I will preface this by saying that I don't do farmers markets anymore, but when I briefly did:

I had a very public presence. By making myself known in local schools, volunteering my gardening skills when I could, being a member in the garden club and master gardeners, and being familiar to local chefs, who put the name of my farm on their menus or websites, and writing for local media,I had name and brand recognition from day 1.

The restaurants that I sold to, and who have always been my primary clients, were well-known and highly regarded - by association, my reputation grew.

Buy advertising in church leaflets. It's cheap and creates an association that isn't tainted by the political issues of various newspapers. Go to every denomination, not just the one you belong to... you should be just as willing to take the Buddhists' money as the Baptists', because God, for most people who believe in God (maybe not some current Republican candidates) is not about money.

I displayed my produce like it was on 5th avenue, clean, uniformly sized, easy to see and to pick up without making some awkward pyramid that would tumble when the first bonehead decided the zucchini they deserved was the one on the bottom. Actively maintain your display whenever you aren't engaged in a sale.

Do something on your farm that can serve as a press release rather than an advertisement. By having local media provide free coverage, you create public goodwill that goes much further than paid advertising. If I understand your operation correctly, it involves family members. Get some t-shirts printed that display the name of your farm and get the family to participate in some type of community service where those t-shirts are prominently visible - way cheaper than a 2" newspaper ad, because the t-shirts last for years. Whenever it's not inappropriate, wear the t-shirt in public. With a good design, the t-shirt itself becomes a commodity that you can offer at your table. Use it as a banner. Sell just a few, and the price of the shirts is covered.

Only sell great product. Eat the blemishes. Donate what you don't sell to food pantries, prisons, schools, animal shelters, local farmers who are struggling. Make sure the local media is a ware of those donations. Create a reputation of absolute quality and integrity, and waste nothing.

If you are serving a metropolitan area be sure and get a free listing at localharvest.org

Here is a link that might be useful: localharvest.org

At this moment, I've been on local harvest since 2002, not much from them.

I'm looking for more sites like localharvest.org that covers Indiana.

Unfortunately, I'm starting from scratch, I didn't want visitors at the farm during the time that I was at my bigger market, so nobody really knew where I was. Would love to have 1 more season at that market, ONLY to be able to re-connect with my regular customers. Hind-sight, I should have made all those contacts.

I thought a couple years ago to try to "spice" up our stand like Hooters did for wings. Turns out that my wearing skin tight tank-top shirts and tiny, tiny shorts was not a sucessful marketing strategy. Who would have thought?

On a more serious note, the biggest jump we see in activity is when a local paper runs a story on the market - usually about 30% over the previous week. The newspaper in the city with our two biggest markets has for the last four or five years run feature peices at least on one of the two markets each year including a front page story with a picture of Dad once (oh he hated that but sometimes you have to take one for the team). Over the following weeks the boost drop off but it does bring new customers and some do stick. Newspapers are usually happy to run a local profile story, especially since the Eat Local movement had gained traction and have offered to send a reporter out to the farm in the fall during apple season to do a story. Gives them a good local article and us great publicity. You might either write a news release or just contact the local papers in the spring when you have a started selling and have a good supply of produce seeing of you could stir some interest. After all the price is right and anytime you can get your face out there for people to see it can only help your sales.

Tom

Marla does your farm have a facebook page? Mine does with almost 600 followers and that has driven quite a bit of business to my farm. A lot more than local harvest ever has.

An email list also helps a lot as long as you can send one out about every week or two.

Have you sent out press releases to all the newspapers? Do you have a local foods group in your area. In Cincinnati we have Cincy locavore, a yahoogroup, that is huge and active and that has also gotten a lot of business for my farm.

and I cannot say enough about signage at the point of sale. Years ago I bought banners that say things like asparagus, heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn, etc.. from produce promotions and they work.

You may be able to find cheaper banners but I do know the heavy duty are worth the extra money as they last 3+ years and can take heavy winds and the regular banners last maybe 1.5 seasons and a decent thunderstorm will rip them to shreds

Here is a link that might be useful: Produce promotions

Thanks Lucy, I don't have anything at this moment, except word of mouth. I do have a facebook for myself, basically just keeping up with nieces/nephews that live out of town. I wasn't sure if facebook or twitter would help, I'll be learning more about them this semester.

I did get some strawberry banners a few years ago, never used (bad strawberry year). I think they were from Promotions. I do have an arrow sign that was given to me, the ones with the numbers/letters. Note to self, think of cute sayings.

I have a guy looking into a webpage for me, but haven't heard anything yet, only been less than 1 week.

Tom, maybe your sister would have been better with the 'costume'. LOL

After all the years at the farmers market, it's hard to change and do all the thinking ourselves.

Marla

I make advertising part of my yearly budget and do something different every year. Business cards are cheap and can be handed out or posted everywhere you go. We also have green bags, hats, and shirts with our logo and info on them. Since I'm a teacher and sell a lot at my school, I always make sure to advertise in the yearbook. I also really appreciate that my restaurants include us regularly on their menus. Local Harvest initially generated quite a bit of interest and got my email business started, but it has waned over the last couple years. We don't do Facebook yet or have a webpage but eventually will.

Brook, I remember when we searched for sponsors for the year book, door to door and driving between. First day I really had permission to take other students around in my car. Oh, such a long time ago!

Marla

How about hosting an event such as a candle lit dinner with food from the farm? Could even be a joint venture with one of your restaurants.

An event sounds good, probably not the dinner, I don't have the restaurants. Now need a way to get the word out.

We have a few banner signs that we got from produce promotions in Plymouth, IN that say things like "fresh vegetables" and "fresh Produce". We hang them up on the back side of our metal carport that is also our location for our farm stand. You can see the banner from the highway where we're located. We are fortunate that my Dad's field goes up to the highway, so we hang one on the fence there too.
We have an "A" frame plywood sign that we made ourselves at the end of the driveway. It has strips of industrial self stick velcro applied to it. We have the fuzzy part on the sign and the loopy part on the words. We have laminated words with the other part of the loopy part of the velcro on the back that we stick on the sign. Like if we have corn, "corn" is on the sign. If we have cucumbers, that's on the sign. The self stick part of the velcro worked for the first year, but now we just used a staple gun to attach it because the glue finally gave way.
As soon as we sell out of something, the words for that item comes down. That way people don't have to pull in if we're out of something. We see people stop out front(not a busy road) and read the sign, and then pull in.(People said they really like this!)
We do our stand on the honor system if we're gone or busy since it's back off the road, and we get the same people all the time. But there are more every year it seems.
If we're not too busy or at home, we come out and wait on people, and if we happen to be gone, most people are ok with the system here since they know us from the times we do come out and talk to them.
I advertise on facebook, I have a business page. I also make sure to tell people that we have a stand when I go to the farmers market. Sometimes now when people miss the market or just don't live closer to us, they come out now, they've told me.
Also there is some kind of website through the state that you can advertise on for free I'll look and see if I can find the address. I know at least a couple of people came because of that ad. Hey I found it, link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: indiana marketmaker

Thanks Sandy. I got domain name and a website hosting, but no website created yet. Need to talk to someone else that knows what they are doing, definitely NOT me. We also live off the road, but can put a portable type sign at the road. I think our road may be too fast for people to stop and read, but I like the idea of your signage. I was going to use the portable arrow sign for basically the same thing. I'll check out the state's site.

Marla