Specialty food cataloger discovers innovative ways to build its customer base
ONE WAY to get a customer’s attention is to offer him or her a hearty country breakfast of buttermilk pancakes, wild Maine blueberries and honey ham summer sausage.
The thought of such a treat brought in about 1,200 new customers last year for Dakin Farm, a specialty foods company in Ferrisburg, VT that markets by catalog, on the Web and in two retail stores.
The offer is one of a number of successful partnerships the company has established as an alternative to the expensive, often disappointing efforts to acquire new business through list rentals and space ads, says Dakin Farm president Sam Cutting. “Even if we whittled it down to the best, most lucrative lists and ads, they were still costing us money. So we dropped both,” he says.
Yankee Partnership The pancake breakfast promotion was created through Dakin Farm’s partnership with Yankee magazine. Yankee runs full-page color ads featuring three different holiday gift baskets from Dakin, each including a year’s subscription to the magazine. The ads begin in September and run through December, Dakin Farm’s busiest season.
Two baskets are stuffed with breakfast items and another “Snacker” delivers cheddar, sausage and a honey-and-spice mustard. Prices range from $19.95 to $21.95.
Some 5,000 orders are placed each year through an 800 number at Yankee where a file is built and transferred directly into Dakin’s order and entry system. “There are no marketing costs and very little operations costs,” Cutting says. “We just have to pick and pack.”
Dakin Farm converts about 25% of those making these purchases to regular buyers. Orders can also be placed online via an address that links directly to the offer.
In a second endeavor, Dakin Farm partners with Westminster Cracker Co. of Rutland, VT, which makes two types of crackers, old-fashioned squares and oyster. And while the cracker maker’s main business revolves around delivering the product in bulk to food services all over the country, it has struck a deal with Dakin to handle its individual orders from consumers. Through the partnership, Dakin Farm gets new customers two ways: by slipping the catalog into outgoing orders and by upselling its own products – say a $9.95 bar of Vermont cheddar to go with the crackers – when the order is placed. Dakin places about 1,200 new orders a year for Westminster and converts about 25% of those to buyers.
Both the Yankee and Westminster Cracker promotions can be found in Dakin’s catalog.
Another effort capitalizes on Dakin Farms’ location in the rolling hills of the Champlain Valley, a busy tourist area. It’s now listed as a member of the Vermont Attractions Association and is named as one of 57 of Vermont’s best places to visit.
On the farm, visitors can take tours and stop by a new kiosk that’s designed with a strong focus on gathering the names of potential customers through a sign-in sheet. There, Cutting tells the story of the farm on video and a PowerPoint presentation details the pick-and-pack operations.
Those who sign up are mailed a catalog twice, once in the fall and again during the prime holiday season. The mailings pull a 4% response, drawing about 1,200 more customers into Dakin Farm’s customer base. “They may visit Vermont once in a lifetime, but we can always stay in touch with them through direct marketing,” Cutting says.
The company has annual sales of about $4 million. It sends out a 40-page color catalog and self-mailers to some 500,000 people annually. Dakin’s currently not in a growth mode as it reaches capacity at its plant. But it had been spending $40,000 to $50,000 a year on list rentals and space ads before finding success with other prospecting programs.
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