Success Story – Nature’s Gourmet Farm
Testimonial From: Ben Simmons, Owner
Business Name: Nature’s Gourmet Farm
Website: https://naturesgourmetfarm.com
What are some key differences in how you approach marketing your business now compared to before we started working together?
In one word FOCUS! Before you would have described our website based on look what we built, come and get it.
Today, the focus is clearly the customer and meeting their needs. We clearly communicate what we offer and how it meets their needs.
Some of the next steps are to be deliberate in newsletter content and developing an annual marketing plan.
What has been the impact on your business? Any particular metrics that you’re really excited about (revenue, time to 1st purchase, repeat buyer rate, average order value, etc.)?
It is somewhat hard to say (may be a bit early yet at on a few months) what the impact has or will be! We had already planned in nine new delivery locations and adding chicken year round. The February order period was outstanding and represented a 40% increase over our all time best month in sales.
Was there a specific strategy or two that we executed that made a tremendous difference either quickly, or over time?
The launch Best of Farm Bundle was a hit! Folks really liked it and we are looking at how to do more of these soon.
The “1-Question” email really got folks’ attention. Many positive responses. Focused and conversational communication is the way to go!
Has the value you received as a result of the project been worth the investment of time and money?
Well, I would say it has not paid for itself as of today, having just finished. However, I fully expect the real value is our mindset and how we approach our business going forward. Instead of being stagnant we now have the skills and processes to grow and meet customer needs.
This has put us years ahead of any other farm in our area!!! A big competitive advantage.
What skills have been improved upon during our time together (copywriting, executing promotions, product development, understanding your customer, helping customers come to a buying decision, GrazeCart, Drip, email presentation, use of creative images, video, etc.)?
At my age, I really did not have it in me to learn DRIP! For all of my professional and military careers, I’ve been actively engaged in learning to improve the value I offered the companies I’ve worked for. And, my focus on the farm for the first 7 years or so has been production.
The Profit Platform training was an eye-opener and helped us refocus on what we should be doing. My professional career involved global sourcing and product development.
The value of email and communication to include making the email easy for the customer to read was very beneficial.
Has your thinking about the role of email changed? If so, can you describe it?
Marketing is about doing what works for the customer! It’s important to be focused in email communications as well as conversational vs. a bunch of facts. Folks today want to know you understand their delimma and concerns. And offer a solution!
What was it like to work with me?
Your skill to program DRIP was expected. What I was really after was your experience working with other like-minded farms. This means you had valuable skills from exposure doing what we needed to do! There was not a lot of trial and error. You brought proven techniques to the table.
I enjoyed our time together! While your personal time sometimes got in the way, I respected that and know you need to care for your family. All work and no play makes Chad a dull guy!
I thought you did a great job managing my project as well as numerous other projects at the same time. Scheduling, being on time, etc. was all professional. You always did what you said you were going to do! In today’s world that is a valued skill.
You were very upfront with the contract, cost, payment schedule, etc. There were no surprises!
And, I appreciate how you recognized a higher priority that needed to be corrected on my website vs. what was in the contract and approached me and made the case to switch.
You obviously know human nature! For example, when it came to creating the Coupon Code in GC – you made a short video of how to do this. That way, the client (me) would have a resource to refer back to vs. contacting you about “now how do you generate and add Coupon Codes?”
One last comment – I like how you took the initiative to read through my website and blog post to learn what we had been doing and pulling out the gems to use in the workflows.