Leveraging the Power of Social Media and Mobile Point of Sales Systems at the Oshkosh Farmers Market

View the project final report

Commodities

• Vegetables: artichokes, beans, beets, cabbages, carrots, cucurbits, eggplant, garlic, greens (leafy), parsnips, peas (culinary), peppers, radishes (culinary), sweet corn, tomatoes, turnips, brussel sprouts

Practices

• Education and Training: networking, workshop
• Farm Business Management: marketing management, market study, value added
• Sustainable Communities: public participation

Project Description

We will leverage social media, mobile point of sale systems, and customer tracking technology to create a sustainable competitive advantage for market vendors. We will do this by amplifying demand for tastier, more nutritious produce varieties not typically found in stores, and removing barriers to sales through education and technology.

Description of farm and project coordinator background

Amuse Bouche at Cider Hill Farm is a passion being undertaken by Elise Hallock, currently a business student at UW Oshkosh, and Matt Schmidt, a computer programmer and software developer by day and a tractor driving farmer at heart. As a pair of self-professed foodies, Matt and Elise were disappointed in the produce selection available through local grocery stores and producers, so they began a (not so) little garden in their backyard to bring wonderful new varieties to their kitchen table.From that 120 square foot patch of yard five years ago, Cider Hill Farm has expanded into an eight acre farmette, encompassing a 43 tree, newly planted orchard, garden space for a few community members to get their hands dirty, and the garden, Amuse Bouche, which provides enough produce for a CSA type arrangement with a dozen families and a substantial farmers market stand.At the moment we produce more than 50 heirloom varieties of fruits and veggies ranging from ramps and asparagus in the spring, to rainbow mix carrots and fragrant melons in the summer, and unique tree fruit varieties in the fall. Each variety has been selected because of its unique visual appeal, renowned flavor profile, or superior nutrient content. Many of the varieties we produce, like the Hutterite Soup Bean, are listed on the Slow Foods Ark of Taste, and all are organically grown.

With a restaurant going pedigree that includes 3 Michelin star restaurants in Napa Valley and a history of cooking up something you’ve never heard of but are going to love, Elise is the creative force behind Amuse Bouche at Cider Hill Farm. She has substantial marketing experience through marketing internships with local business, through coursework at UW Oshkosh, and through marketing competition at the international level with pre-professional marketing organizations. Additional work in coalition building for student organizations and Get Out The Vote work as a coalition leader have provided valuable real world experience for effectively leveraging social media to reach and motivate thousands of people.

As the computer programmer/financial wizard/general mister fix it, Matt is the technical support and behind the scenes problem wrangler of the team. His knowledge of computers, networking, and programming allows Cider Hill Farm to handle tech solutions, from websites to social media campaigns, internally and with minimum expense and effort.

Together, Matt and Elise are deeply rooted in the Fox River Valley community. With connections to Pew, Sustainable Fox Valley, Just Local Food, and many local producers, they hope to be able to continue to innovate solutions that make the Fox Valley healthier, and more food independent.

Problem/Solution

The growing food trend surrounding produce in the U.S. seems to be more: more local, more nutrition, and more flavor. Creating a sustainable demand for these products through traditional farmers market techniques can, however, prove a challenge. Especially in small towns where a variety of produce options has been lacking for more than a generation thanks to the industrialization of produce. A few of the problems we have encountered:

•Customers are reluctant to try new varieties for fear that items will go to waste or will be too difficult to prepare

•Fresh produce stands at the Oshkosh Farmers Market are virtually indistinguishable from one another with few exceptions. Because one vendor is much like the next, market shoppers rarely make a point to return to the same vendor. Most vendors do not have a reliable way to track customer patterns even if customers do seek out a specific vendor.

•Shopping the market is inconvenient as vendors typically accept only cash, and few communicate with their customers about what is being grown and when it will be ready for market.

•Limiting customer interaction to passive websites and personal interactions on market days puts producers in a situation that is reactive to demand, where other methods might allow producers to proactively create demand for their products specifically.

In order to address the problems, we plan to leverage existing social media platforms and free apps for merchants in order to:

•Make shopping the market easier for our customers

o    By accepting credit cards on a cell enabled iPad through free POS software and hardware offered by Square

o    By conducting a survey to determine how we can connect with customers to take the guess work out of purchasing our produce. The creation of this survey will be aided by veteran Consumer Research Scientist and Consultant, Roxanne Hallock of Dynamic Innovation Solutions.

o By taking the results of the survey and putting them into action

•build a relationship with customers while creating demand for our new and different produce varieties through social media marketing and education campaigns

o    Using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and the like we will connect with our customers by providing information about the relative health and flavor benefits of choosing to purchase our varieties.

o    We will encourage user generated content shared through social media. We will provide a platform for our customers to share recipes, photos of the dishes they make with our products, flavor profiles, and usage tips. In order to motivate this sharing behavior, each contribution will get one entrance into a weekly drawing for $20 in free produce from Amuse Bouche’s Farm Stand.

o    We will recruit local restaurants to take some of our produce free of charge in exchange for photos and recipes which feature the produce and can be distributed through our social media network.

o    We will sustain this relationship by updating our social media on at least a daily basis with photos from the farm, fun facts about produce, recipes, tips and information about upcoming market offerings.

•Use technology at the market in the form of a tablet computer set up with Square’s free POS and customer reward and tracking application. This will allow us to track return customers and their buying habits while providing incentive for them to return. Through technology and social media we believe that we can introduce more people to healthier, tastier fruit and veggie options while making our customers’ shopping experience more enjoyable and increasing our sales and our customer base.

