Promoting versus Marketing

Let’s look at the yardstick we’re using

by Tom Roberts, June 2015  

At the close of the market day, the best way I have of telling whether we had a good day is how I feel about the day. Did I have fun? Did my customers have fun? Was it enjoyable for me and my crew? Regardless of how tired I am, was I sorry to see the market day come to an end? Did I connect with (as opposed to simply sell to) a good number of shoppers? If I can answer a resounding “yes” to these questions, then I feel we had a good market day.

But what about the day’s sales? Ah, yes, that all-too-common reduction of the evaluation of a “good day” to the economic bottom line of “amount of cash in the till”. If sales were decent, yes, I am happy. But when I think about how the day went, who I talked to, how deeply I connected with them, the thanks I got for spreading gardening lore or describing how to use a new food, then the amount of cash I brought in is merely a minor but necessary part of the day. When I think about how good a market day it was, I think about how well and fully I connected with the shoppers who chose to stop at my stand today.

Which brings me to promotions. And marketing.

Promoting products can at times, for short periods, be quite worthwhile. There can be no denying that it is valuable to let shoppers know when the first corn, cukes, tomatoes, or spring spinach is ready; to provide recipes and preparation tips for quick and efficient use of in-season local produce, meats, and cheeses; to spotlight challah breads for the holidays or remind how good pancakes are with real maple syrup. Promotions are product-oriented, and remind or suggest to shoppers that the price, availability, or flavor of particular products are now at their best.

Marketing, meanwhile, is done by those who are going beyond simply promoting, are helping build a brand for both farmers’ markets and for farmers’-marketers, emphasizing the quality, freshness, uniqueness of the products and of the shopping experience that can be found at the local market. Shopping at a farmers’ market is not the same as shopping at a supermarket, and not solely because of the products themselves. In fact, for many shoppers the products they buy are only the baseline reason they shop at a farmers’ market. The quality of the shopping experience itself, what it’s like to schedule a trip during market hours, rain or shine, to see what is available from whom, what has been recently harvested or has just come out of the oven, and who of the familiar weekly faces has what to offer today.

When it is the shopping-at-market experience itself that is promoted instead of any particular products, then we are marketing the idea of the farmers’ market by establishing it in people’s minds as an institution whose features are not to be missed. This applies to spotlighting the individual uniqueness of each farmers’ market, and it applies as well to the general characteristics of all farmers’ markets. Both are valuable assets worthy of marketing.

This means, of course, that each vendor at each farmers’ market has a responsibility to provide a genuinely valuable and positive experience to their shoppers, one that goes beyond the mere quality of their products. It is the sum of all these experiences with each vendor that makes each shopper want to return to their market.

Just like the “cash in the till” at the end of the day is for the farmer, the “goods in the bag” when the shopper arrives home is only one part of how they determine if they are having a good day. The products are but a part of a big picture determining whether they are excited about returning to market next market day.

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