How to market your homestead products

Jan 18, 2022

“The best marketers are farmers, not hunters. Plant, tend, plow, fertilize, weed, repeat. Let someone else race around after shiny objects.”
― Seth Godin, This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See

“If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you’ve done something worthwhile. The thing you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who’s it for and what’s it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.”
― Seth Godin, This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See

Out of thousands of homesteaders polled the number one question they had was "how can I buy land to start homesteading?"

But today I want to talk with you about the second most popular question homesteaders have. That one is "How do I make money at homesteading?" or "How can I sell things from the homestead?"

Usually, this spurs from an egg stand. totally no judgment there. In the summer we all have tons of extra eggs and we all want to pay for the feed. We know there's got to be people that want an extra dozen eggs or two.

Since that's where we started and probably where you started let's break this one down.

Having extra and selling it at a discount is not doing anyone any favors. All it does is show that you don't think what you have is worth anything. (why sell something if you don't think it's worth anything?)

I think when you break down this urge to sell eggs it's really that you want your neighbors to be eating good quality eggs...right?

There's also this connection that's just so awesome when you get to connect with your local community by feeding them. By supplying them with food.

So if we take the egg stand how can we really make money at it?

The truth is if you are feeding chickens organic layer feed, you have to be selling at $5.50 a dozen or higher to be making any money.

(If you're not feeding them organic feed you might be able to go lower but there are other issues at hand, those are for another email)

If this price is new to you I'm sure you're doubting it. that's totally ok. I did too!

But listen we sell a lot of eggs at $6/dozen from our market weekly. We do it because we have shared with our customers what it takes to raise happy chickens. AND this is the most important part. We share with them WHY happy chickens are IMPORTANT to them.

Happy chickens make happy eggs, happy eggs bring health to their family. Everyone wants a healthy family and I think we will all agree that we would spend all the money we have to have a healthy family.

We've helped our customers understand this by the labels we made for the eggs. They tell a story of happy chickens and their health benefits.

We have told them the stories of farming and raising chickens.

We have regular opportunities for our local community to come to our homestead and see happy chickens (along with other animals)

While doing all of this we have a logo and packaging that is the same on all our products. Our mission is on there and we are clear about what we want.

We want you to "never stop learning" we want to share with our community about food, animals, healthy soil, real education for children, and natural medicine. We want to share all we know and bring in experts to share more.

All of this can start with a pack of eggs or a bag of veggies, grass-fed beef, or even cut flowers.

I know this might sound overwhelming to think about all of this. BUT it doesn't have to be complicated.

Start by doing one exercise. Write out who you want your customer to be.

Get very detailed. You could even give them a name.

But once you know who they are, you'll know what they want and what kinds of stories you can share with them to help them understand why you have the best products.

Think about it like this. Someone named Jane has three kids and a husband that works in town. Jane's husband drives by your homestead every day. He buys eggs from you because his wife told him they need free-range eggs. What else would he love to buy? Maybe weekly cut flowers, some grass-fed beef, some jams. The list goes on.

Maybe one weekend the family would like to come out and tour your homestead to meet the chickens that lay the eggs that they eat.

The list goes on and on. Know your customer, connect with your community, and help them learn why what you have is what they need. AND how they will feel when they buy your products. This has to be authentic, this has to be real. In this day and age people know fake, they know a scam.

BUT it doesn't have to be a crazy concept. Bringing high-quality food to your community is a very noble goal.