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February 2004
Marketing Secrets for a Profitable Berry
Business is the first of four-part series on marketing
featured in Northland Berry News (Winter, 2003).
“No other part of a berry business is so left to chance
as marketing. . . . You plan your planting, your growing,
and your production. Yet marketing plans are seldom created
and rarely written down.” Elizabeth K. Fisher, author
of “Mistakes I Made My First Five Years in Business
(and How You Can Avoid Them),” boils marketing down
to one word: communication. “Marketing is any communication
between you and your customer or potential customer about
your business. . . . Most business people equate marketing
with advertising. While advertising is a part of marketing,
the two are not the same.” Marketing also includes “how
your berry plants look to customers, how you and your employees
dress, how your telephone is answered, how you handle a customer
complaint, and even how your company truck is painted.”
Managing Crop Mix According to the Market.
“Most of us in the small fruit business grow
– and sell—a variety of produce. And most of us
are always looking to expand and diversify that mix. Deciding
the combination that makes money can be tricky,” notes
the Winter 2003 edition of Northland Berry News.
“Knowing industry trends is the first step to identifying
opportunities in the market. . . . Selling customers what
they want to buy is an easier task than selling customers
what you grow. . . . Your product mix is like an investment
portfolio. As you study your investments and the return they
bring, you often transfer one investment to another, or you
increase the amount of investments by adding new investments
to manage the portfolio for optimum return. . . . It is important
to know the profit margin of each product and to optimize
your return by selecting a good balance between low-margin
crops and high margin crops to satisfy your customers’
needs.”
IRS Offers Online Help to Small-Business
Owners. Small business owners and the self-employed
can find answers to many questions and access to information,
forms, and publications at the Small Business/Self-Employed
section of the Internal Revenue Service’s website. Click
on www.irs.gov/businesses/small/index.html
to access the site.
Tips to make your trade show experience
more valuable is a “Special Report” in
The Landscape Contractor (Feb. 2004). Tips “to get the
best out of your post-trade show efforts” include: organize
all of your thought and contacts on paper; make sure you have
e-mail addresses of contacts who can have a positive effect
on growing your company; prioritize the ideas you came away
with that “will solve your greatest problems and . .
. yield the greatest opportunities; decide what equipment,
technology or product you learned about that could separate
you from you competitors; and determine “the one thing
that you came away with as a certainty . . . that your firm
could take good advantage of.” Write down your best
ideas and “present them to the appropriate people in
you firm. Focus on how they will affect your business, and
brainstorm ideas for resolving problems or creating opportunities.”
Building a Marketing Plan (Interior
Business, January 2004) recommends investing the time
and effort in a marketing strategy to “answer
all of the who and what questions before you invest any money
into how – the tactical portion.” Marketing strategy
answers three important questions: Who is my prospect? What
is important to my prospect? and, How does my service meet
the need?” The author recommends taking this test: “Use
your latest marketing piece and place your competitor’s
name on top of your company name. Does the piece still work?
If you can’t tell the difference, imagine the problem
your prospect will have.” When you have developed your
strategy, the tactical part of your plan “is basically
concerned with the where. Where do I place my ad? And how
do I get my marketing message seen by the people who matter.”
California Strawberry Industry Facts
are featured in The Strawberry Grower (Feb.
2004). Some highlighted facts include: “California produces
more than 80% of the U.S. total fresh market and processed
strawberries on about 50% of the country’s strawberry
acreage and about 20% of the world production; yields statewide
average 27-30 tons/acres, good growers get as much as 40-50
tons/acre; production costs average $9,500 to $12,000/acre;
about 44% of acreage is planted in Camarosa.
What are you really selling?
the February 2004 issue of Growing asks pick-your-own
and farmstand owners. The farm experience, answers the author.
“That’s your big edge over today’s mega
supermarkets, big box retailers, and wholesale clubs. . .
. The growing popularity of agritourism illustrates that there
is a demand for the farm experience, so much so that people
will plan their vacations around it.” Some recommendations
for enhancing the farm experience of your customers include:
make your customers feel welcome by introducing yourself personally
whenever you can; educate your customers with literature,
demonstrations and workshops; consider letting your customers
get involved in safe activities around your farm that they
would be willing to pay to participate in. “Marketing
the farm experience is a concept that’s catching on
nationwide . . . farmers in the Northeast may be better positioned
to profit from the idea than anywhere else, with a large number
of highly educated consumers close at hand.”
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