By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Three years ago, the first Indiana Cooperative Summit focused on bringing in experts to give members of the Indiana Cooperative Development Center ideas for growing memberships in their individual co-ops.
At the fourth annual summit last Friday, it was clear this is still the objective, but methods have shifted somewhat. At one time “marketing” might have meant just figuring out a budget for paid advertising and premiums; now, there’s much focus on learning how to use less expensive venues – such as virtually free social media – to advance and grow cooperatives. Take cheese – in fact, Cabot Creamery Cooperative of Vermont wishes you would. Senior Vice President of Marketing Roberta MacDonald makes the 91-year-old co-op’s cheese, coupons and nutritional materials available free to other co-ops of all kinds for promotions.
In fact, she said one of Cabot’s best marketing ploys was providing coupons for rural electric co-ops to include in monthly statements to member-customers.
“‘Cooperative’ is a terrible name” to inform the public about what a cooperative does, she said. “Most people don’t know if it’s a Commie plot.” If, instead, she describes Cabot as “farmer-owned,” that’s usually a good enough description for many people.
By working with other co-ops and trying to find low-cost projects to spread the Cabot name and reputation, MacDonald said it helps protect the livelihood of its New England and New York dairy farmer members – especially in light of lower milk prices and the rash of closing dairies in recent years.
“Our brand stands between them (and the loss of their dairies),” she said, adding, “(without Cabot) 1,200 members would have been out of business six years ago.” (Cabot cheese represents about one-third of the mostly-Amish membership’s dairy production; Cabot is part of a larger Northeast dairy co-op, Agri-Mark.)
Last year, she said when dairy farmers were getting the lowest milk prices since the 1930s, Cabot’s were able to make a profit from the milk they sold to be made for cheese. Cabot went against usual practice and made early payments to farmer-members in May and September so they could pay their grain bills – rewarding those farmers for “sticking with it” through tough times.
Cabot products are sold in 2,200 stores across the country, partly thanks to MacDonald, a marketing expert who has been with the co-op for 20 years. She said one of her best ideas, before she had a budget, was making t-shirts for farmer-members to wear into grocery stores, which told other shoppers to ask them about Cabot cheese and their role in it.
Another low-cost idea has been to hawk Cabot on radio shows where she can, from NPR to conservative talk radio. “I believe cheese and co-ops rise above the political spectrum,” she quipped.
Get it out online In addition to paying for advertising, MacDonald also makes use of Internet tools to get the word out about Cabot. Only, instead of spending a lot of time on Cabot’s website, she told how she makes use of women across the country to help get the word out.
These are people who may only be able to work at night, such as stay-at-home-moms who blog about a variety of topics – including Cabot products. She also joked nepotism helps, as she makes use of family members to help blog about the co-op and its products, including her sister as a lifestyle commentator.
Visit the Cabot website at www.cabotcheese.coop and at the top are other familiar symbols of social media for the Web-savvy: links to Cabot spaces on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Each of these relies upon subscribers, often called “friends,” who read, discuss and, hopefully, pass the links along to their friends.
“Spending all your time on your own (site) is a waste of time,” MacDonald explained, adding a co-op’s goal online should be to get linked on other people’s websites, blogs, Facebook accounts and Twitter feeds. |
