Internet Farmer

In reading today’s news, Obama is taking yet another leap of faith to use the internet for reaching millions at almost no cost to our tax payers, and it leaves me speechless. Check out whitehouse.gov for the details on Obama’s 1st Online Town Hall.

In the realm of online marketing, I can not think of any other activity that could be more effective in connecting with people on a mass scale, and giving us what we voted for.  The feeling of having a seat at the table at the white house.  I don’t agree with everything about Obama, but he’s really good at providing hope.  Something we could all use a little more of.

As I learned of what he was going to do today, a tear came to my eye. Why?  Because back in ‘94 when I first spoke of the internet and mentioned ideas like this, people thought I was nuts.  No one could even imagine email (or the hell that email would cause us all! .  So admitedly, I got a little nastalgic when I realized that after 15 years, the Internet I’ve always envisioned as possible is finally here thanks to a tenacious president with the audacity to try something new.

“Try” is a key word here.  In the intro video he recorded for the town hall, he calls it an experiment.  That’s because it’s never been done on this scale.  EVER!  If it works out well, I predict a whole new trend in marketers holding online town halls about their products and ideas. And why not?  You may not be able to address millions, but realistically you don’t have to.  You just have to use the idea of asking questions, letting people vote on what questions are important, and then answering in video response.

Cheers to you for trying Obama.  “A” for effort in my book!

In the realm of online marketing projects, you may think it’s complex to do this, but it’s actually quite easy if you focus on the concept and do it with an email form, a web cam and a blog.

Thoughts?  Did you know of this at all?  Did you vote on any questions?  Have you ever put up your own podcast or tried an online town hall to market your business?  Please chime in with comments below.

When I started working on a farm, it started becoming clear to me that selling online would make a great addition to the local food system. My farmer thought I was crazy.  The most basic reason why… because an online catalog can be doing all the work for me while I’m out working in the field or selling at a farmer’s market or farm stand.  There’s plenty of other reasons to, which depend on what type of sales structure you work with.  Here are some specific thoughts on the major venues of sales for smaller farms.

Farmer’s who have a farm stand or sell at retail in some form will find that e-commerce can directly translate online with an unmanned store taking orders 24/7.  Like a farm stand of your wares, you’ll have a website ready to accept orders using credit cards or purchase orders for pickups.  Your catalog is always up to date and allows customers to place orders without you having to take the call while you are planting a cover crop, harvesting, or making jams.  This applies to both retail and wholesale, as the system of shopping or putting in a purchase order is essentially the same when you automate it online.

For CSAs, displaying your catalog online gives prospective share holders an idea of what to expect for the season.  Some CSAs may benefit from actually selling products as well, so it can suit both purposes, and change as needed.  But selling online may not always be about a money exchange either, especially for CSAs or farmers who just want an easier way to communicate details of their farming.  Sometimes it’s marketing and communications, where you’ll want a blog and a newsletter to enhance the relationship with your members.  It’s all a part of doing e-commerce.

For Farmer’s Markets, groups of farmers and producers all share a single shopping cart can easily offer online ordering for customers to pick up on the day of the market.  The sale is complete before you harvest and carry it all to market, and you’ll have less waste since much of your selling was pre-ordered.  This is starting to happen around the country, and is a wonderful addition to business, and is part of e-commerce for farming.

For Buying Clubs, an online ordering system allows many people to order as groups.  This is a new and developing markets that can let farmers create their own markets, but certainly lives in the realm of e-commerce techniques, and the Internet Farmer is well versed to help you understand this an other emerging ideas online.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/smallbusiness/12social.ready.html

Being the guy who says “I don’t build websites, I build communication and marketing systems”, this article stuck out at me during breakfast.

The article is short and simple, explaining the idea of how blogging, podcasting, twittering(a.k.a. tweeting), facebooking are all different forms of making a connection and communicating. And for the majority of clients, it’s all about the free price vs. traditional ad models.

For me, as the article also says, these activities involve time, which we have less and less of these days. I’m taking time to write this post right now! I like to try and keep it short, but it’s tough to manage writing anything of worth in 20 minutes. For this online marketer, doing it any way you can is better than not doing it at all, you need to have realistic goals. I mean if your customer isn’t on Twitter, don’t go signing up for an account just because you heard it’s “the new thing”. But I know my readers would never do that, right? Right!

So what’s my technique with social networking? Well, I just started this blog not too long ago. I’ve had a few blogs in my time, but the Internet Farmer is the one I’ve chosen for my work, and I’ve made a commitment to keep up with it in my marketing. It’s fun, a little catchy, and makes a nice statement about who I am (1/2 geek and 1/2 farmer wannabe). I Facebook personally(when I can), which sometimes bring a new project here and there. I don’t use Twitter for myself or my business, but I probably will for my upcoming Maine Farm podcast(still in development) to broadcast Maine food-related headlines as they develop.

Are you using any social marketing techniques? If so, which ones? How much time do you spend doing it vs. the payoff? Please leave comments below, and email me if you would like to discuss this professionally.