
Most farmers try to push the “big sale” first… but what if your smallest product was actually the secret to long-term customer loyalty? In this episode, I break down the concept of the gateway offer—a key piece of your sales funnel that many...
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Today, we're diving into the concept of gateway offers. This is one of the most important pieces of your sales funnel, and yet many farmers don't even realize they should have one. In this episode, I'm going to explain what a gateway offer is, why it matters, how to identify yours, and how to use it to bring in more customers over time. Let's get started. Hey there, this is Corinna Bench and welcome to the My Digital Fund Podcast. In today's market, it's not enough to just grow your product, you've got to know how to sell it too. Welcome to the My Digital Farmer Podcast where we reveal online marketing strategies and tips to help farmers like you get better and more competent at marketing, learn how to find more customers, increase your sales, and build a strong brand for your farm. Let's start the show. Foreign welcome to episode 333 of the My Digital Farmer Podcast. I'm your host, Corinna Bench, one of the farmers at Shared Legacy Farms out in Elmore, Ohio. I'm also the founder of mydigitalfarmer.com which is all about trying to help other farmers like you get more confident in your marketing and sales strategy so that you can grow a profitable business. How's everyone doing today? Welcome back to the show and if you are one of my superfans who listens every week, thank you so much. I get emails from you guys and I love reading them. It encourages me every week when I sit in front of this mic to do yet another episode and I imagine you guys out there taking it all in and feels like one big happy community. So thank you. If you're new to this show, I hope that you become a super fan too. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Go check out my first 10 episodes if you're kind of new to the marketing space because I designed them to be an onboarding into the marketing lingo. Another place you can go is to get onto my email list because that's free. You can subscribe@mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe easy to remember. And when you do, I'm going to send you an email like every five days for about three months and they are going to basically walk you through the key principles of marketing. They build on each other and they give away free trainings and teach you key concepts, people you should be following. I get a lot of comments on the quality of that sort of mini training through email, so even if you can't get to them every week, just get on the list and Then put them into a little folder in your Gmail and you can go through them later. But it's really good. So that's mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe. Today's podcast is sponsored by my friends at LoCalline. If managing orders, customers and inventory feels chaotic this season, it might be time for a better system. Localline is the all in one sales platform built for farms and food hubs. Whether you're selling direct to consumer or managing wholesale buyers or running a CSA with tools like E commerce, automated inventory management, subscriptions, barcode scanning, box builder, and pos, localline helps you simplify operations and grow your sales. In fact, farmers using localline increase their annual sales by 23% and boost their average order size by 9.5%. Switching is easy. No setup fees, no sales commissions. And your onboarding manager will migrate your storefront for free, no joke, so that you can get started without missing a beat. As a podcast listener, you'll also get one premium feature for free for a full year when you use my code, MDF2025 at checkout. So head to mydigitalfarmer.com localline use that coupon code and you'll be on your way. Start selling smarter this season with localline. And now back to the show. All right, what do we got cooking today? It is Monday, September 22nd, when I'm recording this. This isn't going to go out for a few more weeks. I got a lot on my plate this week, wrapping up the end of our CCSA in about four, five weeks. We have five more boxes. And that means that our crew is going to be going home November 1st, back to Mexico, our H2A crew. And I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So if you are one of those farmers that is just tired, like bone tired, maybe a little bit frazzled, discouraged, you're starting to see the glass half empty. I just want to remind you that, you know, it's September and October and this is normal. And I'm not saying that we should, you know, like, aim for this or expect this every year, but as we are trying to get better at managing our flow, just realize that you can give yourself a little bit of grace because it is the end of the season, of the main season here for us vegetable growers, at least in Northern America. And yeah, it's kind of normal to be a little bit tired and frazzled by now. So it's okay. It's okay. In three weeks, I am opening the doors to my CSA early renewal campaign. This is where my CSA members get a chance to renew their membership for 2026. And they do it early. We always do it the last week of our csa. Actually, the second to last week of our CSA is when we run that offer for seven days. And that gives me the last week of the year to actually give them the bonus, the early signing bonus, when they pick up their last box. That's kind of why I time it that way. But I am getting ready this week to build that campaign. This is a big project of mine every year, and I'm a little excited about doing it this year because I did such a good job last season of documenting the process and making cheat sheets so that in theory, I should be able to go to my Google Doc and see all the exact emails just waiting there for me to duplicate and copy and paste and all the exact