Attracting and Retaining Customers in Short Supply Chains
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Selling through short supply chain implies the direct marketing of one's products, whether to professional or individual customers.
Unlike the long supply chain, it is the producer who must attract and retain customers.
But how to go about it, especially when commercial relationships are not, at the core, part of one's profession?
Positioning
To attract customers, the first advice is to work on your positioning.
You must consider your farm as a business and know what position you want it to have on the market.
To do this, you must first study this market :
- What legislation applies to this type of production?
- What is the seasonality? Is it a seasonal product?
- What are the consumption trends related to this production?
All these aspects, which are far from trivial, will help us understand the environment in which we will operate because, in direct sales, we are autonomous from production to marketing and must therefore be able to manage all these tasks.
Target audience
Which consumer target do we want to reach?
There are many, and nothing forces us to limit ourselves to just one!
Do we want to sell directly to consumers on our farm or rather to fans of weekly markets?
And why not target professional buyers such as restaurateurs, producers' shops, or local authorities?
We work daily with our customers, so we must give ourselves the means to explore different avenues because it takes time to create and maintain a healthy and lasting relationship with them.
But the most important thing is to know that there are many possibilities, it all depends on:
- Our desires.
- Our infrastructure, not only logistical.
- Our geographical location.
- Our production volume.
Competition
Next, you must identify the main "competitors" : Are there other farmers practicing direct sales near our farm? If so, what do they sell and to whom?
There is room for everyone in the field of short supply chains, but by differentiating ourselves from the existing offer nearby, we become more attractive.
Prospecting
Unfortunately, customers will not come by themselves, especially at the beginning.
You will have to go find them and no one knows how to talk about our products better than us.
For this, there are several possibilities :
- Door-to-door visits to homes around the farm to introduce yourself and showcase your products or to professionals (shops, restaurants, etc.).
- Making flyers presenting your products with your contact details that can be made available in various collection points (such as tourist offices, for example).
- Having a well-referenced website, so that customers looking for local products can find us quickly.
- Being present on social networks to get noticed and spread the word about us.
- Joining an existing cagette with local producers.
- Organizing occasional events if the farm allows it (open days, tastings, original activities) with good communication to attract visitors (consumers love the concept of agritourism).
- Participating in local events (producers' markets, open days of a neighboring farmer, ...).
Customer retention
Once this prospecting stage is completed, do not forget to record our new consumers in our customer file. This is essential to maintain the connection and make the efforts we have made profitable.
Never take a customer for granted, you must be attentive to their feedback to keep them and make them our ambassador!
Here are some ideas to implement an effective loyalty program :
Diversify your offer with new products
Without necessarily changing the nature of the product, new packaging can already make a difference.
For example, a cattle meat producer can imagine offering packages suited to different occasions :
- A barbecue-specialized package containing grills.
- Another more cooking-oriented with pieces to prepare.
- Another special burger package.
Customers are full of ideas; do not hesitate to ask them what they would like to buy.
Maintain the connection, even remotely
By buying through short supply chains, consumers want transparency and humanity.
What we do daily interests and reassures them. It is not mandatory to publish every day but by using social networks, we can address part of our consumers at the same time!
In general, it is good to have a digital presence, using as much as possible the free tools that already work well, without trying to do something complicated:
Recommended:
- Google Maps (Google Business)
- Welcome to the farm
- Sucrine Club
Possible but less effective:
- Ruche qui dit oui
- AMAP websites
Useless and costly in time and money:
- A specific website (WordPress or Wix)
- Youtube
Emails / SMS
In addition to social networks, do not forget emails and SMS. Be careful, it is not as simple as it seems:
- For emails, it is essential to use a dedicated application (Brevo, [Mailchimp.com] or Sucrine Club) and it must be configured correctly so that everything does not end up in spam (get help)
- For SMS, it is also imperative to use a dedicated tool so that your customers can unsubscribe if they wish (Brevo for example).
- You can use Whatsapp by creating a group that is read-only (you will be the only one posting), and sharing this group on your Facebook page for example. Be careful to ask your customers to join but not to add them without their consent!!!
A good publication frequency is to send your price list once a month or weekly, adding some recipe ideas picked from Marmiton or others...!
Ask for customer feedback
You must be attentive to your loyal customers so they remain loyal, quite simply.
There are several easy-to-implement possibilities.
You can ask them in person at your next meeting or 1 or 2 times a year, send them a satisfaction survey by email, so they can share their feedback with us, for example.
Pamper your customers
Our customers are very sensitive to small attentions.
You can notably share preparation or storage tips.
Why not offer your customers to make their own preserves with our good products?
They will enjoy them all year round, even out of season, and we can more easily increase our average basket. It's a win-win!
Here is, for example, an article to share with customers, to learn how to sterilize without problems.
Create a family of consumers
The best way to find new customers and keep the old ones, is to create a bond between them.
How?
- By setting up a referral system. The customer who converts a new one gets a small price advantage or a product sample.
- By giving several flyers to your most loyal customers that they can distribute themselves to their family, friends, or workplace. It may not seem like much, but all added up, it pays off!
Let's not forget, our customers are our best ambassadors.
Starting in short supply chains is a great adventure that enhances your products but also your profession.
Think about the future...
One day you might think about selling your farm, or more simply attracting a partner. It is very likely that this person has already come to the farm to buy something - so it is very important to build an address book to use this list when you need to communicate for something other than pure sales...!
Sources
This article was written thanks to the kind contribution of Sucrine Club.
