Take your farming to the next level
What comes to mind first when you think about farming? For many people, farming looks easy. After all, it is all about putting in some hard work at the shamba and reaping the results in a few months’ time. However, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make your farming venture profitable and successful. This includes:
Marketing
Agriculture marketing is the process of making sure that your produce finds its way from your farm to your consumers. It can involve several things, including harvesting, production, packaging, and delivery of produce. It may also involve joining a farmer’s cooperative for more reach and door-to-door pitches and sampling of your products. All this is done to guarantee sales and to increase your profits.
In the digital age, however, one thing that cannot be ignored is online marketing for farming. The advantage of this over traditional marketing is that you have the potential to reach very many people in different parts of the world over a shorter time. With digital marketing, the customers are only a click away!
There are several steps to take to succeed at digital marketing for farming:
- Knowing your target audience
This will help you to determine what you have to offer them and how to package it in the most appealing way. Knowing this will also allow you to narrow down on things like location, age and gender so that you know where to focus your efforts on for maximum gain.
- Creating a website for your farm
A website is likely the first place of contact that most people will have with your farming business. Make sure you create one that is current, easy to navigate and has all the information needed to help people to get your products.
- Social Media
It is important for any business to be on social media, even farming. There’s a huge potential of getting your products seen and shared by many people. You can also buy ads that will help you to reach a specific audience. It is quite cheap to do agriculture marketing on social media as compared to other more traditional means.
- Managing farming costs
It is not easy to run a farm successfully and there are many costs involved. These challenges can sometimes make it seem like farming is not a worthwhile venture. However, if you’re looking to turn your farm into a sustainable venture, there are several ways you can manage your costs:
Cut unnecessary expenditure: For your farming enterprise to stop making losses and start being profitable, you need to figure out where the money is going. After that, you’ll be able to see all the unnecessary things that you don’t need to be spending on and cut them off.
Increase efficiency: Are your farming systems working at their best levels? Is it taking four people to do the work of one? This one is all about examining the processes and figuring out how effective they are. Only by knowing what is wrong can you be able to fix it and save money in the long run.
Outsource some of the services: The fact is, no one is good at everything. Trying to do something you’re not sure of will only lead to avoidable mistakes and more money being used to fix them. When it comes to the services your farming business needs and provides, it is best to outsource to the professionals who know what they are doing.