Increase farm profits by starting a farm e-mail list

I can attribute the majority of the chickens I have sold this year to one thing, my e-mail list. No bull! Yeah my farm website gets decent traffic, I am active on Facebook, but as the saying goes "The money is in the list". I created this post to honestly share my numbers. Honestly, you'll be surprised.

How I started my farm e-mail list:

I started the e-mail list in a few ways. The first was to put up an opt-in form on my farm website. As I drove traffic to the website visitors had a way to send me their name and e-mail address. I got traffic from people searching for chicken, other farmers referring people to me, and sites like LocalHarvest.org.

The second way I got people to sign up for my e-mail, which proved to be quite effective, was to put out a sign-up sheet at the farmers' market and at agricultural events that I went to. I created a simple sheet in Microsoft Word with spaces for people's names and e-mail addresses that I put out on my table. Then I would verbally encourage people to sign p for "news about chicken". After the event I would go home and put them all in manually. It was a little bit of a pain, but it has paid off.

Other than those two things I collect e-mail addresses at my CSA for people who just stop by. I carry business cards and let people know that they can sign up on my website.

(Click here to learn how to start your own farm website without having to learn any complex code) 

Disclaimer: Some of the links to on this page are Affiliate links. That means I earn a tiny commission from them by recommending you. There is no additional cost to you. Aweber just like to award people for recommending them. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

What are my numbers?

Ready to see the reality?

That's right, I only currently have 147 subscribers. Not 147,000, just 147. Truth is, that is all I needed this year. I have a 45 member Chicken CSA. So minus those people we're at 102 more people. I usually have between 8-15 extra chickens for sale each week. When I send an e-mail out to my list to pre-sell my chickens I sell out each week.

My average chicken goes for around $25. Multiply that times 15 and the list pays for itself pretty quick. That and it gets people to the CSA pick-up who might not come every week. As I start to grow and sell more farm products I can cross promote.

If I needed to sell more birds I would more actively promote my list and get more names on it. But for now this is working quite well. And yeah, some people unsubscribed, that's fine. You only want people on your list that are going to buy. The larger the list the more you have to pay, so it is better to keep it pretty narrowly targeted.

Does everyone open my farm e-mails?

NOPE! According to a study done by Silverpop.com, the average open rate for e-mails is around 20%. Mine averages 50-60%. So of 147 people that's an average of 74(ish) people who see my e-mail each week. With that, I either sell every single chicken, or I am left with a maximum of 1 or 2 for the freezer or my own consumption.

 What do my farm e-mails look like?

There are some farms that I know who do a beautiful job of sending out pretty complex e-mails. In the middle of the season I find that hard to do. In general if you give people too much information they run the chance of getting lost. My only goal was/is to sell chickens. So that is what my e-mails focus on.

I create them so they will look good whether they are viewed as an HTML e-mail or as just plain text. Basically, fancy or non-fancy. The e-mail editor with my e-mail provider, Aweber.com, is super-easy to use and get your e-mails out. There are templates you can use that are already designed for you and it's mostly drag and drop.

Here's what one of my e-mails looks like.

That is an actual message I sent to my e-mail list. It scrolls down a little to show some more pictures but you get the point. Really simple, to the point, and with some links to recipes online. I also write out recipes and include other farm news. Mostly my e-mails are about what I have for sale. Now that I am selling vegetables each week I add a list of what was harvested so people can plan recipes of their own.

How do you get started? Free or paid?

When it comes to my business I don't mess around. Well, besides singing to my chickens. There are free options out there that you can use. MailChimp is a decent one. The thing is with various free e-mail list service providers, they don't have a good track record of e-mails getting opened.

What do I mean by that?

When you send out an e-mail from you list provider (free MailChimp) it is more likely to be seen as "spam" by the recipients inbox. That means the e-mail doesn't get opened, and no chickens (or whatever) are sold.

Aweber has a great open rate. They have good customer service, fair prices, and very easy to use software to create your e-mails and manage your lists. I know this because that is who I use to manage my e-mail list.

