Taste The Local Difference

Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste The Local Difference. You can follow on Facebook as well.

Muck Boots 

Calendars.Com

If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment. Or just buy me a coffee 

https://buymeacoffee.com/lewismaryes

00:00

You're listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters.  I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Erika at Taste the Local Difference. Good morning, Erika. How are you? Good morning. I am doing great. How are you? I'm good. Where are you located?  I am in Michigan, just south of Ann Arbor. Okay.

00:26

Awesome. I'm going to be talking to an old friend on Monday morning for the podcast who lives right near Ann Arbor. So that's kind of funny. That's great. Yeah. What a small world. Yeah. He, he's a musician and he's, uh, older than me. I'm, I'm 55 and I know he's at least 10 years old than I am. So he remembers when, um, music was something you got on records and eight tracks and it should be really fun. Wow. That's cool. Very cool. Yeah. It'll be really fun. I'm excited.

00:56

Um, so what's the weather like in Michigan this morning? Thankfully, it is actually pretty beautiful. It has been  quite hot and humid lately, so it's, it was nice. took a nice little walk this morning around my neighborhood and it was, it does seem to be getting a little bit cooler, but you know, what are you going to do? It's August.  It's pretty normal for this time of year.  Oh, for sure. And it's coming.

01:21

fall is coming. heard geese calling the other day. Some of our maple trees are starting to turn and that could just be the weather stress, but I really think we might be looking at an earlier fall. So that would be  welcome after this very hot summer we've had. I'm in Minnesota, so it's been hot here too. Yeah, definitely.  When I got up this morning, my husband had opened the kitchen window and the living room windows because our AC is broken.

01:50

Oh goodness.  was awake at like 4.30 this morning because I get up early and I got my coffee and I was  sitting in my living room, sipping my coffee and scrolling Facebook as I do. Everybody does these days.  And  I could hear the crickets chirping because the windows were open. It was just such a lovely way to start my day. Yeah, that sounds great.  It really was because usually the windows are closed because the AC is running and you don't want to let the mugginess in.

02:18

when you're running an AC. So  there's a blessing to our AC being out. I'm okay with it. It's true. Okay. So tell me a little bit about yourself and your role with Taste the Local Difference and what Taste the Local Difference is and what you guys do. Yeah. So I am the Director of Impact here.  Which I love. I love that title.

02:41

Thanks. love it too.  And, uh, so what we do  is we do marketing for farms and local food and beverage businesses. And that also encompasses things like agritourism,  farmers markets,  restaurants, food trucks, et cetera, know, distilleries, craft beverage, anything along those lines.  And,  um, this is our 21st year.  So.

03:09

We started in Michigan, but we work with businesses nationwide. We also have Michigan's food and farm directory, which is really cool. And we are just big believers in local food and local food systems, local food economies, and really uplifting the people who grow and make food and beverage for other folks to.

03:36

enjoy. And so we really like to be able to help them with marketing education  and primarily marketing services. So folks can come to us for their websites, their e-commerce, you know, to do  full branding, like if they need, you know, a logo and a brand kit, we do marketing strategy,  email marketing  setup, social media, pretty much the whole gamut if it's under marketing and

04:05

Then what my role overseas  is, um, I do a lot of  the marketing education here as well. So I just was teaching a webinar last night for one of our partners.  And, uh, we also do what are called food systems impact partnerships. And so I will work with folks that are from like nonprofits.

04:30

governmental organizations, economic development agencies, universities, et cetera.  And  we partner with them  to help support the folks that they work with. So a lot of times these are organizations that are supporting farmers or small food producers.  And  they will work with us to help  either like subsidize marketing.

04:57

what is called in  the industry, like technical assistance, which is basically marketing services  and or marketing education. So that's what I do. So like right after this, I have a call with somebody  who is in  Vermont  at a nonprofit that helps farmers and they have a farmer education program. So that call will be all about seeing, you know, if there's a way that we can partner together to help support the folks that they work with.

05:24

Okay, since you mentioned that, how much time do you have? Because I don't want to go over.  Until about  the half hour mark.  Okay, cool.  All right.  Minnesota has a website that they use to promote  local produce growers and  some makers, actually, people who make baked goods or  like soaps or things like that.  It's called Minnesota Grown and it is through the state.

