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Introductions
by Michelle Wolf
Questions
Q1: What moves you – really moves you – about your farmers’ market and its work?
OR What moves you – really moves you – about organic agriculture and our movement?
Q2: What do you love the most about a=ending a conference like this one?
Relationship Marketing and
Branding by Michelle Wolf
During This Presentation
• Defining terms • Why branding and rela@onship marke@ng should be so easy in the organic, agriculture, and direct marke@ng sectors
• The power of “Why” • Exercise to start your own branding work
Define Terms 1. Rela+onship Marke+ng
– “Marke@ng ac@vi@es that are aimed at developing and managing trus@ng and long-‐term rela@onships with customers”
– A fancy way of saying that the very act of developing rela@onships with customers helps you promote and build your business
– Examples include sending e-‐newsle=ers, having a customer loyalty program, serving customers on market day in a way that emphasizes rela@onship, engaging with people on social media, etc.
Define Terms
1. Branding – “The process involved in crea@ng a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind. Branding aims to establish a significant and differen@ated presence in the market that a=racts and retains loyal customers.”
– A fancy way of describing the way that you become memorable and likeable to your customers
What Branding ISN’T • Branding isn’t gimmicks, tricks, fancy graphic design, corporate slogans, expensive adver@sing
• Branding isn’t your packaging, your logo, your colour, or your tag line (externals)
• Branding isn’t an external to your business – it comes from inside, from the way you want to be memorable and likeable, and the externals just put a frame around the feelings you are cul@va@ng
Branding is Based on Stories • Farmers’ markets, organic agriculture, and direct marke@ng are about authen@city – of place, of experience, of people, of product, of community
• Direct marke@ng is where we can successfully compete with commodity markets – not on price, selec@on or convenience (these are barriers actually) but on authen@city, community and farm stories
• Canada’s organic agriculture and rural lifestyle sectors are filled with values and stories
• Telling them is where our “brands” come from
People Don’t Buy WHAT You Do • Think about a PEI-‐grown potato • It’s not the potato per se that a person buys • What a consumer pays for is the taste, the texture, the sight, the connec@ons they have to potatoes, the vitamins, the an@-‐oxidants, a rela@onship with the seller, or whatever combina@on of those things that are meaningful to that person
• But if something else did that, they’d buy that too • The potato is just the ‘package’ for those results
People Don’t Buy WHAT You Do • People buy results and benefits, not products • 3 levels of benefit:
A. The benefits of individual products (potato) -‐ “product results”
B. The benefits of purchasing it in the way that you package and present it – “presenta@on results”
C. The benefits of purchasing from you rather than from another potato producer – “rela@onship results”
People Don’t Buy WHAT You Do • Branding is a fancy way of saying that you have to tell people:
1. The results and benefits your products and/or services offer
2. Present it in a way that is meaningful to them 3. Enough about your values or personal story
that they want to be part of it / likeable • In direct marke+ng: Sales = product + presenta+on + producer
Branding – It’s all about WHY • If people don’t understand why you do what you do, the benefits of buying from you are, the benefits of your product, then you are simply offering another commodity in the commodi@es market… and that means you are simply compe@ng based on price
• Consumers use price to compare when the benefits and rela@onship are absent
Competition is an Illusion • Two people can be given the same recipe and the same ingredients… and they’ll make two different loaves of bread
• They can stand at the same market selling their bread for the same price, and certain people will buy from person A and other people will buy from person B
• Same is true for meat, produce, value-‐added commodi@es, body care, coffee, etc.
Competition is an Illusion
• Our energy, our personality, our ‘vibe’, it speaks to people
• Whether we are trust-‐worthy or likeable varies according to who you ask
• You can’t manipulate who will like you, it just is
• No one can sell to everyone • Sales = product + presenta@on + producer
The Power of a ‘Winning’ Personality • The single biggest asset to your biz is YOU • Are you likeable? Are you nice? Are you warm? Are you real? Do you genuinely like people?
• Are you nervous? Are you withdrawn? Are you burnt out? Are you aloof? Are you passive?
