Creating resources to increase collaborative marketing impacts for direct marketers

Creating resources to increase collaborative marketing impacts for direct marketers

Summary

This project sought to address the lack of support and resources for those farmers participating in collaborative marketing to make more informed decisions. In the second year the participating farmers used the resources and tools provided to evaluate current and potential collaborative marketing opportunities and make more informed, quantititive judgements as opposed to decisionmaking in the past.

Information dissemination and outreach also occurred in year two. Several conference-style presentations occurred (in cooperation with Cornell University) focused on the project, tools created and lessons learned. As well the project data will be repackaged over the next few months to be included into two online curriculums, one hosted by the Cornell Small Farms Program for an online marketing course, and another through a current NESARE grant the Cornell Small Farms Program hosts called “Sparking a Wholesale Revolution” in which one module will focus on collaborative marketing. Both of these will launch in winter 2016.

The second year was successful in continuing the momentum in year one. We did lose one farm due to staffing. We attempted to replace the farm but we couldn’t find an ideal candidate who satisfied all the criteria and also was willing to do the data gathering.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Face to face meetings continued in year two with both partner farms as well as any interested farms/producer groups. New producer groups interacted with in year two included the Southern Tier Beekeepers (a local membership group for honey producers/beekeepers in the Southern Tier of NY and northern tier of PA), as well as a group of 10 farms located throughout Broome County who currently participate in an “Open Farm” weekend put together by CCE Broome County. The beekeepers wanted to discuss the potential for collaboration to supply both a Taste of NY store which opened in Binghamton in July, 2015, and a new regional farmers’ market currently under construction and slated to open in September 2016. The group is now looking at branding and labeling for their products. The agri-tourism farms wanted to discuss ways they could collaboratively market the experience for the public to ensure people visit multiple farms. This event occurs twice per year so initiatives will be put into place for the May 2016 event.

Resources were cataloged and created (if necessary) in year one and then in year two were brought into a web-friendly format housed on the CCE Broome County website, launched in April 2015.

Accomplishments/Milestones

January 2015-March 2015:
– Project leader will meet with second set of interested producers/producer groups in pursuing collaborative marketing: The project leader met with a group of 10 farms in Broome County who all participate in an “Open Farm” weekend to discuss how they could collaboratively market each other. Due to this only occuring 2x/year they will be setting in motion collaborations starting for May 2016. Due to interest by a group of honey producers, this meeting occurred in August 2015. As a result of this meeting this group is pursuing a collaborative marketing structure and creation of a label for their products.
– Project leader will hold series of workshops on topics of interest to project, including legal, how to manage relationships, creative solutions to transportation, addressing quality control in a joint partnership, etc… and evaluate for usefulness, behavior and knowledge change, etc… with collaborating farmers presenting as appropriate with approximately 30 in attendance: Due to timing this did not work out, but these topics will be included in a curriculum currently being created by a group of CCE educators and will be delivered in Spring 2016.
– Project leader will write one or two articles on progress of project: This did not occur but will occur in the Spring 2016 being submitted to Small Farms Quarterly and Country Folks
– Project leader will start gathering resources for online resource center and building web presence: Resources were gathered and a web presence was created on the existing CCE Broome County website
April 2015-June 2015
– Project leader will follow up with all those interested producers/producer groups and purchasers to gather data points for economic forecast tool: It proved extremely difficult to gather data from the partner producers and so the economic forecast tool was dropped.
July 2015-December 2015
– Project leader will write 1-2 more case studies based on interactions among partners in the project: 4 case studies were written based on following information:in-person interviews conducted with each partner farm in the beginning of the project, check-ins throughout the project and a final in-person interview at the end to include sales data (if available)
– Project leader will finalize economic forecasting tool, collaborative marketing relationship checklist, and sample agreements for different types of collaborative marketing relationships: The Cornell University faculty we were working with had a death in the family and so we were unable to work on the economic forecast aspect of the project — but also found that the other resources created gave enough information for the participants. The checklist and sample agreements that we had given to all the partner farms did not need any further updates and all the partner farms reported they did find them useful as demonstrated in the case studies.
– Project leader will launch online resource center: An online resource center was created as part of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Broome County website and launched in April 2015
– Project leader and collaborating farms will hold a statewide “Collaborative Marketing Conference” to showcase lessons learned, introduce materials and tools created, and engage the larger community in strategic conversations to move collaborative marketing forward: The project leader co-hosted a session at the Strategic Marketing Conference hosted by Cornell University each year in November to discuss different models of collaborative marketing across the state. This conference had approximately 65 attendees ranging from Cornell Cooperative Extension educators to farmers to other agri-service providers. Attendees rated the presentations between 4.19-4.58 out of 5. Other opportunities for information dissemination included: presenting to a group of 30 CCE educators and other professionals at an In-Service, and designing curriculum for both an online marketing course and wholesale marketing curriculum (both to be launched in winter/spring 2016).

• Strategic Marketing Conference 2015 Agenda
• Dutch Hill Creamery Case Study
• Sue Garing DBA Honey & Garlic Case Study
• Old Barn Hollow Collaborative Marketing Case Study
• McRey Farm Collaborative Marketing Case Study

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Data gathered from participating farms has shown a positive impact on farm revenue and other costs, such as labor, transportation and marketing through the use of the tools and resources created through the project. Farms have evaluated collaborative marketing relationships based on the criteria in the checklist and either continued, or dropped, collaborative marketing venues and seen increased sales and/or decreased costs. The checklist has given a basis for quantititive evaluation of relationships and taken “the person” out and made it more about “the numbers”. 

Farms are also looking at potentially increasing production and/or product lines due to participation in a particular collaborative marketing relationship. 

All partner farms have expressed the value that they have seen in this project, not just in the hard data to evaluate, but also in speaking and networking with the other farms and learning about other models, best practices and what is happening outside of their scope in terms of production and/or commodity.

Collaborators: