My Digital Farmer Podcast

There's a place just beyond the edge of what you already know how to do.

I call it the mist.

As farm business owners, we find ourselves there more often than we probably realize — when an opportunity shows up, when something changes, when we take a risk, or when we find ourselves doing something we've never done before.

And the mist can feel uncomfortable. We can't see very far ahead. We don't know exactly how things are going to turn out. And sometimes, our first instinct is to back away and return to what we know.

But what if the mist isn't something to be afraid of?

What if it's actually a necessary part of becoming the business owner — and the person — you're meant to become?

In this episode, I want to give you a new way to think about those uncertain seasons in your farm business, help you recognize when you're standing in the mist, and challenge you to consider what might happen if, instead of backing away, you stepped confidently into it.

Where is the mist in your business right now?

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

What would you do if Facebook suddenly told you that you could only share two external links per month from your farm business page?

That's exactly what happened to me while I was scheduling posts for Shared Legacy Farms—and it stopped me in my tracks.

For years, one of the primary jobs of my social media has been to move people off Facebook and onto my email list. But this new restriction, which appears to be rolling out to more business pages, could affect far more than email sign-up links. Think CSA registration, online stores, blog posts, recipes, YouTube videos, event registrations and more.

So... now what?

In this episode, I share the workaround I built for my own farm, why putting the link in the comments may NOT solve the problem, and several ways farmers can continue using Facebook to move followers deeper into their customer journey—even if Facebook makes external links harder to share.

🎧 Listen in to find out what changed—and what I'm doing about it.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

Sometimes customers aren't just buying the product in front of them. They're buying access to a memory.

I recently bought two boxes of sugary cereal I hadn't eaten in decades—even though I don't normally buy the stuff and can't really eat it anymore. Why? Nostalgia got me.

In this episode, we're digging into the psychology behind this surprisingly powerful buying trigger and why farm products are uniquely positioned to tap into it. We'll explore how taste, smell, sight, touch, and sound can bring old memories rushing back—and how you can use those sensory connections in your marketing.

But there's another side to nostalgia marketing that's even more interesting: creating the memories now that customers will want to relive later.

Because sometimes you're not just selling the tomato, the strawberry, or the trip to the pumpkin patch.

You're becoming part of someone's story.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

Demand for your farm product often feels like it has a ceiling — but what if that ceiling can actually MOVE?

This is part 2 of a two-part series all about Market Demand -- an important element in the sales/marketing formula. In the last episode, I talked about the danger of scaling production before you have enough demand to support it. But that raises an important question:

What if you check the demand…and there simply isn't enough yet?

Are you stuck with the demand you've got?

Marketing can't magically make everyone want what you sell. But there ARE things you can deliberately do to make a product more desirable, move a hesitant customer toward buying, and cultivate more demand over time.

In this episode, I'm sharing five demand levers you can experiment with on your farm.

We'll talk about:

• Why limiting something about your offer can actually increase demand

• Some creative ways to generate buzz and energy around a product that isn't moving

• How to tap into the power of collaborations and social proof to get more of the right eyeballs on your stuff

I'll also share some real examples from Shared Legacy Farms, including some weird, fun and unexpected things we did that got our customers talking (and buying).

Ep. 379: Got Demand? The 6 Questions to Ask Before You Grow More Farm Products - This was part 1 of this series all about Market Demand. https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/42872465

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

I learned that lesson the expensive way this summer when we ended up renting a refrigerated semi-trailer to hold thousands of pounds of watermelons we suddenly didn't have a market for. We had successfully grown the crop, but growing it and selling it turned out to be two very different things.

In this episode of My Digital Farmer, we're exploring an important piece of the revenue equation that farmers don't always spend enough time thinking about: demand.

Before you add another acre, increase your flock, double your flower production, or launch a brand-new farm product, how do you know whether your market can actually absorb what you're planning to produce?

We'll talk about how to recognize real evidence of demand, why selling out once doesn't necessarily mean you're ready to double production, and some of the factors that can quietly limit how much your market is willing or able to buy.

If growing your farm revenue is one of your goals, this episode will challenge you to look beyond the question, "How much can I produce?" and start asking a much more important question about what happens on the other side of that equation.

Because growing more product doesn't automatically create more revenue.

Tune in to learn the six questions that will pressure-test the demand for your farm products before you decide to scale.

Episode 314: The Power of a Beta Test in Marketing - my episode all about how to use the "beta test" framework to test demand

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

We spend a lot of time defining our ideal customer, but here's a question we don't ask nearly enough:

Who should NOT buy your product?

If you're spending too much time answering questions, overcoming objections, or trying to convince people to buy (only to have them walk away!) you may not have a sales problem. You may have a qualification problem.

In this episode, I'm sharing a recent encounter that made me realize how valuable it is to recognize our "no signals" -- the clues that someone simply isn't a good fit for what we're selling. And even better: What if our marketing could communicate those signals for us, so people self-qualify before they ever reach the sale?

We'll look at practical ways to build these filters into your website, social media, emails, FAQs, pricing, and other marketing assets, so more of the right people make it to the bottom of your funnel.

I'll also challenge you to finish this sentence:

"My farm/product is probably NOT a good fit for someone who…"

Because clear marketing doesn't just attract. It also repels.

Farm Marketing School (FMS) member Bonus: We're workshopping this topic together during our monthly Zoom call this month! We'll identify your "no signals" and brainstorm ways to build them into your marketing. Can't come live? I'll save the replay in the FMS library.

