Marketing an Orchard Business - Growing Organic Orchard Fruits - page 699

ous unknown. People have been marketing farm products successfully since
ancient times. Industry groups, government agencies, and universities often
conduct workshops and seminars on the subject. You must, however, be ruth-
lessly objective about your own situation. You cannot make marketing de-
cisions based on how much you like living in a particular area or how much
you like growing orchard crops. To be successful, you must create high-qual-
ity products that people want, let the people who want to buy those products
know that you have them, and sell the products at competitive prices.
One of the first problems that new business owners get into — and a com-
mercial orchard is simply a business — is that they think marketing is just
another word for selling. Selling is only a small part of the marketing pro-
cess! It's important to always remember that you are not selling apples or
peaches. You are selling customer satisfaction. To be successful you must
sell that satisfaction at a profit.
Successful marketing involves many things, some of the most important
being:
▪ Selecting products that are, or can be made to be, in demand
▪ Identifying (often called targeting) a market population
▪ Selecting an orchard site and farm design that will allow you to create
your products and deliver them to customers profitably
▪ Developing a business plan
▪ Setting prices and terms of sales
▪ Developing good public relations for your enterprise
▪ Advertising and promoting your products
▪ Appropriately packaging the products for the intended market
▪ Selling the products
▪ Delivering the products to the customer in good shape and on time
▪ Practicing good customer service before and after the sale