Your First Year of Farm Marketing, Built for You

Charlotte Smith opens this episode of the Profitable Mindset Podcast with a direct challenge to farmers: stop treating social media as your marketing foundation. "You've got to build a marketing foundation and it is not social media," she says. "That's where so many farmers start. We start a farm, we look around, we see everyone on social media, it's free. So we think that is where our marketing is going to start. But it's a huge waste of time if you don't have your foundation in place."

The Foundation That Actually Works

Smith teaches a marketing foundation that has remained stable for over a decade: your website and your email list. She uses a simple analogy—your website is your home, and everything you do should invite people there. Social media has exactly one job: "to connect with her and build trust so you can get her to come to your home." It does not close sales.

Before writing a single word of marketing, you need three things: know who your ideal customer is, understand what problem or goal drives her to buy, and articulate exactly how your product solves that problem. "When you know those three things ahead of time, who, what the problem is, how your product solves it, everything else falls into place. Your emails get easier, your website gets easier, pricing gets easier."