Seriously, the majority of the money I have made before during and after I signed up all my CSA members was through my e-mail list with Aweber. I cannot say enough good things.

A little video help:

Aweber has put together some videos to help you get started. I will paste them in here so you don't have to go looking. The first is a video of some testimonials from clients that they have. Keep in mind as you are watching what an e-mail list could mean for you.

Get Started Today For Only $1! - AWeber Communications

Send Your First Email Newsletter Today - AWeber Communications

Thank You!

I sincerely hope this blog post helps you. I will go into further detail about my e-mails and my list this winter but I wanted to get this up so you could see how much it has helped me.

The important thing to remember is that it is never too late to start, and you don't need a million people on your list.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions about e-mails lists or farm marketing in general I respond quickest on Facebook.

Cheers!

Disclaimer: Some of the links to on this page are Affiliate links. That means I earn a tiny commission from them by recommending you. There is no additional cost to you. Aweber just likes to award people for recommending them. I wouldn't recommend it if I didn't use it personally, I am not trying to sell you anything. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Using Google Analytics To Measure Success With Your Farm Website

Once you have set-up your farm website, you want to keep track of whether or not people are visiting it, and where they are coming from. I mean, wouldn't it be very helpful to know whether your farm marketing efforts are being successful? The best tool that I have found for tracking farm website visitors is Google Analytics. Sure your website hosting company, or your installation of Wordpress will give you some statistics, but I find they are not as accurate, and definitely not as detailed. Just because your hosting company is telling you that you get 12,000 hits a month, that is not necessarily true. One example of how that number is inaccurate is that if it is winter and you are doing a lot of work on your website, your hosting company is counting all the times you click on the pages to check them, skewing your numbers. Google Analytics lets you exclude your IP address so you're not counting your own clicks. (I'll cover excluding your IP address below, it's easy.)

Like all of Google's helpful tools, Analytics is free! I would have a heck of a time trying to run my business without Google. I definitely want to thank them any chance I get for all the free stuff they provide. So if you're listening Google, thank you!

You are going to need a Google account to use this tool. If you do not have one already you can sign up for one here.

I find that the tools I use are best explained with visuals. First I'll cover some the of the recent traffic I have been seeing on my own farm website, and how I am keeping track of the local traffic to my website. Then I'll highlight some of the other things that Google Analytics keeps track of. Then I'll show you how to install it on your Weebly, Wordpress, or other website.

Note: Stats are refreshed every 24 hours. You have to be patient.

My Farm On Analytics

farm website visitors by country

Analytics lets you track your farm website visitors by what country they are visiting your website from. This I always find fun and kind of interesting. My farm website (was) FoodCyclist.com has bee visited from 60 different countries. Not bad for a local farm. The only problem here is that it does not help me with my local sales, that is too big of a map.

All you have to do then is click on the United States, and a more detailed map appears.

farm website visitors in the united states

This next layer of detail breaks down what States have had people who have visited my farm website. Also fun, and if you sell products across the country this is good information for you. Darker States have had more visitors. You can tell at a glance where the majority of your traffic is coming from. When you're on this page you can scroll down and they give you a list of how many people from what States have been to your site. It is organized by the highest number of visitors.

For me, I want still more detail, so I am going to click my mouse on the tiny state of Connecticut and see what I get.

farm website visitors in connecticut

That's more like it. From here I can see that my marketing efforts are reaching my town of New Milford, CT and the towns surrounding me. Sure, I'd love to see more traffic to my website from these areas, but it's a start. You always have to start somewhere. This map shows me that the guerrilla marketing I have been doing on the streets is starting to pay off with website visitors.

Google search results are becoming more localized for certain keywords. Now, if you search "farm" you will get results pages of farms in your area, usually with a map. This is called Google Local. You can make sure you add your farm to Google Local Maps through this link www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/

More Information From Google Analytics For Your Farm Website

farm website analytics sidebar

You can glean a lot more information from Google Analytics than just the location of your website visitors.

