Kansas AgriTourism News
August 2007
Greetings!
As reported last month, the Agritourism Council is considering either workshops or another educational conference, and we are starting to make those plans. We invite your ideas and suggestions regarding the format and topics that would be of the most value to you. Please send those to info@kansasagritourism.org and they will be relayed to the council.
For the 3rd year, the Agriculture Marketing Division of the Kansas Department of Commerce is sponsoring a $25,000 scholarship program for registered Kansas agritourism operators to attend conferences, seminars and educational tours.
Please note that if you missed the August 1st deadline, there is a second round of applications being received up until January 1. Awards will be made within one month of the due dates. Awards may be granted to agritourism operators that have previously been awarded scholarship funding through this program. Click here to read more about the scholarship and to download an application.
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In This Month's Issue:
Feature Article:
E-Newsletters Allow Marketing Crops the Day They Ripen
The Benefits of E-newsletters
First Issue of Flint Hills Heritage Newsletter is Released
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E-Newsletters Allow Marketing Crops the
Same Day They Ripen
by Jane Eckert
The weather has been a bit off, and your sweet corn is a couple of weeks late. Folks have been calling every day. Some of your regulars are coming out to the farm - only to be told the corn isn't ready. You worry about whether they went ahead and bought their corn somewhere else, and whether they'll ever come back to your farm.
Then, finally, your corn is ready. You'll pick in the morning. But you can't get an ad in the paper until next week. Wow- what can you do to bring in those waiting customers?
If you are in direct marketing- selling right off the farm directly to consumers- the right answer is that you send your consumers an electronic newsletter. Within hours, depending on how you are set up, you can have the news delivered right to their homes announcing that corn sales start tomorrow morning!
Electronic Newsletters
Last month, we looked at how every farm or ranch (or any other business, for that matter) should start collecting the names, addresses, and email addresses of their customers and potential customers. As discussed, that information forms your database of contact information.
Today, we'll talk about how to put the database to use. This is where modern technology really helps your farm business grow!
I don't want to go too basic here, but there are some farms still not using computers, and a few more still not sending and receiving emails. But whether you use it or not, you need to understand that the vast majority of your customers are using email, and they use it a lot. The statistics say that at least 75% of all Americans use the Internet now. Many people find these "instant" letters so useful that they check their email two or more times every day to see if there is a message from a friend or someone else they know. They check email as often as we farmers check the weather!
The electronic newsletter (let's call it an e-newsletter) is typically just a short message that you, as a business, send to people who have asked you to keep in contact with them.
This is not very different from a flyer you might mail to your customers, or an ad you might place in the paper or on the radio. The main difference is that the e-newsletter gets to your customer's for less cost to you, and in most cases, your e-newsletter can be in your customer's hands in just a day or two- even less if you do all the work yourself.
A radio announcement might go on the air shortly after you call the station, but the customer has to be listening to the radio at the right time. With an electronic newsletter, your customer gets the message on his or her schedule, whether they are working the daylight hours, or the graveyard shift. The e-newsletter is in their inbox when they go to look at their email.
Now most e-newsletters are more than just a plain letter. The most effective ones add a picture or two, the farm logo, and some design features that help their customers recognize the letter on sight. Our pictures here show a couple of good examples.
The rest of this article discusses how to create and send your e-newsletter, and the legal considerations of the Can Spam Act of 2003, which affects your e-newsletters as well. Click here to read the entire article.
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The Benefits of Electronic Newsletters
by Jane Eckert
First of all, the electronic newsletter is almost immediate. If you already have a printed newsletter, you know that it takes about 2-4 weeks for you to put it together, copy it, and mail it second class. With an electronic newsletter, 85% of your responses are within the first 48 hours! And the response rate is about 5 times the response of the direct mail offers!
Secondly, you can create a friendly, caring relationship with your customers. Build a sense of family, and invite them to come see you whenever new, fun things are happening. Chat about how to care for the food and products they buy from you. Be authentic, and enjoy a better relationship with all the folks on your list.
Third, it's really quite interesting to see how good newsletters seem to grow in readership. You send it out to customers A, B, and C. A then likes an article, and sends a copy on to D, E, and F, and all three of them subscribe. B sends it to G, H, and I; while C sends a copy to J, K, L, and M. So you send out three copies, and the good news spreads like a healthy virus to reach 13 people! Your mailing list grows all by itself. Folks on the Internet call it "viral marketing", but to me, it seems like good newsletters are "self-seeding!"
Next month, we'll discuss some of the more detailed information about electronic newsletters, and how to make them more effective. For example, if you have segmented your database, you can target specific information to specific people. Some days are also more effective for sending messages than others, and some keywords can make all the difference in the world. We'll talk about it, next month.
Jane Eckert, a national speaker, author and agritourism expert, is principal of Eckert AgriMarketing (www.eckertagrimarketing.com), a firm that helps farmers sell products directly to consumers and develop their operations into tourist destinations. Jane can be reached by phone 314-862-6288 or at jane@eckertagrimarketing.com
First Issue of Flint Hills Heritage Newsletter Released
In its continued efforts to protect and promote the Kansas Flint Hills and the tallgrass prairie, the
Flint Hills Tourism Coalition and the
Flint Hills Heritage Task Force recently issued the first-ever edition of the Flint Hills Heritage Newsletter.
This quarterly, electronic newsletter is designed to share information on the unique history and culture of the Kansas Flint Hills and ways many residents of the region are using heritage tourism to stimulate local economies with a view towards preserving the local landscape.
Click here for more information and link to the Flint Hills Heritage Newsletter.
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