social media post copy and just duplicate them. Um, I even have a canva folder this year that I made last year where I can go in and see what were all the images that I used in the campaign last year and I can just download them again or switch them out real quick. So I'm hoping that it's going to be a lot faster, even faster than in years past if you want to learn that whole system. By the way, I have an amazing course called Early Bird Campaigns that Convert. And you can get that by just joining Farm Marketing School. It used to be its own course that you paid like 160 bucks for, but now if you just joined Farm Marketing School, the whole course is inside there along with all the other projects, and that's a whole lot cheaper. That's 69amonth. So I encourage you if you want to get access to how I do that, just join for a marketing school and you can get the whole shebang, the whole system, and copy and paste my emails and my social media posts and just get inspired. So just want to make you aware of that. But I'm excited about getting that done. I'm going to probably do a podcast episode about that again. I always do once a year how the campaign goes, what I learned, I'll let you know probably at the end of November. All right, well, what's shaken today? We are talking about Gateway offers. I drop this little phrase from time to time on the podcast, your gateway product, your gateway offer. And I'm not sure if I've ever done an entire podcast episode about Gateway offers. If I have, well, I guess I'm doing another one because they're that Important. And one of the most important pieces of your sales funnel, in my opinion, is the gateway offer. Because this is the bait. This is the first thing that you're luring your prospect in to your sales funnel with. And you want it to be a really good experience because if they love that first product, they're more likely to come back and buy again and you continue to create positive experiences. Right. And so we're going to talk today a little bit about what they are, how to identify your gateway offer, how to use it so that you can bring in some more customers. And I guess I'm just really hoping that you'll learn from this episode that you need to have one. So many farmers that I talk to in farm marketing school, when they're first getting started, they're trying to build out their sales funnel. They know where they want to lead people. They know they have this kind of signature offer that is usually a higher dollar amount and they're all hoping that their customers will end up there. But it's hard to get a customer to buy for the first time a product that is several hundreds of dollars. And so that's why it's important for us to give them an easy access point to have some kind of a first product that's priced pretty low just to get them into your sphere of influence. This is the value of the gateway offer and that is why we're going to talk about it. Because so many of my farmers have noticed when they're first getting started, they don't realize that that's part of the issue. Why they're struggling to get sales is because all they have is this very expensive thing and they don't have a lower priced product to just pull someone in. And designing that gateway offer is actually usually not that hard once you realize how they work, it's just usually a matter of splintering something off of what you already sell as a kind of a teaser product. But we're going to talk all about that today. So today let's start out with just what is a gateway offer and make sure you understand that. So this is the product that most customers buy first when they meet your brand. Can you picture it? Right now I want you to try and survey your farmer's market stand or your online store, or just your basic sales practice. And what is the product that most customers buy first? That's probably one of your gateway offers. It's the entry point into your sales funnel. It's usually a lower cost item because it's then easy to to say yes, to. Because it's a low risk. And I want you to think of it like a first handshake. Okay? So the Gateway product isn't about making you a ton of money up front. And I think this is why farmers often kind of miss this point. The Gateway offer is about lowering the barrier. So someone is just willing to try you out, and once they're in, you can move them into these bigger, higher value purchases. I sometimes get pushback from farmers who are like, well, I don't want to discount my products because I already have such a low margin. And the Gateway offer does not have to be discounted. I just want to say that right up front. But sometimes it is. And the reason that it is is because we're willing as a business to take a little bit of that margin away, knowing that the money is going to be made on the back end. Once they're turning into a customer and they start buying more and more frequently, we can pull that frequency lever, we can pull the AOV lever, average order value lever, and that's how we raise our overall revenue. So sometimes I'm willing, oftentimes I'm willing to take a little bit of a cut on that first Gateway product, or I'm willing to just only ask the customer to buy a very small amount the first time, hoping that they will then turn into that more valued client who's, who's buying a lot from me more often. Okay, so I want you to just picture all of your products right now in your product suite. And I want you to think about what are the, the products that you're currently promoting. Most frequently, when you're at the farmer's market and someone comes and says, what do you recommend? What's good here? Or you just have a really confident thing that you feel good about, it's a best seller and you know that if you give this to them, they're going to love it. That's probably your Gateway offer. It's the thing that's easy for you to pitch. You don't feel salesy doing it because you just know it's that good. So here's