Installing the Analytics code on your website will allow you to see what pages people are visiting. This will give you insights into what people are looking for on your website. Perhaps which pages are more visible and easier to get to. If you have a sales page that you wish had more traffic and a non-sales page that is seeing me page visits, you can analyze what makes the  two different and change things up to convert more customers.

Time

Analytics also lets you see how long people are spending on your website. Sometimes this is measured in nano-seconds.

Flow

Analytics tracks the visitor flow. What pages are they clicking and how did they get there? What pages are your dead ends, where people hit and then leave your website? What can you do to keep them on our site longer and perhaps buy something?

Easy Navigation

Right from the sidebar here (which is on every page) you can see all of this. You can even get to traffic sources, which tells you how people are find your website. This breaks down into three categories.

• Search Traffic

• Referral Traffic

• Direct Traffic

Search Traffic counts people finding your website through search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Referral Traffic tells you if there are any other websites that link to your website, and are sending traffic through those links.

Direct Traffic tells you how many people are getting to your website simple by typing your exact website address. This gives you an idea of how many people might be searching for you based on the fact that you put your farm website URL on all of your marketing materials.

Farm Website Keywords in Google

keywords for your farm website

Google Analytics lets you see what people are searching for in Google when they find your website. I have had my site for a couple of years so my keywords vary. People search "FoodCyclist" all the time for me. I also have hits from "chicken for sale", "chicken tractor", and my name "john suscovich". I am starting to see more traffic from my local area for keywords related directly to what I grow on my farm, chicken.

Referral Traffic

referral traffic for your farm website

I can see what pages are linking to me to send people my way. I love that this shows how powerful my Social Media has been. The list of top 9 pages linking to me:

1. Twitter

2. Google

3. Farm Marketing Solutions

4. Facebook

5. Facebook

6. Local Harvest

7. Pinterest

8. Go Bicycling Touring

9. Real Time Farms

Installing Google Analytics on Weebly

I showed you in this tutorial how to create a professional looking farm website with Weebly quickly and inexpensively.

1. Create website with Weebly editor

2. Create Google Analytics Account

3. Add website URL to Analytics Account (it will ask you what website you are creating a code for, super easy)

4. Copy the code that Analytics give you

5. Paste the Code into the "Header Info" section of the "Edit Site Settings" dialogue box in Weebly

6. Sit back and watch the stats come in!

Installing Google Analytics on Wordpress

1. Install "Google Analytics" plugin

2. Click Settings->Google Analytics

3. Copy and paste Analytics code into the only box on the page (UA-xxxxxxxxx-x)

4. Click on "Save Changes"

Note: You cannot use plugins for the free version of Wordpress. You get what you pay for. When you pay for nothing, you get...

Google Analytics on Blogger

1. Log in to your Blogger account.

2. Navigate to your blog's Settings > Other tab.

3. If you already have a Google Analytics account, simply enter your blog's Google Analytics Web Property ID.

4. Click Save to finish.

Other Web Properties

No matter what program you are using to edit and/host your website, there is usually a way to install Google Analytics. Just find where to put your Analytics "Web Property ID" and you're good to go. There are tutorials you can find online very easily that will explain what you need to do if I have not answered it here.

Excluding Your IP Address (IMPORTANT!!!)

Your IP address is the address of your computer that your Internet Service Provider gives you automatically when you sing online. You want to make sure your Google Analytics account does not keep track of every time you click on your own website, otherwise you information is not going to be accurate.

To do this:

1. Go to IP Chicken to get you IP address, looks like 123.12.23.123

2. Log in to your Analytics account

3. Click Admin at the top right of the screen

4. Click on the name of your website (if you have more than one do it for each, one at a time)

5. Click on "Filters" then click "Add New"

6. Give the filter a name

7. With the drop down boxes click, "Exclude, traffic from the IP addresses, that are equal to"

8. Enter your IP from IP Chicken

9. Make sure to click on the profile and hit add to make it go from the left box to the right

10. Click Save

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I hope that this gets you started using Google Analytics. It is a very powerful tool. The longer you have it, the more info you will collect, and the easier it will be to make decisions regarding your website.