Marketing Drives Revenue - Whether it's B2B or Even... Garlic
A tale of selling homegrown garlic through a solid marketing strategy
Marketing drives revenue. Full stop.
It turns out I have a lot to say on this topic! So I’m just going to dive in and get started.
Welcome to my corner of Substack [I’ll insert a catchy title here later]. I'm going to talk about how marketing drives sales.
I'm going to get started with a personal story that everyone seems to like. My husband grows hundreds of bulbs of garlic every single year.
Who’s in the market for locally-grown garlic, you may ask? Apparently a lot of people. But you've got to know how to reach them. My husband is great at storytelling, talking to people, making new friends. He doesn't know how to find an audience or market. That’s where I came in.
The years I helped him with his marketing, especially Facebook ads? He sold out. The years I didn't have time or he didn't "need" my help? There were baskets of bulbs lining the walls of my dining room.
Marketing drive sales. It drives revenue.
Does it do a lot of other things along the way? Sure. You need a brand, you need credibility, you need to be seen as a choice. But at the end of the day, all these things lead to sales.
Facebook ads only work as well as your offer and the audience that you target. As a marketer, I knew how to do both really effectively.
I'll focus on the audience first, for this example.
How did I know his ideal customer profile (aka ICP - marketers love a good ICP)? Hint: there were two. People who want to eat garlic and people who want to grow garlic.
Starting with interests, those were pretty easy to narrow down to people who like to cook and people who like to garden.
Demographics were also easy. Sometimes I rode along with him to conduct somewhat shady-feeling garlic deals in Walmart parking lots. While he was handing over a burlap bag in exchange for cash, I looked at his customers. They were generally of a certain age and gender, depending on whether they were planning on cooking or planting.
Geography is also easy, because we don't want to be driving to deals 50 miles away.
However… exceptions sometimes make for the best marketing opportunities! I piggyback on a nearby garlic festival to drive even more traffic — without him actually selling at the festival. Between signage pointing to our house and my Facebook ads, we brought in customers who lived hours away and who would have never have known us otherwise. Some of those became repeat customers in future years.
What did we learn here?
Look at who your customers are. What are they interested in? Where are they? How can you find more of them?
This applies marketing anything, not just garlic.
But garlic is fun to talk about. And tasty to eat.
Follow me if you're interested in more stories about how marketing drives revenue. Even if you don't have a sales team. If you coordinate your efforts, you can make it happen!
Love this! And yes, the garlic absolutely made the lessons stick! We have got to step into those shady Walmart drop-offs 😂, go where are customers are, and be friendly with them. I think you had on the real secret of marketing, and something I wrestle with - the idea that customer is not a data set… I think data is often backward-looking to the point where we miss opportunities by not really knowing our customer and being there at the burlap bag hand-off. but we also are lost without data as the foundation of that set of marketing tactics that helps us get in front of them. I’m glad there are people like you who can balance the art and science of marketing for small businesses, because it’s often terribly out of reach for the people just like your husband who need the know-how and would often fail if they didn’t have it.
Fabulous work launching and writing, my friend!!! Have learned so much from you, and can’t wait for the next edition!