some examples by farm type. If you're a vegetable farm, this could be something like a pint of cherry tomatoes, a quart of strawberries, a bunch of carrots, maybe a salad bundle or even a salad dressing if you have a really good salad dressing blend that people go crazy for. A CSA sampler box is another good example. So for those of you who are just CSAs and you don't have Another way for people to buy retail, instead of only offering the 22 week box, you could offer a four week sampler, which is a slightly lower amount and that feels a little more accessible. Right. So that might be the gateway offer. And then once they go through it, you allow them to graduate and turn into a full season member. You give them that ability. If you're a meat producer, your gateway offers probably chicken breast, ground beef, bacon, sausage pack, maybe eggs. A dozen eggs, right. That just piques people's curiosity. A small grill pack bundle. So those are the things that meat producers often lead with because it's an easy point of entry. These are things that just about everybody likes and they, you know that they're going to enjoy it at the table, it's going to be a good experience. And then they come back and say, that was so amazing. What else do you have here? And then you can upsell them to all your bundles and, and your T bone steaks and your more expensive cuts of meat. Flower farmers, I'm thinking like sunflower stems or maybe your petite market bouquet. Not just like a one giant deluxe size, but maybe you create a smaller petite size so they can just have a little mini version of the full experience or a DIY bucket of blooms. They can pick out their own assortment that makes them feel like they have a little more choice. A value added kind of brand would be like a jam jar or a soap bar or a cheese curd or a loaf of bread, something again, that's, that everybody wants. That's a quick snack, that's a staple in the house. Okay? So notice how each of these items, they're not necessarily your most expensive product. Okay. They're the ones that are easiest for people to take a chance on because they're common. They're things that they already want to eat on a regular basis. It's not a hard sell. Now, why do Gateway offers matter so much in your sales funnel? Well, it's because they're marketing tools first. Profit generators second. I want you to just say that with me. Okay, here we go. Their marketing tools first. Profit generators second. This is like one of the most important keys I want to stress with you because so many people are reluctant to create a special gateway offer or maybe there's a discount or something because they just see the lost dollars that they're making on that, on that offer. And I just want to remind you that if this works the way it's supposed to work, that gateway offer, even though it may be discounted and it doesn't have to be, but it may be discounted. What it does is it brings the customer into your fold and then you make your money on the back end later when they continue to buy more things from you. Okay, if you have those systems set up in place like we do in Farm Marketing School, there's all kinds of things you can do to build the back end of your sales funnel. Then you can be confident that once they get on your email list, that sales funnel is going to go to work for you and start turning them into one of those kinds of clients and pitch the offers automatically so that they continue to buy and buy and buy. And they get on your weekly email list and you just make more offers and they keep coming and buying again. And at the end of the year, you look and you've made twelve hundred dollars in revenue from this one customer. And are you willing to have given away that first offer with a $3 discount? Yes. Every single time. The answer is yes if you're making a thousand dollars in revenue on one customer. Today's podcast is sponsored by Farm Marketing School. All right, farmer, let me ask you something. Is marketing your farm something you actually enjoy or does it feel like a constant struggle? If you are like most farmers that I talk to, you are wearing all the hats and marketing always seems to slip through the cracks. Can I get an amen? That's exactly why I created Farm Marketing School. It's an online membership designed to help farmers like you build a simple, repeatable marketing system that actually works. Inside. You'll get bite sized, step by step projects that make marketing easier. Each month you pick what to work on, like writing better sales emails or improving your website copy, or setting up your online store. And I walk you through exactly how you should be doing it. And you're not doing this alone. Every month we have a live zoom meetup where you can ask me questions, meet other members of Farm Marketing School, get coaching, and hear what's working for other farmers. It's like having a farm marketing mentor in your back pocket. This isn't some long, overwhelming course. The projects are designed to be completed in under 30 days. So you're making steady progress without it taking over your life. So if you're ready to stop winging it and finally build a marketing system that brings in steady sales, come join Farm Marketing School today. Sign up for your first month and see what a difference it makes. Go to mydigitalfarmer.com fms to get started. And now back to the show. So the other reason that Gateway offers Matter in the sales funnel is because they're lowering the barrier to entry. They're removing the risk for the customer. And risk is a really big deal. You need to learn how to manage risk as a salesperson. Realize that anytime you have a new customer, they have an objection at first that you have to overcome. There is some, like, fear that I won't like this product or it won't be worth the money, or, I don't know, it'll spoil fast. They just need to build that trust with you slowly. This is a normal part of human