05:53

So is your thing with Michigan, is  it for the state, is under the state umbrella?  It is actually not. It is ours and we've had it for,  you know, I don't know how  many years  now. I know  many, many, many years  that we have been doing it. We have  also put out a local food guide for

06:17

a very long time.  For most of our existence, we put out an annual local food guide. This year is the first year it is  all completely digital.  And that  really goes hand in hand also with our directory. But the nice thing about our directory is it's entirely free to join, to set up an account.  no, we run it, we manage it,  and we actually have licensees in

06:46

currently in three other states and we are always looking to expand on that as well. Okay. So is your organization nonprofit? So interestingly, we started as a nonprofit. So we were born out of a nonprofit that still exists that we work with  on a lot of different projects that are  food systems related still.

07:12

And then about, I think it was about  six or seven years ago now, for a few reasons,  it just made the most sense to  form, like to basically move away from that  nonprofit formally and become an LLC because, you know, moving into the world of doing marketing services and a few other things.

07:40

We wanted to be really like nimble and agile to be able to,  you know, flex with the market so that we could serve  our clients hell really quickly with what they needed. And so, yeah, so we are now technically an LLC, but for most of our existence,  we were a nonprofit. Okay, cool.

08:03

All right. So if someone wants to avail themselves of your services for marketing and all the other things that you mentioned,  I need to know if it's affordable for someone to get help from you or if it's not, because a lot of people who are starting small businesses  are not flush with cash as you know. Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things that we really try to prioritize

08:31

is affordability of our services. So we,  when we look through our service offerings and we price them, we price them as affordably as we can in order to be able to, you know, metaphorically, as they say, keep the lights on for ourselves.  Uh, and so,  yeah, so we  really do keep that in mind because we know the folks that we're working with, most of the, like a lot of the people who

09:00

are on our team have either farmed themselves or  been very adjacent to the world of farming or  worked in  small food industry and things like that. So we definitely get it. We understand.  we keep our services as  affordable as possible. Obviously, affordability  is  a spectrum. So  one of the things that we also have  a resource

09:30

for on the site  is  there is a,  one of our like blog posts  is a resource that is about grant funding. And  so one of the things that we encourage folks to do, and we do this a lot  is whether it's grants or other alternative  forms of funding, such as like micro lending and things like that is  if,  you know, if there are  resources near you that you can

10:00

look into, whether it's through your chamber of commerce or economic development agencies, things of that nature  is  see if there are  programs  that you can tap into that meet, might be able to help to subsidize some or all of what you need. So like I said, we partner with a lot of organizations where let's say like a small food producer,

10:28

is going through their business bootcamp.  And then  as like a incentive for completing all of that programming, that person gets a stipend to come spend with us.  And,  you know, lot of those comp or a lot of those organizations feel comfortable partnering with us because  we understand and we are trusted, you know, with, um,  like local food specific.

10:57

marketing, right? So we get it. We  have a proven track record within the industry.  And so  they know they can trust their investment in partnering with us if they give us a stipend on behalf of one of their program participants. that is one option. Another option is if you are applying for a grant or some kind of other  business award.

11:24

You could always, folks can always come to us, talk about services. We can get you a proposal  and then you can  use that proposal  in your grant because having a very specific  list of services that you are going to use the grant on and the price point and everything helps  whoever is  doing the grant,  fulfilling the grant, helps them feel more confident that you

11:51

have actually looked into it and are taking it seriously rather than just  giving some arbitrary number of what you plan to spend on marketing. Okay. Phenomenal. I love that. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but- No, no, no, no. We love to talk about it.  It's not something that we shy away from because we absolutely get it and we totally understand. And  one other thing we have because we know  that

12:20

You know, for some it's just, that is still not going to be a possibility  or while they are, you know, waiting to hear  on  funding, there's still things that, you know, they need to do in the meantime, or they're going to want to do, um, or, and, or, you know, some folks just really want to DIY or they, they really want to have a better understanding of their own  marketing. we have a couple of things. So we have one that.

12:48

thing that is a really low cost,  but super high quality digital course called Local Food Marketing Academy that folks can go through on their own. you register and you can go through it, you know, from your own home on your own schedule. has templates, has  worksheets, it has a lot of things that are going to walk you through the fundamentals of

13:16

marketing your food business. And then,  and that is going to be something, you you can go through it again and again and again, and really feel comfortable and confident  in  doing your own marketing on your own. And then another thing that we have that is completely free is we have tons and tons and tons of high quality free resources. So  on our website, so localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources, we have

13:45

a lot of articles, we have downloadable  guides and we also have  all of our past webinars, the recordings, and then any upcoming webinars we have that you can register for.  so  that is something that we are always adding to and there's tons of good stuff already there.  even if you're like, okay, yes.

