Farmers Need Websites, Too!

Monday, September 29, 2008

What could be more idyllic? A local farmer, working his/her land. Bringing the bounty to market. Blogging about this year’s tomato pests. Updating the farm website to include eCommerce. Wah? Insert sound of a record scratching. But what might sound funny at first is actually really important to seizing the momentum of the locavore movement and continuing it’s ideals: namely, of the connection between farmer and his/her customer. Unfortunately farming, especially Pennsylvania farming (with it’s high Amish population), is reluctant or simply not equipped to jump on board. And the few that do have, well, I’m sorry to say, they have bad sites. I have yet to see a well-designed, well-constructed and effective website for a farm.
A website is such an important medium for farmers, not just to promote their farm, but to promote their farming idealology. As much as we would like to believe that we can converse — farmer and customer — the sad fact is that’s nearly impossible (have you been to Headhouse? I’ve seen rock concerts that were less crowded.) But with a website, farmer’s have a FAQ area. They have an About Us area. They now have the chance to say what they don’t get the opportunity to say at market. Plus, they can get responses, via email, from their customers. And despite the perceived high learning curve of websites, you don’t need to know squat about HTML or code. All you need is a bit of easy jargon and a clear set of goals for your site. And with proper help, you’ll be off and running in no time.
So you’re convinced: “I NEED a website!” you say. Where do you start? Before you go running off to your friendly local web professional (for your information, a professional would be a graphic designer or web designer) you need a plan. Yes, it is definitely the job of these professionals to help you, but they aren’t mind readers. You need a goal: what do you want to accomplish from the site? And are you willing to invest the time needed to develop it? If you just want a basic, nuts-and-bolts informative site (basically, an interactive Yellow Pages listing), there’s not much you need. Throw in an About Us page, a Contact Page and a Products page and rush off to the professionals. You’re ready. But I don’t want you to stop there. The web is such a rich media device that it deserves to be developed. You care about your farm, you care about your products. Tell people that. Here’s your chance. If you’re not a writer, hire someone. Put a request on Craigslist (a design/web professional can help you here, just realize that there will be a mark-up). And even if you can write, get a proofreader. It’s the difrenc btwn amatre and professiona (that’s on purpose, BTW).
Once you have a goal (i.e., “more customers”, or to “better inform my customer’s”, etc.) and you have your content, then get moving. A designer/web professional will walk you through the steps. They can help you get a domain name (such as “www.farmtophilly.com” or “www.myfarmname.com") and a hosting service (hosting service is the company that provides the server space for your site to rest on, so it’s available to the world). Besides “domain name” and “hosting service”, really, all the other jargon you need to know (and you might not even need to know these) are: eCommerce, database, shopping cart and payment gateway. These 3 terms describe increased website functionality. In all likelihood, you will probably not even need them. At it’s simplest, eCommerce is a blanket term that means an online marketplace as well as the connection between the shopping cart and the payment gateway. The rest of the terms are how eCommerce functions. So, if you decide that you need an eCommerce site, then first you need is a database. A database is simply the individual products that you offer. Unlike a typical HTML site, where if you want to add something (or subtract) you need to go in and change the entire page, a database is able to be updated on the fly. Once you have your products, a shopping cart is what allows your customers to place your items in their “cart”, to purchase at the end of their web visit. Once they’re ready with their purchases, they use eCommerce technology, coupled with a gateway payment provider, to take the customer’s credit card information and process it. Voila. This is probably far more information that the typical farm website would need, but I just wanted to take the mystery out of these words and terms.
The jargon is one thing, but what about the content? As I described earlier, every single farm site that I’ve been to is just awful. I’m sorry. I really am. I know that there is an aversion to “marketing” — it’s an ugly word that conjures up images of sleazy ad men and disreputable business’s using all forms of trickery to snag innocent customers. But that’s (technically) not the case. Marketing is really just communicating to your customer. You think you have the best salad greens and you want to shout that from the rooftops? That’s marketing. You don’t use pesticide and you want your customers to know how and why? That’s marketing. Your cows only eat grass and you want people to know why that’s better than corn fed? Yep. Marketing. Tell people what makes you special! Your website is the best opportunity to explain everything and tout why. Don’t blow this chance. Keep a pen and notebook handy at all times. Jot down ideas about why you’re special (or anything else that you want people to know about you). Then, at the end of one month, collect them and organize. I’ll guarantee that if you write down ideas when they occur, at the end of a month, you’ll have to throw copy out!
The point is this: whether you want to blame or congratulate Michael Pollan, the locavore movement is increasingly bridging the gap between urban and rural populations. To remain vital, farms need to utilize 21st century tools. Big box markets are using all of their powerful marketing tools to tout their “local” cred. We need to get in front of this shift and affirm the importance of our local cred and why it trumps theirs. Your customers crave information — they are tech-savvy people who think nothing of spending an hour “researching” (by visiting websites) which cheese is more local. By using the tools that are available to all you can help your customers make the right decision.