behavior. When we build relationships, we don't just jump right into a hardcore intimate relationship with someone, right? We get to know them first. We go out for coffee, we go out on a date, we meet their parents. There are these stages of intimacy. And it's the same with sales. We have to slowly build up the trust. And so we do that by removing that initial risk, that fear from the customer. Make it easy. Remove the friction. The value isn't in that $5 or that $10 that they're spending today, but it's in the lifetime value of the customer. Not even. Not even the customer value of one year. The lifetime customer value. Think about that. That's. That's a huge amount of potential revenue. And so we just really need to get. Get down this. This gateway offer and put some time and thought into it and be willing to invest in it as a. As a vehicle in our marketing system. So the gateway product is like opening the door to your farm brand. And once they step through, you can show them everything else you offer at all your other different prices that you want to offer them. And once they've turned into kind of a loyal fan, they're willing to pay that, right? They're willing to pay. So farmers often think if I discount or lead with something small, I'm losing money. And the truth is, you are investing in acquiring a customer. Okay? Lifetime value, that's the metric that matters. This is how much a customer spends with you over a year. And gateway products are often intentionally priced to be accessible, not to maximize your profit, but to maximize your lifetime customer value. Because you know, right, you know your product's good, and if you can just get them to try it, they'll love it and they'll want to buy again. So make it easy for them to buy the first thing, and then after that, trust your system and trust your brand. Okay, so how do we identify our gateway offer? Well, the first thing that I do is I look at my sales data. Well, that's not true. The first thing I do is I just anecdotally look at how things sell at the market or on my online store. Don't even look at your sales data right now. Just what does your gut tell you? You kind of have a good sense of the things that fly off the shelf, right? The things that sell out fast. What are the best sellers? You probably know what your gateway product is. And by the way, you can have more than one. I'm not saying you have to have just one. You may have a couple, two or three that you feel really confident leading with, but usually it's like, not more than three. Once you've sort of anecdotally asked this question, or you can even ask your customers this question. What are your best sellers? Look at your sales data, because the sales data may actually surprise you. You may discover by looking at that you probably have a bias for some of your products. And when you actually look at the data, you realize, oh, wow, you know what? In that month of July and August, my best seller is this. That maybe should be my. My gateway offer during those two months. So I always tell people, go look at your data. And then what do you naturally recommend when someone asks you, what should I try first? What's coming up for you right now? If imagine a customer is asking you that, what should I try first? What do you say? That's probably your gateway offer. What has the broadest appeal? It's another way you could look at this question. Salad greens versus kohlrabi. Salad greens is going to win every time, right? So what does that look like for you? And also, what is seasonally popular? There are certain icons every season that jump out, right? Strawberries comes to mind. Sweet corn is another one. The first dahlias. So even thinking through the lens of your seasons, you could have a gateway product that. That kind of switches based on the season. Obviously, I'm not pitching strawberries in August because they're not around in Ohio. So my gateway offer may change from month to month depending on the type of business you are. Okay, so how to market your gateway offer? I wanted to spend a little bit of time on this as well. First, I want to make the distinction between the gateway product and the gateway offer. Sometimes they can be the same thing, but not necessarily so. Gateway product is just like, what's the actual thing that you pitch that you sell? It's bacon. It's strawberries. It's for us, our crack carrots. The gateway offer is a little bit more of a distinction because you can take the product and then build an offer around it. Are you catching what I'm saying? So you might say, well, I'm going to sell my ground beef, which I know is super popular and is a best seller. That's going to be my gateway product. But I'm going to make it a special offer by saying for this month you can. When you spend. I'm sorry, when you buy a pack of an eight pack of burgers, you're going to get an extra burger with it. I have no idea if that's even a good offer. Please don't take that. I'm not a meat producer. But do you see how that was an offer? Like, I took this product and then I built an offer around it. Like, you can add a bonus or free free gift or an extra xyz. Like, doing something like that is called building an offer. And we have an entire class inside of farm marketing school that shows you the different offer formulas and gets you to practice for an entire month. Building different offers every month and just playing in the sandbox of offers to see how they do. Some of them tank, some of them don't. But you kind of discover some things about how offers work in the process. I really love that project. But there is a distinction between the gateway product, the gateway offer. So think about what would my offer be? Once you figure out this is the product, do you want to build an offer around it? Do you want to put a discount? Do you want to add a bonus? Do you want to give a freebie if they buy this thing? That's sort of up to you. I'm not saying