14:10

You know, what you have is affordable in terms of services, but you're still not there yet. We, we also have alternatives as well so that you're not stuck waiting in the interim. I love that you are making it so that people can get  started. And it's so hard to get started when you have this thing, this dream. Um, our dream, our dream was to have a farm to market garden, a big one.

14:39

And we have that now. And it is, I don't even have words, Erica, for when I look out my living room window and see this beautiful, thriving garden that has managed to  support a few people in our community  the last three years because we sell at the farmer's market and we sell from our farm stand on our property. And I didn't have somebody like you.

15:06

So we had to figure it out ourselves. Luckily, I have some marketing in my background because I worked for a friend who had a marketing and PR company. So I kind of knew how to do it, but a lot of people don't and they find marketing really scary. so,  so  since we're, I'm talking to you.

15:27

I have like three things that I would say you should do if you're starting a small business to get people to know about it. What are three things you would say right off the top of your head? Yeah, so I would say that it is really, really, really good to, you know, when you're thinking about all of the places like that you could, you know, show up.

15:55

digitally, right? So I was just teaching on this last night, actually. When you are thinking about  your social media platforms, because a lot of times people will set those up first because it's a bit of a lower barrier than trying to figure out how to set up a website. We are huge believers in having websites, but I know people usually will first go to setting up a Facebook  business page and Instagram and things like that.

16:24

Um, make sure that in your  bio that it's that you use all of that  space to be very clear about, know, uh, like what it is that you  sell, where are you located?  Um, any other info that a potential customer might  need, don't just assume that people will know. Right. So.

16:49

Um, take advantage of that and any like links of places they might be able to find you shop from you, contact info, whatever the case may be, take advantage of that. The other thing is, is I would say, um, you know, let your network know already, right? Don't assume that your friends and the people in your community know. I would.

17:16

go around and let people know. Let your friends, let people... If you're in clubs or other groups and things, know. Tell them about your products. Tell them what you're selling. Give them little samples or whatever it is that have your contact info or website or ordering info, whatever that might be, so that you can start getting the word out in a really grassroots way.

17:45

And then think about ways that you can  partner or collaborate with other  people or businesses where your target market is already showing up. So rather than having to do a lot of that heavy marketing lift yourself is kind of go where  your people already are  and try to get in front of them first.

18:12

As a bonus to that, would really recommend if you're getting set up with an email marketing  platform, there are some free ones that you can get, if you're below a certain amount of people on your list or very low cost when it's below a certain amount of people.  Already getting a newsletter sign up going with some welcome emails and that way when you're

18:40

when you're out and about, when you're doing different things  and people can get signed up, they can maybe like get a coupon and then you can already start capturing that info so that you can  re market to them again and again. Fabulous. I was, I was not actually going to touch on any of those three. I was thinking more low key for my things. So here's my things. Are you ready? Sure. Number one, don't forget that you are always the

19:08

face of your brand.  When you are out in public or if you are on  say a podcast like I am,  always remember that your attitude and your energy about your business is what people are going to react to. Yes. you cannot be a jerk in public and expect people to want to work with you through your business. Totally. That's my first one. You are the representative of your brand.

19:37

The second thing is, yes, tell your friends that you're doing this because people who love you want to tell other people what you're doing if it's Always, always talk to your friends. someone said, if you meet somebody new  and they say,  what do you do? I always say, well, if I, if I had a jobby job, I don't have a jobby job, but if I had a jobby job,  I would say I work at from my day job, but.

20:06

what my passion is, what I love to do is, and this is what I love doing and I explain it to them. Like I love my podcast. I could talk for hours about my podcast and people would probably fall asleep. So always, always, always when somebody says, what do you do? Talk about your baby. Talk about your business. And there was a third one. was it? Um, Oh,

20:33

always  label your stuff with your business name. Get some pre-made stickers with the name of your business name  and your website or your phone number or however you want people to get  contact with you  and slap that sticker on everything that goes out the door that somebody takes with them. Because if someone happens to see it, they might  have it stick in their brain and they might be a future customer.

