If there has been any positive news during the COVID-19 outbreak, it’s that more people than ever are flocking to their local farm shops in support of independent trade.
With this in mind, now is the perfect time to capitalise on the wave of interest in community businesses by using social media to effectively communicate with customers (and retain those new faces that may have stepped through your doors over the last few weeks).
Here at 99social, we pride ourselves on delivering affordable social media management to a wide range of clients from diverse industry sectors. That’s why we’ve come up with some useful social post ideas that could benefit you as farm shop staff and owners.
Share information about your loyalty schemes
Because your farm shop business takes in a lot of revenue from repeat custom, it makes sense to reward their loyalty where possible.
This is where promotion of loyalty cards on social media can help as many people in your network as possible understand that buying certain products or spending a certain amount in your shop can result in discounts or special offers the next time they visit. This is a tried and tested tactic to increase repeat custom and retain clients and used by everyone from McDonald’s and Starbucks to airlines and supermarkets.
Loyalty cards can make a real difference.
Recipe ideas
Another great way of increasing customer engagement and increasing produce sales at your farm shop is to link to blog content on your website that includes delicious meal ideals using products available in your shop.
It’s now a well-known fact that posting high-quality images of delicious-looking food tends to get social media users salivating, and most importantly, engaging. Attach an image of the recipe with a link to a recipe blog to stand the best chance of increased web traffic, likes, shares and comments. If this idea takes off for your business, you could take it a step further with live videos and cook along with videos for your foodie fans (all using items available from your farm shop, of course).
Recipes really get people talking and engaging with your brand.
Engage with supplier audiences
Social media can also help you build lasting relationships with not only suppliers but also their follower base too.
Why not try posting an online competition where customers can win a hamper filled with goodies from your supplier base providing meats, vegetables, chocolate, crisps, drinks and more?
This can also be used across all social media platforms you operate on, where you can tag in each business in order to engage their consumers as well as your own.
By creating a competition landing page on your website, you will also be able to drive large amounts of traffic from followers of all brands, all of which will provide contact information that can be used for future promotions.
Looking for help managing your social media? Depend on us for affordable social media management from as little as £99 per month.