Timeline

End of May 2014 - Social media pages up and running, update social media at least 5 times a week, create survey

First 2 weeks of June - administer survey and tabulate results. Commence customer rewards program and evaluation tracking. Begin weekly prize drawing for contributions to our social media community

End of June - begin implementing social media plan

End of July - local restaurant food feature #1

End August - local restaurant food feature #2

October - begin compiling and evaluating data

End of the year - submit final report

Outreach

We plan to distribute our findings to fellow Oshkosh Farmers Market Vendors with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Leatherman, the market’s organizers, through the use of their email contact list. Additionally, we would like to exhibit at the Midwest Value Added Agriculture Conference in Wisconsin Rapids as an educational exhibitor. Finally, our social media campaign itself is outreach to the community. Our whole hope is the make it easier than ever for more people to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables in varieties they have never heard of and of a quality that cannot be found in a grocery store. If we are successful in having even a small impact on the way vendors think about choosing their varieties, or in the way that customers consider something new, we will have added to the vibrancy and health of the Fox Valley. Ultimately we would like to reach approximately 20% of, or about 2000, farmers market customers.

Previous Research

Many other SARE funded grant projects have touched upon the use of social media for small producers. For instance, project number FNC12-864, “Direct Marketing Non-Traditional Perennial Berry Varieties: Expanding Eater Preferences and Grower Connections” coordinated by Clare Hintz involves substantial information dissemination in an attempt to get local consumers to try something new. The project, unfortunately, does not seem to substantially utilize social media as a means for reaching out to customers.

Many of the grant projects I had a chance to look at were a similar story; social media and mobile point of sale technology best practices seem not to have been studied at all in relation to their use at market. This indicates an opportunity for research in this area. Social media is not simply a visibility tool and should not be relegated to the confines of disseminating cute pictures of life on the farm. Social media is a powerful tool that, when used correctly, can motivate masses while providing each individual with a profound sense of involvement with a particular group or product.

I was able to find some food trend research which suggests that the push towards more local, more varied produce varieties with high nutrient content (so called “super foods”) is likely to be a continuing trend that farmers market vendors and small producer are uniquely situated to take advantage of. According to an October 2011 report titled “Tracking Demographics and U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Consumption Patterns,” by Roberta Cook for UC-Davis, “unfolding demographic and food trends are likely to continue to shift consumption toward more fresh and less processed fruits and vegetables, as well as toward... differentiated products, including [those] with specific food traits.” Those specific food traits that consumers are starting to looking for in their produce are increased variety, rich flavor profiles, and superior phytonutrient content.

Finally, companies with an interest in mobile payment technologies, companies like Square, have sponsored research indicating the credit card transactions yield higher revenues. One market vendor’s testimonial on the Square website estimates that his business has increased by 25% as a direct result of accepting credit cards. The opportunity to solidify this anecdotal research into hard, numbers in a local setting is what where this project will have the largest impact for producers of sustainable produce.

Evaluation

Because of this project’s focus on technology and social media, we will generate a lot of readily accessible information with which to evaluate our successes. The trick comes in ensuring that our information is a valid test of our outcomes. Keeping this in mind, we will choose very carefully which data to use in determining how well our solutions are working.Our first key measure will be a conversion rate involving the total number of frequent customers we have in our frequent customer database and how many individuals have engaged with our social media be following us on Pinterest or Twitter, or by liking us on Facebook. Our goal is to have a 25% conversion rate, where 25% of our frequent customer program participants are also following us on some form of social media.

We will also measure the patterns and frequency of our interactions with customers by logging them and then evaluating the aggregate data. We hope that this data will tell us not only how often customers are interacting with us via social media, but also what types of posts draw the most interaction, and what times and days of the week is it best to post in order to reach the most people quickly.

Evaluative measures of our decision to use the point of sale app and hardware by Square for iPad will be two fold. First, we will measure cash sales in dollars against credit card sales in dollars. We expect that transactions paid for with a credit card will generate 10-20% more revenue per sale than cash transactions. Our goal is that this extra revenue from credit cards will be able to offset 50% of the cost of the iPad for each year it is in operation. So in our first year we would like to see $3,150 worth of credit card receipts with a 10% higher average transaction dollar value than cash. Second, we would like to see 30% of our business coming from return customers. In order to measure this, we will compare the number of transactions we engage in on the whole with the number of transactions for which we access a customer rewards account. This measure will also serve to obliquely indicate the extent to which ourmarketing efforts are actually driving return business.Taken together, these revenue increases and intensive customer contacts should be taken as a successful and sustainable project if we meet our goals. The increased revenue and visibility would serve to strengthen sustainable agriculture and community health in Oshkosh.

• Make shopping the market easier for our customers
  • By accepting credit cards on a cell enabled iPad through free POS software and hardware offered by
    Square
  • By conducting a survey to determine how we can connect with customers to take the guess work out of
    purchasing our produce. 
  • By taking the results of the survey and putting them into action
• Build a relationship with customers while creating demand for our new and different produce varieties through
  social media marketing and education campaigns
  • Using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and the like we will connect with our customers by providing
    information about the relative health and flavor benefits of choosing to purchase our varieties.
  • We will encourage user-generated content shared through social media. We will provide a platform for our
    customers to share recipes, photos of the dishes they make with our products, flavor profiles, and usage tips.
  • We will recruit local restaurants to take some of our produce free of charge in exchange for photos and
    recipes which feature the produce and can be distributed through our social media network.
  • We will sustain this relationship by updating our social media on at least a daily basis with photos from the
    farm, fun facts about produce, recipes, tips and information about upcoming market offerings.
• Use technology at the market in the form of a tablet computer set up with Square’s free POS and customer
  reward and tracking application. This will allow us to track return customers and their buying habits while
  providing incentive for them to return.