20:59

Definitely. I would agree with all of those. And I feel like, I feel like ours really overlap because I feel like it's the same,  like why even thought, you know, with social media is like, honestly, you know, if it, if it's like stresses you out, like it's one of those things, like it's not even

21:20

It's not even like necessarily mandatory. It's just, it's the thing that I always think to mention only because it's the thing that people always think about and get really stressed out about. um, but it's, it's also the thing of like, you know, kind of like you said with the labeling, it's the same thing as like using all the digital real estate of the bio, right? It's like, you want people to be able to like attach, uh,

21:48

all of the info about you and your product together, right? Wherever they are experiencing you and or your product, like you want them to make that connection so that they can buy it again, right? Or that if they see something and they're like, that looks interesting that they know where they can find it, that kind of a thing.  Yep,  exactly. So if you blend what you said and what I say or I said,

22:14

you've got a pretty good marketing plan right there. It's just a matter of knowing how to do it. Definitely, definitely.  And I know we have  a really cool, I don't know exactly what date, you know, this episode is going to go live, but  in about a month from the day that you were recording this, so on September  17th,  we have a totally free webinar.

22:39

that  is  essentials for an effective holiday season. And honestly, even though the focus on this is going to be holiday, this is going to help you  year round.  Q4 tends to be a really,  I don't want to say  easy selling time for food  businesses.  It's not necessarily easy on the entrepreneur. It's very busy on the entrepreneur.

23:08

But it's typically an easier time to get people to buy because people are anticipating spending money anyways.  So we want to really make sure that folks are set up for success.  And so it's  entirely free. It's  on  localfoodmarketing.com forward slash webinars. You can register there  and  in case you're listening to this.

23:36

after that date and it's already passed. Again, all of our recorded past webinars are on localfoodmarketing.com forward slash resources and then just scroll down to the webinar section and it will be there. Do you happen to know how many webinars are listed there? You know, I could look, let's see. it's, I know we have,

24:07

Actually, you know what, goes to,  uh, pops over to our YouTube channel as well. So if you are somebody that likes to hang on YouTube,  um, that is where they all populate to as well.  Um, if you just look up taste the local difference on YouTube, they'll be there, but yeah, we have like,  um,  agri, uh, we have one on agri tourism.  That was,  uh, one that we did,  um,

24:37

And  that was recent. That was really great.  One that is farmers market focused, building a website,  branding, AI marketing.  We have a lot. There are quite a lot. And that doesn't even include our downloadable guides and then just our other  blog post type articles that we've written.

25:05

plenty, plenty, of good stuff. It's really a priority for us to have high quality, free resources for  folks too.  love that, Erica.  If you are a small business looking for information on how to market your business,  you need to go to Taste the Local Difference and check out all the free resources. And then if you need more help, you can always hire them to help you further.  Erica,

25:33

I don't want to keep you too long and we're at like 25 minutes. tell me the places that people can find you the easiest online. mean, you've said it, but say it again, please. Yeah. So truly the best place is if you go to localfoodmarketing.com, that is going to have everything there. It's going to have the resources. It's going to have a list of some of our services, uh, like a few examples of our past work. It's going to have more info on our.

26:03

impact partnerships that worked at my role overseas. And then it also has a place on there to  fill out a marketing inquiry form. what that is, is you just put in a little bit of info and then it sends an email to our team. And then one of us, know, within a few business days, we will get in touch with you  and we can set up  a phone call or a video meeting and we can talk.

26:31

about your business, your goals, services that might be helpful. We can put together a proposal for you. There are no strings attached. It's totally free to chat with one of us about some services and to just get a no obligation quote. And we would love to chat with you. Erica, thank you so much for your time today. You and your business are an invaluable service to people like me.

26:58

and my neighbor who has goats and a garden  and duck eggs for sale  and Hi Tracy, she listens to all the time. And I just, love what you're doing. And I know that it's not free, but you are providing a service that a lot of people need and they don't even realize that it's out there for them. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.

27:22

Yeah. Thank you for having me. We, we love doing it. Like I said, our, our primary goal is, you know, uplifting local farms and food producers. And it's, it's why we do what we do. And we absolutely love being able to do it. Great.  All right. As always, people can find me at a tiny homestead podcast.com  Erica. I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope your webinar gets filled up really big. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you.  Bye.