Join Farm Marketing School here: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/FMS

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

Most farmers will tell you that word-of-mouth is one of their best sources of new customers. But there's a big difference between being grateful for referrals, and intentionally creating more of them.

In this episode, we're talking about how to put an engine behind word-of-mouth.

I'll share a whole bunch of practical ways farms can make referrals easier, more natural, and more likely to happen—without needing complicated software or some fancy loyalty program.

More importantly, I'll show you how to think strategically about who you ask, when you ask, what you give customers to share, and what happens when a referral actually converts.

By the end of this episode, you'll be able to look at your own customer journey, spot the places where referral opportunities are hiding, and design a simple referral experiment you can actually test on your farm.

If you've already got customers who love what you do, this episode will help you turn some of that goodwill into growth.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

Could changing one word on a sign or product listing make a product sell better?

Last week at our Farmer's Bag Toledo pickup, I noticed something strange happening with two kinds of onions sitting right next to each other. Customers kept choosing one—and passing over the other.

Then one of our volunteers made an observation:

"I wonder if it's the name."

That comment made me think, "Oh I've got to do a podcast about this!"

Because as farmers, we often name our products based on what we call them -- i.e. the variety in the seed catalog, the technical name of the cut, or whatever makes sense to us behind the scenes.

But your product name isn't just an inventory label.

It's marketing copy.

In this episode, I'm sharing seven simple tests you can use when naming (or renaming) your farm products—from everyday items in your online store to bigger signature offers and programs.

We'll talk about how the right name can help a customer understand what you're selling, recognize why they might want it, remember it, and sometimes even stop in their tracks and ask, "Wait... why do you call it THAT?"

If you've ever struggled with what to call something, or you've got a product customers consistently seem to overlook, this episode will give you a new way to look at the words on the sign.

Listen in and then choose ONE product on your farm to rename and test this week.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)

What if your customers aren't actually buying your vegetables?

In this episode, Corinna shares a personal story from her son's Air Force Basic Training that reinforced a key marketing principle, and it has nothing to do with farming.

If you've ever struggled to know what to say in your emails, on your website, or in your social media posts, this episode will help you uncover the deeper reason people choose to buy from your farm. Eventually all business owners realize that customers don't buy products... they buy the life those products help create.

You'll learn how to identify the transformation your farm really delivers, why some customer motivations matter more than others, and how this one mindset shift can change every piece of your marketing.

If you're ready to stop talking about vegetables and start connecting with what your customers truly want, this episode is for you.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe

How do you go from a random idea... to selling out a brand-new food access program in just a few days?

In this episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on the complete behind-the-scenes story of launching The Farmer's Bag Toledo.

You'll hear how one unexpected meeting planted the seed, how the right partnership changed everything, why we chose to beta test instead of trying to make it perfect, and all the practical work that happened behind the scenes -- from pricing and logistics to technology, funding, naming, messaging, and launch strategy.

If you've ever had an idea sitting in your notebook wondering...

"Could this actually become something?"

...this episode will show you exactly how we walked one idea all the way into the marketplace.

• Why one unexpected opportunity made us believe Farmer's Bag Toledo needed to exist.
• How the right strategic partnership accelerated everything.
• Why thinking of it as a beta test removed so much pressure.
• The dozens of decisions every new offer requires before anyone can buy.
• How we built the offer itself—from pricing and bonuses to messaging and positioning.
• The technology stack we used to automate the customer experience.
• The launch sequence that created momentum before the doors even opened.
• What surprised me most after watching the entire launch unfold.
• The biggest lesson I'll carry into every future offer I build.

Whether you're launching a CSA, opening a farm stand, starting a flower subscription, or creating something completely new, this episode is really about learning how successful offers are designed.

See the sales page for the Farmer's Bag Toledo here. I mentioned it in this episode.

Download the Farmer's Bag Toledo Promo Flier. I originally created this as something to pass out to potential customers to explain what it was in a nutshell. In the end, we didn't need to use it that way. Instead I gave it to my media outlets to help explain our pitch.

I mention Zapier in this podcast. This is a tool that will connect apps to each other and create automations for you.

What email provider do I use for my email marketing launches? I recommend Kit.com -- it is easy to use, powerful, and getting better every year. It also integrates with most e-commerce providers and tools. Use my affiliate link!

Local Line is my farm's preferred e-commerce platform for farmers. Are you looking for a new solution for your farm? I can't recommend it enough. Easy-to-use inventory management, great customer service, continuous improvement, and a culture dedicated to equipping farmers with marketing expertise. 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: MDF2026. Head to my special affiliate link to get started: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/localline

Farm Marketing School is my step-by-step membership program for direct-to-consumer farmers who are ready to treat marketing like a system, not a guessing game. Inside, you'll get plug-and-play projects, templates, monthly coaching, and a repeatable framework to help you grow your email list, run stronger promotions, and increase sales (whether you're a vegetable, meat, CSA, flower, dairy, microgreen, or value-added farm). Your investment is only $69/month. Over 15 marketing projects to choose from. Learn more and enroll at: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/fms

Love the My Digital Farmer Podcast? Help me reach more farmer earbuds!

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. ⭐️ Leave a Review on Apple Podcasts, because it helps other farmers find the show. Share this episode with a fellow farmer or small business owner. Or forward my weekly email about the show to a farmer! (Get on that email list here to get more marketing tips: www.mydigitalfarmer.com/subscribe)