By SHELLY STRAUTZ-SPRINGBORN
Michigan Correspondent

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Fruit and vegetable growers last week got a crash course in marketing during the Great Lakes Expo at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids.

A variety of seminars offered insights into how to position farm markets and commodities in retail and commercial settings. Jane Eckert of Eckert AgriMarketing in St. Louis, Mo., offered tips on using the Internet as today’s tool for more efficiency and profit on the farm.

“Seventy-six percent of Americans use the Internet,” Eckert said. “Of that 76 percent, 85 percent of them are online everyday. It’s not just what you grow, but how you market what you grow.
“We can’t ignore it anymore,” she said of the value of the Internet in marketing. “The impact now that the Internet can have on your business is tremendous.”

One of the benefits farm marketers can realize through the Internet is access. “We tend to think we are marketing to people who are close, but that’s not the case,” Eckert said.

Clients are everywhere – down the street, in the next town, in the next state and in other countries.

“The Internet provides instantaneous information,” Eckert said. “It allows you as farm marketers to keep up with and stay ahead of your competition.”

Eckert said in addition to maintaining a website that offers all the information potential customers want to know about an individual farm market or farming operation, technically savvy business owners should take advantage of other tools such as E-newsletters, online sales and online advertising.

“It gives you 24-7 access to the world,” she said. E-newsletters allow marketers to stay in touch with their best customers, quickly and cost-effectively.

“Messages don’t have to be complicated,” she said.

Eckert suggested offering basic information such as the business name, contact information and hours of operation, as well as what fruits and vegetables are in season, the availability of items and upcoming events. “It’s just constant communication,” she said.
A challenge, however, may be compiling a customer database.
“It will take time to ask customers for their e-mail addresses and create the customer database,” she said. “But, believe me, this has been proven through our research to be one of the most effective ways for people to build their business.”

The primary idea, Eckert said, is “just do it,” and “keep your information current.” Other key components, she said, are to use photos to illustrate what is available and make sure the website is easy to navigate.

“Having photos with good navigation that makes it easy to get from page to page and find relevant information” will make people want to visit a site and ultimately visit a market or make purchases online, she said. “Seventy percent of Web users never go past two pages. That’s why a well-constructed home page is so critical.”
Other suggestions from Eckert included implementing online registration for large group visits, incorporating video clips from around the farm, adding blogs to provide daily updates about what’s happening at the market and listing GPS coordinates to help people quickly obtain driving directions to the market.

“The bottom line is, the Internet can grow your business. We have to be where our customers are,” she said.