This webinar series has been created and developed by the Farmers Market Support Program and focuses on specific issues that market leaders highlighted as challenges for their markets during our application process.
Attracting Low-Income Customers to Your Market
There are so many great incentive programs designed to give low-income customers a nudge to participate in our local food movement. But how do we reach them? To help Kentucky farmers markets, the University of Kentucky and Community Farm Alliance have created toolkits for quick access to important information. Jackie Walters, MBA, RDN; Extension Specialist Senior for Nutrition Education Programs, will share a collection of instruments to aid farmers’ leaders in assessing and improving their level of preparedness to market to low-income Kentuckians. Margie Stelzer, Community Farm Alliance Farmers Market Support Program Associate, will take you on a tour of the CFA’s on-line, Farmers Market toolkit.
Location, Location, Location
Every now and again, we are presented with an opportunity to move our markets to a new space, or start a new one. In this webinar, we’ll go over how you can grade and project how the new potential location will fare for your market, and how you can counter any potential shortcomings that you uncover as you assess it. Finally, we’ll go over some of the opportunities available to you to build out in your current space. This webinar will be useful for any markets that are: Looking to move, on a short term lease, in a rocky situation with the current landowner, or outgrowing your space.
Staying at the Top of Your Game During Market High Season
The pressures of running a farmers market seem to compound during high season – customer and farmer demands, cash flow, reporting to funders, the heat, the exhaustion, and the list just goes on. Take a break from it all and join us as we discuss resources and methods to help you stay healthy, organized, and effective throughout the market season.
Getting More Bang for Your Buck with Facebook Advertising
Social Media Advertising is a very new horizon for most of the markets we work with. However, in today’s retail climate it has quickly become a important and effective tool to get the word out for our communities. Luckily, it’s often cheaper and easier than most folks realize! Join us and CFA’s Communications Director Maggie Smith as we demystify the paid advertising corner of social media and Facebook!
Leveraging National Farmers Market Week In 2019
National Farmers Market Week is a great annual marketing opportunity that any market can use to their advantage. In this webinar, we go over the resources available to your market, and discuss a few easy ways to get some positive attention from your community and the press!
Farmers Market Management Best Practices
There is no one-size-fits-all Market Manager job description here in Kentucky. Due to the decentralized nature of the farmers markets, job duties can be drastically different from county to county. On this webinar, James from Community Farm Alliance will go over some of the most important duties that market leadership should consider when employing a market manager. Join us as we go over the best practices, liabilities, and realities of managing a market of any size!
Crowd Counting for the FMSP Programs
This webinar is built to discuss the crowd counting methods available to markets participating in our program
Financial Freedom Through Fundraising
‘Doing more with less’ is a battle we wage across the spectrum of our lives, and farming and farmers market leadership isn’t any different. From what we see in our Farmers Market Support Program, markets are often handcuffed by the limits of their small annual revenues. Vendors can’t always afford big market fees, and markets can’t always survive, let alone excel without being able to buy ads, signage, market equipment, host events or performers, or (heaven forbid) pay for legal fees. Enter Fundraising! We discuss the solutions available to your market to pad your market’s bank account and give you the ability to spread the good word about what you and your farmers do in your community! In this webinar, Whitley County FM Volunteers Sandi Curd (Kentucky Highlands Investment Corporation) and Kristin Smith (Wrigley Taproom and Faulkner Bent Farm) present on the diversity of options before you and your market!
The Lucrative Power of Sampling Your Products
Nobody enjoys throwing away their money. In farmers’ markets, we often encounter customers wary to buy food they’ve never tried before. Simply put, those customers don’t want to risk their cash. That’s why sampling is so effective! The Center for Crop Diversity’s Tim Woods proves how effective sampling is in boosting sales. Then, KDA’s Nancy Monroe goes over the paperwork needed and best practices for sampling at market.
Revisiting or Developing your Rules and Regulations
It’s still warm out, but the first frost isn’t too far off! Now’s a great time to reflect on the market’s performance and to start thinking about 2019! In this webinar, we’ll examine how to think about your market’s organizational structure, and how it held up to the stress tests put forth by customers, weather, and vendors this year. Then, we’ll discuss when and how to implement a rule change if it is needed.
The 2018 Social Media Landscape for Markets
For better or worse, social media has quickly become an essential tool in your market’s toolbox. Here’s the good news: having a strong social media presence isn’t too hard to maintain, and can make a huge difference in getting bodies to your market! The catch is that the strategies that achieve that goal evolve yearly. Join us and KCARD’s Kati Bowman as we discuss the newest trends and tips and tricks to make sure your market is still reaching your community!
Leveraging National Farmers Market Week In 2018
National Farmers Market Week is an annual marketing opportunity that any market can use to their advantage. On this webinar we go over the resources available to your market, and discuss a few easy ways to get some positive attention from your community and the press!
Community Involvement
At first glance, farmers markets are a place where producers can directly sell their farm products to individuals and families in their community. Farmers markets are also a venue for community development. When farmers markets prioritize community partnership development, they are solidifying the markets place within the community as a space for economic vitality, food access, relationship building and general prosperity. Join us as we discuss how you can harness your community to create an even better market!
Finding your Brand
Too frequently, farmers markets have to fight to be remembered by the average consumer. How do we set ourselves apart from grocery stores, online delivery companies, and the big boxes? Join us on Monday May 14th at 11am as we discuss how we can differentiate ourselves, and work towards ensuring our markets keep a permanent spot in our communities’ psyche. Our guest presenter, Natalie Biesel is a small business coach with nearly 2 decades of experience in marketing and design.
Working with the Media
A thriving farmers market increases your farmers’ earnings and strengthens your community, but how can shoppers find you if they don’t know you’re there? Getting media for your market is the best way to get the word out, and that doesn’t have to cost money. In this webinar, you’ll learn fundamentals that can earn free media coverage all season long from Sarah Fritschner, a consultant with Grow Kentucky, who was the Courier-Journal and Louisville Times food editor for more than 25 years and has managed media relations for more than a dozen markets.
Marketing: Know Yourself, Know Your Market, Make a Plan
Brett Wolff from the Center of Crop Diversity joins us as we discuss how to use marketing to your advantage. We’ll go over some basic marketing principles including considering your product, understanding your market and customers, and some of the promotional options available to get your message out.
Business Planning For Your Market
Farmers markets are not typically businesses themselves, so why do they need a business plan? And if they do need one, how does a market go about putting one together? In this webinar, Aleta Botts with the Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (KCARD) will discuss why markets should put together a plan, what it needs to include, how a plan for a farmers market differs from a plan for a business, and what resources are out there to help.
Making your Market Manager Matter
We here in the FMSP strongly believe that investing in a market manager can create a significant return for a market. But where do you start? In this webinar, we discuss how to measure the impact for the position and prove value. This webinar is designed to provide you with a work-plan framework giving your manager action items and measureables over the course of the season to track progress and results.