• No brand can compensate for a business owner or a salesperson who is miserable, insincere, too bizarre, can’t look you in the eye, seems disinterested, too cool to care, lacks all confidence, etc
Early Adopters & Innovators
• Simon Sinek – Start With Why • Model called The Law of Diffusion of Innova@ons
• Suggests that not everyone is as open to any par@cular product or idea or social movement as another person – follows a bell curve
• For every new product on the market, there is a small segment of the popula@on, about 16%, called Early Adopters and Innovators
Early Adopters & Innovators • We all fall somewhere differently on the bell curve, depending on the idea or product or technology (standing in line for an Iphone?)
• These people will pay a premium, go out of their way, and/or suffer some level of discomfort in order to have your product or service (think Harley Davidson)
• They will also be your ambassadors, telling other people about you and championing your business (push the ‘@pping point’)
Branding • This is why branding is about telling your story • Values ma=er in the marketplace • Think about Apple, Whole Foods, MEC, or your favourite store or farmers’ market
• The product ma=ers, but the stuff you buy from them (a computer, an orange, a backpack, a radish) you could get elsewhere
• You purchase those products from those par@cular retailers because those companies/organiza@ons have a story or set of values or vibe or social currency or quality level or customer service or [other factor] that you want, or want to be aligned with
Early Adopters & Innovators • Share your values and story • You can’t brand or market generically, you can’t compete with how corpora@ons adver@se, you need to be strategic and market to the people who share your values and love your story
• Your best customers have a natural affinity for your ‘why’, your brand
• Powerful brands come from powerful stories
Branding • Work of small business owners is to embody your brand, to ooze it, to infuse every part of your business with the values that you are a=emp@ng to express through your brand
• What I find is that people aren’t clear about what their brand is, or how to ar@culate it
• And this is why their businesses struggle – if you don’t know your brand (your why, your story), you can’t find the people who want to buy from you in order to be in alignment with what your brand represents and what your story suggests about them
• Lack of biz success is rarely a ‘produc@on issue’
Features Tell, Benefits Sell • Example: Bunch of beet greens • Features Tell: freshly harvested, baby greens, heirloom beet variety
• Benefits Sell: – Fresh: higher vitamin/mineral/an@oxidant profile (more nutri@ous), keep longer (be=er value)
– Baby size: more tender, easier to cook – Heirloom: novelty, different flavours, ‘heritage’ is hot
Benefits Sell
• We say things like, “My product is local, my product is organic, my product is homegrown, my product is homemade, my product is natural, my product is handcraned”
• There are values and benefits and results hidden behind these words – what are they?
• Don’t make people guess the meaning – some@mes they don’t know, and worse, they can get it totally wrong
Benefits Sell • So figure out, what do you really mean by ‘local’ or ‘farm-‐grown’ or ‘fresh’?
• Which means… “My beet greens are freshly-‐picked late yesterday anernoon, which means… [higher nutri@on, keeps longer, be=er value and less waste, nicer texture, etc]”
• “Freshly-‐picked” is the feature, but it’s the benefits of something being “freshly-‐picked” that represent the results for the consumer, so make sure they know what those benefits are
• Words are powerful for marke@ng, but only when we own them and when people understand what we really mean by them
Branding Exercise
1. What are your core values as a person? 2. What reasons do you have for having started
your business? 3. What stories or thoughts or ideas have you
shared with your customers that seem to get the most response, that they seem most curious or intrigued by?
4. What would you say is your WHY?
In Small Groups
• Explore some of the reasons and values and concepts that underlie the following words:
LOCAL FRESH HAND-‐MADE
• How can you move away from FEATURE language and start using BENEFITS language?
Summary • Brands tell our customers why they should buy from us by telling them our core values; the results and benefits of our products; and the stories we have
• Brands come out of our stories about who we are, why we are in agriculture, why organics is our passion, what our products do, and why they ma=er to people
• Market gardens, farmers’ markets, and rural communi@es are filled with the stories our ideal customers long to hear and be part of
Summary
• Rela@onship marke@ng takes those brands and makes them the currency that we exchange with people, over @me, to build rela@onships
• You keep in touch, you share stories about stuff that ma=ers to them, you form a rela@onship
• Think of it as a strategy for marke@ng that not only builds your business but puts lots of really cool people into your life, closer than
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