February 7, 2024

Do you have a signature product you're trying to get your customers to buy? 

I often ask farmers: "Where are you taking people?"

Your Answer: All roads in your business lead to ___________?

If you answered something like "CSA membership," subscription, side of beef, or some other big ticket item, then I want to introduce you to a powerful marketing asset called the "email sales sequence." 

This is a series of emails you write in advance and load up into your email provider as an automation. It "drips" out to a subscriber once a certain trigger fires (like downloading a specific lead magnet or after completing a nurture email sequence), and it PITCHES YOUR PRODUCT. I built one of these to pitch my CSA membership many years ago, and every year, I tweak it and make it better. Between this asset, my regular social media, one formal promo launch to my wait list (and a few referrals and word of mouth), I sell 400 CSA memberships a year. It's a work horse for me.

What's great about these is that you spend the time to build them ONCE, and then they keep working for you on auto-pilot behind the scenes, pulling in new customers. And even if they don't pull in customers the first time, you can re-use the same sequence once or twice a year "live" as you broadcast your email list.

I'm often asked, "But what do you talk about in them?!!" 

That's what this podcast episode is all about. I share the 6 email "topic map" you can use as a general guide when you build your own sales sequence. Use it as a framework to get started. And if you need more step by step help with building this, join my Farm Marketing School membership for a month and take the "Promotional Email Sequence" Project Build. (When you take that project, I also share my own CSA promo sequence with you so you can see the framework in action).

Be forewarned: your first attempt at writing this sequence will still feel weird. That's normal. Do it anyway. It's your fear of being sales-y coming out. Put it out into the world, see what happens, then commit to tweaking it. It will take several iterations before you feel good about it, but you have to take the first step and get something out there. I promise: the world will not end. In fact, you may find that you create a pipeline for ongoing sales in your business that takes some major time (and stress) off your plate. 

This podcast was sponsored by Local Line, the leading e-commerce platform for the local food system. Try Local Line for your farm today! 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

This podcast was sponsored by CSAWeek and the CSAInnovationNetwork -- Mark your calendars: CSA Week is February 19-25, 2024! Imagine a week dedicated to empowering farmers with the latest strategies, tools, and ideas to enhance their CSA and kickstart the CSA season.  From February 19-25, 2024, join the CSA Innovation Network in this week-long celebration dedicated to promoting CSA, supporting local agriculture, and fostering a stronger connection between farmers and their communities. Get your free CSAWeek Promotion Pack from CSAInnovationNetwork by subscribing at csainnovationnetwork.org/csa-week It includes Canva templates for social media posts, sample emails, press release, customizable CSA infographics, and even a social content calendar guide.

Some of the resources mentioned in this episode:

Join my free email list! I have a great "Crash Course in farm marketing" that will guide you through the marketing jungle over the course of several months. Each week, you'll get a new email with suggestions and tips to make your marketing better.

This podcast was sponsored by Farm Marketing School - my monthly online marketing school membership just for farmers. Farm Marketing School is an on-demand library of marketing workshops and project plans that will help you build some of the most important marketing elements in your farm business like: building a promotion calendar, auditing your sales funnel, updating your home page of your website, building your first email nurture sequence, and practicing different types of offers. You get to chose what you want to study and build each month. These projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days, so that you slowly build your marketing system piece by piece. Use the step by step project planner and resource folder to help you jumpstart your work.Take advantage of my new marketing crash course inside, watch my new Email Marketing Course, or take the onboarding assessment tool to help you identify where your funnel is broken and what project to do first. To see what courses are currently inside of FMS, or to try out Farm Marketing School for a month at mydigitalfarmer.com/fms Cancel your membership anytime.

Get my Social Media post templates - Looking for ideas on the "categories" of posts you could create on your social channel? This guide will give you 20 different examples of post styles, from the "question" post, to the FAQ post, to the Lead Magnet post. Use this to break the logjam when you're racking your brain over what to talk about on social!

Find my Facebook group for farmers!

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