For many agricultural businesses, farm diversification is now essential for long-term profitability of the business. Alongside this, there has been a growing discussion regarding the lack of knowledge the public have about the farming industry and where their food comes from. TV shows such as “This farming life” have highlighted the increasing public interest in the agricultural sector. As such, there is now a clear market for educational farm diversification projects that help to fulfil this desire for knowledge.
In the ever-evolving world of farm diversification, effective marketing strategies are paramount for success. Marketing educational farm diversification projects can require different tactics from traditional direct-to-consumer farm diversification projects such as meat boxes. While many farm diversification businesses focus on using Facebook and/or Instagram as their social media platform of choice for educational farm diversification projects, LinkedIn is likely to be a far more effective tool.
LinkedIn offers the ability to target, engage, and nurture customers in a way that most social media platforms can’t do.
Educational farm diversifications tend to fall into three key areas: educating the public, providing agricultural training and providing hobbyist farm training. For this blog, we will be focusing on educating the public.
Farm diversifications that help the public (or consumers) to better understand the British farming sector includes farm schools and education centres, as well as farm experience days. It can also include agritourism, but most often it focuses on links with local schools and educational institutions.
Educational farm diversification projects tend to suit farmers who are highly social and enjoy educating others. This type of diversification relies on having excellent people skills and implementing good customer service practices. Therefore, it is not suited to all farm situations, and may also need to be run on a seasonal basis to work around other farm activities.
For educational farm diversifications, your farm marketing will only be effective when you can target the decision-makers needed for your business. This often means targeting school leaders such as head teachers, or heads of departments. It can also mean targeting local educational organisations to foster working relationships.
When using a personal-professional account through LinkedIn, you have the ability to connect with decision-makers and build an audience that is highly relevant and targeted. You can do this through 2nd-connection prospecting, where you connect with contacts who have one or more contacts in common with you. If you use this method and at the same time target decision makers using key terms and job titles such as “head teacher”, etc., you can build a large community of contacts fairly quickly.
Alongside this, if you set up a company page for your educational farm diversification, you can then invite your targeted contacts to follow the page and hence grow your following much quicker than by using passive methods on Facebook or Instagram.
If you combine this with effective content marketing, you create a highly engaged audience who will see you as an expert in your field and be ready to book.
As an educational farm diversification, you are well placed to create engaging content and resources that can be distributed through your LinkedIn marketing. For example, consider creating worksheets or other educational resources that demonstrate your knowledge and skills as well as promote your educational farm diversification. These can be shared via the articles section, or you could include a link to download them in exchange for email sign-up.
Depending on the type of services you are offering and the age group you are targeting, you may need to consider the seasonality of the curriculum and plan resources around both your calendar and the school’s calendar to create the best response.
You may also want to consider targeting different departments at different times of the year. For example, targeting biology/science in relation to lambing season, but then focusing on the geography department at other times of year in relation to your landscape and any ecological schemes you are involved in.
You should also post about the experiences of other schools and, where possible, tag them in your posts. This type of content provides social proof that you are able to provide a good service that is of high value.
If you are looking to target secondary schools and up, you may wish to consider posting about some of the ecological schemes you are involved in and why you have chosen to be involved. This highlights your expertise and allows you to share knowledge at a more advanced level than you would if targeting primary schools.
You should also consider using video content. Video content allows you to show educators how you interact with others and how you present information, which can be useful in helping them overcome any concerns they may have about the value of the experience for their pupils. Ensure these videos are done in a style that is appropriate for the age group you are targeting.
Social media marketing in general relies on consistency and perseverance, so it is not a quick-fix strategy for farm marketing. This is also true of LinkedIn. You must also remember that LinkedIn can be a lurker platform. Lurking is where followers will consistently read or consume your content but rarely comment or engage. This can make using LinkedIn feel unrewarding as it is hard to track lurkers, but can lead to fantastic opportunities once these lurkers decide to make contact, as they are often well-prepared and ready to buy.
I would highly recommend sitting down and brainstorming some content ideas to create a social media plan and farm marketing strategy. Even if it is a very simple and rough outline of your goals and strategy, it will help you focus on making progress rather than simply going through the motions. This could include planning different content types and doing one of each per week. For example, each week you could do one video, one social proof post, one resource post and one “about the farm” style post.
The time demands of social media and wider farm marketing activities can be very draining, particularly if you lack the skills and passion for the tasks. This is where a marketing company can help provide expert guidance or simply manage the farm marketing for you. As farm marketing specialists, we have access to technology, skills and expertise, which means we can be far more efficient in supporting your farm business through its growth journey. To find out more, you can book a consult here. Check out our done-for-you packages here, or if you prefer, have a look at our coaching packages here.
