By Christie Welch, Direct Marketing Specialist
The Direct Agricultural Marketing Team had a great 2016 assisting Ohio’s farm markets, farmers’ markets, agritourism operators, and stakeholders. Some of the trainings provided included:
• Monthly webinars on a host of direct marketing topics that are archived on our website for viewing anytime, by anyone with an internet connection.
• Many workshops and presentations from social media marketing to designing your farm market for flow and profit.
• Collaborated with attorney Peggy Hall, OSUE Agricultural and Resource Law Field Specialist, to offer a free webinar and resources at the Farm Science Review about the new agritourism law inOhio; Ohio Senate Bill 75.
• Collaborated with the Ohio Proud Program to offer two day-long training programs to Ohio’s direct marketers to improve their online presence to better communicate with their customers.
• Collaborated with the Ohio Small Business Development Centers to provide a train-the-trainer program, DeviceReady (previously Maps&Apps). This program will be used by the Ohio SBDC counselors to better assist their small business clients with online marketing.
• Collaborated with the Ohio Produce Growers and Marketers Association to offer a direct ag marketing track at their annual Congress. This 3 day conference provided training to nearly 350 Ohio produce growers and marketers.
• The annual team meeting gathered at Easton Town Center to do some on-site learning of marketing and merchandising techniques for businesses at Easton.
2017 is gearing up to be a busy year of additional training and assistance for Ohio’s direct marketers. We will be once again offering our free monthly webinars, many workshops including Ohio MarketReady trainings, and many presentations. We will be assisting Ohio’s direct ag marketers with how they can take advantage of current food trends and how to more effectively communicate with their customers. If you would like to learn more or would like assistance for your agricultural enterprise, please go to our website southcenters.osu.edu/marketing or contact Christie Welch, Direct Ag Marketing Specialist at welch.183@osu.edu.