you have to do that. You may not have to buy two packs of bacon, get one free, or get a sausage pack free. Like, that's an example of an offer using your gateway product of bacon as a lure. Okay, so when you're marketing your gateway offer, you just want to first of all build the offer, play around with, what are some different ways I could pitch this product? Then you want to call it out in your copywriting materials. So something like this is the best way to start with us. Like that sentence should be on your website, on your online store, in the product description, in the social media strategy that you have going on a regular basis. Remind people this is where we begin in our brand. Start here. You could even have a Instagram story or a special kind of featured story down on the bottom where you just have start here. And when they watch that featured story, they see all of the information about your first gateway product that's something I see a lot. So feature it in your ads, social media posts, your list, building campaigns, put it into your email promotions. So once somebody gets onto your email list, that's the first thing you're pitching them as a sales promotional offer in email. You're not leading with your expensive super duper signature offer, you're leading with the opening gateway offer. I also encourage you to train your farmers market staff. When someone asks the question, what should I start with? Or what do you recommend you tell your team? Hey, always point to the gateway product. That should be one of the things you point to. And then when you're building marketing assets, you want to take photos, you want to create recipe cards, you want to create testimonials offer bundle offers that are all spiraling around this particular gateway offer. So if you're going to pitch your bacon, we'll collect some testimonials about how amazing your bacon is so that you can have that in your product description or in the copy right around that element on your website. Or it's one of the things that you post on social media is a picture of someone frying the bacon at home that they sent you and you talk about how so and so bought the bacon and they loved it. Right. Use that as a testimonial that just continues to show people this is the place to start. And then even just using scarcity and urgency in your marketing around the gateway offer. So, hey, these strawberries only last a few weeks. Get them while you can. Or maybe you know your carrots, like our carrots. Carrots always sold out. When we used to go to the farmer's market, we could talk about that and say, if you want our farmers market carrots, our cracked carrots, you gotta be here in the first two hours because they sell out. And that caused people to know, oh, that's the thing everyone's crazy about. That's what I want to have first. That's the, the curiosity building product that catches a person's eye and makes them say, I want to try shared legacy farms. Yeah, I'm going to start with the carrots because apparently those sell out. They must be amazing. So when you're building the marketing around your gateway offer, right. Think about all of those things. The, the copy, the, the ads, the social media posts. You're talking about the gateway offer. Make sure that that is the thing. All, all roads lead to the gateway offer. Now let's chat a little bit about the back end of the funnel. Once someone buys the gateway product, what's Next, this is where you have to do a little bit of work of building the path. And this isn't what you do first. I mean, you can build the gateway product first just to get them on your email list, right? I would recommend build that gateway product first. That should be one of the first steps in building your sales funnel. That way they're, they buy that thing now, they're at least on your email list. And you can kind of live in the moment, you know, and send that weekly email as you're building the rest of your sales funnel. Just be sending that weekly email. But in the meantime, you're building out the back of the funnel so that this can kind of get set onto autopilot. So if you liked this, then I know you'll love that. You should have like a next obvious step for them to purchase. And I always tell my farm marketing school farmers that this is the stuff that goes into your email sales promotional campaigns, right? So we build out, once they're on our email list, they go through a nurture sequence where they, we don't necessarily pitch them until maybe the last email. In that nurture sequence, we're really just building trust, teaching them things, adding value. Then we pitch them our first offer, our gateway offer at the end of that nurture sequence. And then once they've bought and they're on a kind of our weekly cycle, they'll get subscribed to a sales email promotion, which is automated. And that is where you begin to pitch them. Maybe every week or every two weeks you send another email and you, you pitch them the next thing, the next obvious step in the sales funnel. If you liked this, you'll like this. This is what you should try. So from carrots, now it's time to try the salad bundle. And then maybe from there try the salad dressing. And maybe from there you're ready to try the CSA four week sampler, right? We kind of just take them along, hold their hand and show them the way. If you get the small mini petite bouquet, then maybe we can get them to graduate to the deluxe bouquet. Or maybe we can suggest to them that, hey, you should be buying flowers for your grandma. Or maybe we suggest, oh, how about you buy flowers for this occasion, for a congratulations occasion. And how helping them think through, who can I congratulate this week? And then maybe it's like, let's graduate to a subscription bouquet so you can pass out these flowers whoever you want every week, right? Do you see how that works? From ground beef to burger patties to a quarter Beef share, that's