ChopLocal Marketing

As an online farmers market, we market our platform to customers on behalf of our vendors. Just like a traditional farmers market that works to bring new customers through events, advertising, and promotions, we do the same thing to benefit our vendors. (It’s one of the things that makes us different from other online platforms.)

So what exactly does that marketing entail?

Well, first and foremost, all of our marketing follows these main principles:

1. Stay Positive. Our brand is **positive **and **celebrates **farms and small businesses. We do not disparage other farms or production practices.
2. Put the vendors out front. We focus on sharing photos of our vendors and photos from our vendors. We amplify the messages of our vendors.
3. Work smarter, not harder. Use smart, targeted marketing techniques like search engine optimization.
4. Use marketing dollars to benefit customers and vendors through sales and promotions. Put that money back in the pockets of our stakeholders (and not as much in the pockets of facebook and google shareholders!)

Specifically, we focus our marketing on these channels:

• Email Marketing - we use our email list to help customers learn how to navigate ChopLocal, help them learn about our new vendors and let them know about specials and discounts.
• Social Media - Facebook and Instagram are used to bring awareness to our vendors and their meats. We use ads to promote sales, drive traffic to our site, and remind past site visitors to come back.
• Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing - a key part of our marketing efforts, more than one-third of our website traffic comes from Google searches.
• Conversion Rate Optimization - product page enhancements (like additional photos, reviews and suggested products) help increase sales
• Sales and Promotions - seasonal sales and promotions bring new customers and bring back previous customers

We are always testing new marketing techniques and messages, because at the end of the day, if our vendors aren’t successful, we’re not successful!