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Episode Summary
When your market is willing and excited to try new things and there’s good competition in your area, how do you differentiate yourself from everyone else? How do you angle your marketing to attract new customers to get your product?
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow, we’re talking to farmers Tom and Marcy Bradley of Pleasant Valley Farms in St. Charles, Iowa to share their experience when they first began selling their livestock products and how they marketed their business since.
Today’s Guest: Tom & Marcy Bradley
Husband and wife Tom and Marcy are the entrepreneurs behind Pleasant Valley Farms in St. Charles, Iowa. With their combined passion for agriculture, they decided to raise well-pampered livestock including miniature Hereford cattle. They have since diversified and expanded their offering to include home-raised eggs, meat birds, honey, and wine, among many others.
Relevant Links
Pleasant Valley Farms – Website | Facebook | Instagram
In this episode of Carrot Cashflow
- Diego introduces the episode’s guest, Tom & Marcy Bradley (00:33)
- The biggest challenge selling livestock products in a rural area (02:06)
- The context of rural St. Charles, Iowa (03:03)
- Sales and pushing the marketing (03:55)
- From selling whole and half hogs to doing farmer’s markets (04:58)
- Getting the word out to sell the first 50 hogs (06:47)
- Tips for a new farmer who wants to start selling hogs (08:08)
- Keywords that resonate with the target audience (09:20)
- Off-targeting that landed a deal (09:58)
- Doing cross-promotions with other small businesses (11:04)
- Referrals, shout-outs, and word of mouth advertising (11:44)
- Does including the prices in the posts help with the clicks? (13:01)
- How the farmer’s market experience went (14:48)
- Transitioning into Market Wagon (15:29)
- The pricing and the margins with Market Wagon (17:44)
- If customers ever have questions… (20:17)
- The potential to scale through Market Wagon (21:13)
- The competition for selling meat in Market Wagon (22:57)
- Selling direct to consumer alongside selling through Market Wagon (25:05)
- Partnering with a shipping company (26:28)
- Do sales from Market Wagon help a lot with the farm income? (29:11)
- Encouraging words to ignite that entrepreneurial spirit (30:26)
- You’ll have to step out of your comfort zone (35:10)
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