Inspiring a Buy-Local Mentality
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Collapse ▲When you see those “Buy Local” bumper stickers, store window placards, and t-shirts, has it ever just hit you how important those words are to your farm or agribusiness? In a world of uber-sized commercial farms and food that travels thousands of miles to get to its final destination, you offer something radically different. You are offering your customers fresher-than-fresh products, a boost to their local economy, and the ability to establish a real, meaningful, and symbiotic relationship with a vendor.
These benefits (and others) can never be stressed too often or too strongly in your marketing efforts. When you are planning blog posts, social media messaging, promotional images, and targeted campaigns this year try to find a way to work in some angle of the “buy local” messaging.
Here are just some of those angles that are worth promoting again and again…
- Buying local builds community. You may or may not have the same cashier or customer service agent from trip to trip at the big box market near you. When you buy from a local farm or agribusiness, however, you get the peace of mind of seeing the same recognizable, trustworthy faces with every visit.
- Buying local supports local families. Another way that buying local builds community is by knowing that your hard-earned dollars are helping families who live right in your vicinity. Supporting these families financially is a tangible way to root for their success, as you would hope they would root for yours.
- Buying local instills confidence. That soap you just bought or blueberries you just picked often have questions attached to them. Is the soap appropriate for people with dry skin? What kinds of pesticides were used on the blueberries this season? Those questions can go unanswered when buying from an online retailer, but not when your vendor is as close as his or her phone or email.
- Buying local ensures agricultural preservation. That farmer whose Airbnb™ you just stayed in may have been pondering selling his land to developers until she transitioned the old farmhouse on her property to benefit from agritourism. That means you had a direct influence on the preservation of that land for at least the short term.
- Buying local can improve the safety of your food. The fewer steps between you and a food’s source mean fewer opportunities for contamination. When harvesting, shipping, and distribution points all have different GPS coordinates, food is more vulnerable to uncontrollable factors.
By thinking creatively, you can integrate these “buy local” benefits into almost every aspect of your marketing. And the benefit for you will not only be a growing customer base but a loyal one as well!