this has been an intriguing
workshop, but I‟ve analyzed all the „market
segments‟ in the places around me and they
mostly have one thing in common:
These people are all broke!”

28.  Use coupons that promote value, not
discount or cheapness.
 “Value” means a fair price but also refers to
the perceived value of your product. Coupons
are popular, but you do not want to cheapen
your product; you want to increase its value,
and the right kind of coupon can do that.
 Examples . . .

29.  26: A free tour of your farm with a purchase
greater than $X.
 27: A free sample of one of your lesser-sold or
less-understood products with a purchase
greater than $X of a more popular product.
 28: Receive free product for referring a friend
to a major purchase.

30.  Things that have a high price are not
necessarily more profitable. They usually
have a higher production cost and more
production risk, and a rarer, smaller
marketing audience. The price is high for
good reasons.
 Yet farmers seem drawn to high-priced
items, as if they will make more money.

31. Don‟t count on
word of mouth to
work magically by
itself. Customers
say “I heard it from
a friend” which
tends to make us
undervalue other
kinds of earned and
paid advertising.

32. In truth, what people really mean is “I heard it
from a friend and then I saw your sign and then I
saw your rack card and then I saw an article about
you in the paper, and that reminded me to call
you.” But what they remember is the friend.
So do invest early in having nice looking,
consistent, web and print materials, and regular
ad placements (however small) in the media read
by your target customers. EVEN IF you think of
word of mouth as your primary strategy.

33.  Start this early and never stop.
 Get email addresses and mailing addresses, it
is better if people opt in to getting
communication from you.
 Send mass e-mail or mail communication
selectively: make sure you are offering
something “real” like a special promotion, an
opportunity to visit the farm, a great recipe,
etc.
 Social media like Facebook are good for
putting out that steady supply of “slightly
less newsworthy” information.

34.  It is especially important to get contact
information for customers.
 Train everyone who represents your farm to
ask for this information, and create sign-up
systems to make it easy.
 It is ten times easier to sell something else to
an existing customer who loves your business
(or to get a referral from that customer)
than it is to find a new customer.

35. Megan Ray
megan@asapconnections.org
828-236-1282

36. Bridget Kennedy
bridget@asapconnections.org
asapconnections.org
828-236-1282