June 2025 Farm Marketing News
This month’s update is all about things to make your life easier — a website feature that pulls double duty informing your customers while boosting your SEO, a guide to partnering with restaurants, a Klaviyo update that lets you collect SMS and Email opt-ins at the same time, and a new point of sale device from Square that packs a lot of cool features into a single lightweight package.
You’ll also see some fun facts about our newest Senior Marketing Consultant!
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Does your farm’s website need an FAQ?
Including an FAQ is a great way to enhance the user experience on your farm’s website, and they improve your farm’s SEO (search engine optimization) — the level of visibility your website has in Google and other search engines. For example: “Is your farm organic?” may help you show up for people searching for organic farms, even if your answer to the question is that your farm is not certified organic. The question gives you a chance to talk about your practices and educate readers about why you choose to farm the way you do.
Check out our resource post to learn more about why you should consider including an FAQ on your website, plus tips to get started and plenty of examples across topics.
Guide: Selling to Restaurants from LFM
This resource from Local Food Marketplace is full of information about how working with restaurants has changed in recent years, advice about types of restaurants to reach out to and how to prepare, and tips for working with chefs and owners. You can download the guide from LFM.
Webinar: “Unlocking Hidden Profits: Demystifying the Federal Retail Exemption for Meat Processors”
David Zarling of NMPAN will lead a discussion about the Federal Retail Exemption, including how small meat processors can use this information to drive sales. The webinar will cover:
Guidance on compliance
Tips for expanding local market reach
Real world examples
The webinar will take place on July 25, 2025 at 9:00 am PST / 12:00 pm EST. Register today!
Updates to Your Farm Marketing Tools
Shopify now allows you to set order limits for high-demand items
Shopify users are now able to set maximum order limits, allowing you to distribute inventory of high-demand items (like eggs!) across your customer base. You can also set minimum order limits for more cost-effective purchases.
Klaviyo + Shopify users can let customers opt in for SMS text messages at checkout
Klaviyo + Shopify users can now accept SMS text consent on the Thank You and Order Status pages at checkout, allowing you to collect email and text consent in a single step when customers create a new account during an order. Considering that texts have a 98% open rate — significantly higher than emails — we highly recommend taking advantage of this additional communication method.
Square has released a new pocketable POS.
This new lightweight POS allows you to process payments, take orders, and manage inventory on a portable, durable device with offline capabilities. The POS includes a large screen, a built-in dip slot, a barcode reader, and a camera so you can easily upload images to your inventory. Square has also redesigned its dashboard navigation menu.
Farmigo has added an option to attach a service fee to credit card payments
Shop owners can choose the fee amount as well as the charge title that appears on the payment summary. Find out how to take advantage of this feature from Farmigo.
What We've Been Up To
We recently wrapped up a graphic design project for our friends at Acorn Acres Farm, updating the labels for their pastured lard, beef tallow, chicken bone broth products. An engaging, cohesive design strategy can go a long way towards influencing a customer's perceived value of a product (and making it stand out on the shelf), so we love that this farm continues to support their sales by taking advantage of our graphic design services. Check out how the new labels fit in with the rest of the farm’s packaging design!
“Sarah [Highlen], from Grapevine, has been pivotal in our growth as a small farm and business. In our first year working with her, our sales tripled. Before meeting her, we really weren’t sure that we could afford to continue. Now we’re feeling more confident that, through Grapevine marketing and planning, we can continue to grow.”
— Phoebe Plomaritis, Acorn Acres Farm
Can we make your life easier in 2025?
We know the longer days of spring and summer can feel like, well, longer days — they fill up don’t they? Around the Grapevine office though, summer days are a little lighter. This is good news if you could use a hand since our waitlist is always shorter this time of year. In fact, we have bookings open as soon as the first week in July.
To get started, you can download our latest pricing guide, which also includes a link to schedule a call.
Meet Sarah Dasher!
Sarah Dasher joined Grapevine in April of this year as a Senior Marketing Consultant!
A few fun facts about her:
📍Where are you located?
I am in Stone Mountain, a nearby suburb of Atlanta, Ga.
🌱What were you doing prior to working at Grapevine?
I started out doing communications for non-profits, farms, and other small businesses before taking a detour to teach farm to school programming in Title I schools and run a city-wide farm to school program in Atlanta for 7 years. More recently, I was working as a graphic designer in a corporate setting when I discovered Grapevine. Reading about the company and all of the great work our clients do reminded me that the world of local food is where I really want to spend my time and energy.
🍅 What’s your current favorite meal?
Homemade sourdough with whatever’s in the garden thrown on top with some butter beans and oil + vinegar.
🌲 What do you like to do in your free time?
I go camping whenever I can, weave, draw, and silversmith, but the bulk of my free time is spent with my dogs or in the garden waging war on invasive grasses and squeezing in more pollinator habitat wherever I can.
🌄 If you could travel to one place in the world right now, where would it be and why?
I would love to be sitting in the Big Sur river, drinking hot coffee after taking a (quick!) dip.
📚 What was the last good book you read?
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
🍽️ Who would be your ideal dinner guest?
Conan O’Brien or John Cleese — I love to be around sharp-witted, hilarious people.
🎉 What’s your favorite holiday?
I love the winter solstice and New Years’ Eve because they mean that longer days and warmer weather are coming. Even though winter is my least favorite time of year, these two days feel full of hope and new beginnings.
🐶 Do you have any furry co-workers at home?
I have two dogs, a Texas heeler mix named Bodhi and a spaniel/shepherd mix named Lucy. They are a handful and learning to care for them in an appropriate way has been very rewarding!
✨What’s your favorite thing about working for Grapevine?
Being filled up every time I hear about the work one of our clients is doing, or something amazing that my co-workers have done in or out of the office. Being surrounded by a diverse but often like-minded group of people is a beautiful thing.
