Internet Marketing for Breeders and Farmers
(from the Agriculture and Natural Resources Fact Sheet #510)
Marketing is key to the success of small-scale farming (or other animal breeders).
One avenue of marketing that may offer significant rewards to farmers (or breeders) is internet marketing. Internet marketing can include the use of email and mailing lists, newsgroups and online forums, and/or the world wide web.
The key idea behind internet marketing is to keep people coming back to your site by providing
valuable content.
In other words, give away useful information for free! Give away free reports,
newsletters, tips, or recipes. Whatever the information is, if it is valuable and free, people will keep returning to your site, thereby increasing the chances that they will actually make a purchase from you.
The internet allows farmers (breeders) and consumers direct contact in a way never before available.
Many people and businesses (such as restaurants) do their shopping, including food shopping, online. The possibilities for internet marketing of farm products are vast, limited only by the imagination. More and more home based and small businesses are turning to the internet to get the word out about their products.
Here are some reasons why (from Guerrilla Marketing Online: The Entrepreneur's
Guide to Earning Profits on the Internet by Jay Conrad Levinson and Charles Rubin. 1997).
Advantages for Breeders to use internet marketing
+ The internet allows you to broadcast your message to thousands of people at once without
paying for expensive ads.
+ You can offer more information than in a printed brochure, including pictures (of products,
farms, plants, animals), sounds, or even videos, and you can change your site whenever you
want.
+ You can accept credit cards online.
+ Your target audience is paying attention. They choose to look at your web page.
+ The internet allows you to be in several places at once day and night.
+ The online marketplace puts small businesses on equal footing with large ones.
+ You can display merchandise and offer information about it.
+ The internet lets you focus on markets with precision. Online buyers sort themselves into spe-
cific interest groups. You can quickly build mailing lists as these members respond to your
messages.
+ The internet offers resources that can support your business including discussion groups and
databases with information to help respond to changing markets and trends.
+ Internet marketing is not limited to having a web page. Email lists, newsletters, and catalogs offer other means of reaching customers.