probably too big of a leap there at the end. But the back end of the funnel is created to pitch then those other offers that we know are the things that actually make us money. So an email nurture sequence should highlight that progression. A sales promotional email sequence is another tool you can use. You can also be using social media. You could have a, a YouTube kind of playlist that's walking through some of these different products and suggesting different things they could be buying. Even the way you set up your online store into categories. I know local line allows you to just stack categories on top of each other so you can have the same products in multiple categories. Even the way you set up those categories could be suggestive of. Now it's time to graduate to the chicken section and then the beef section and then the pork section. And now here's the bulk buy section and here's the grill, the grill master section. Right. You can suggest different ways to move through your products. So there's lots of different ways to build the back end of the funnel. And these are things that you learn about when you get into farm marketing school. We have entire projects for the email nurture sequence, for the email promotional sales sequence, for a social media plan slash strategy. Really good stuff in there. So remember, the gateway offer is just the first rung on your product ladder. And your job is to help them climb higher to move through the different rungs in the ladder. And that's what you're doing on the back end of the funnel. You build those assets as well. Okay, but the very first thing you're going to do is just figure out what is my gateway product. And then I always tell farmers, like, start there and then make sure you have a weekly email cadence. And then as you're kind of living in that week to week zone, start trying to build out some of those automated assets like the email nurture sequence, like the email promotional sequence that you can attack on eventually as you build them piece by piece. And then you can subscribe your subscribers to those different email sequences. So they just move through the funnel automatically. All right, well, that was a lot. Let's wrap up today. I want to just challenge you to identify your gateway offer this week. If you don't have one yet, maybe this was some food for thought. Maybe you can identify another one. If you only have one another. Another way you could use this challenge is to identify maybe one or two other ones you could play around with and see if one outperforms the other or to consider the, the Possibility that you might have different gateway offers depending on the season and to sort of build out some different pathways from that. So ask yourself, do I have one? Do I have a gateway offer? Is it obvious to my customers? Am I talking about it? Am I pointing to it a lot in my marketing? Is it the thing that gets a lot of press because it is the way in? Or am I talking more about my signature product that people don't usually buy until they've bought from me for like six months? Right. And then do I know the next step after someone buys the gateway offer? What is that next step? And do I have some marketing assets in place that coach them into that next conversion? Okay, so the gateway offer isn't about today's sale. I mean, you are going to make some money when somebody buys your gateway offer today. That's awesome. But it's not about today's sale. It's about tomorrow's relationship. Once you know what your gateway offer is, you can use it as a powerful tool to grow your customer base, to grow your average order value, to grow your order frequency, to grow your customer value in one year, and the granddaddy of them all, to grow your lifetime customer value. All right, my friends, that's all I got today. I hope this was helpful. Today's show notes can be found@mydigitalfarmer.com 333 and if you liked today's episode, please share it with another farmer. You can text them the episode link or go leave me a rating or a review for the show. I'd really appreciate that. That helps more people, frankly, want to try it out. And if you want to get onto my email list, you can do so by going to mydigitalfarmer.com subscribe if you want to join Farm Marketing School. Hey, I hope you join me this winter and start building out some of these marketing assets that I talk about every single week. That's the time of year to really do that work. And my friends, with the help of AI, this is so much easier than it used to be. In fact, I'm going to be updating some of my projects this winter with special video trainings where I just basically show you. Okay, here's how you do it. Now that we have AI, so I still want you to watch the original lesson and learn the principle behind it. But here's like an even faster shortcut so you can take that knowledge, stick it into ChatGPT, and this can be done in no time. So if you'd like to join Farm marketing school. We're going to have a blast this winter. I'm so excited. Go to mydigitalfarmer.com fms It's a monthly fee and you can drop out whenever you want. You pay month to month. You can try it out for a month, see if you like it. And don't forget that CSA early bird campaigns that convert course, that was. It used to be like 160 bucks. It's in there now as part of farm marketing school. So that's pretty cool. All right. Thanks for joining me today. That's all I got. Have an amazing week. And remember, I believe in you. Bye. Bye.
Title: Finding Your Farm's Gateway Offer
Host: Corinna Bench
Date: October 8, 2025
In this episode, Corinna Bench explores the marketing concept of the "gateway offer"—a lower-cost, lower-barrier product designed as the first step for new customers. She details why this strategy is essential for farm businesses, how to identify your own gateway offer, and the practical steps to leverage it in your sales funnel to grow customer value over time. The episode is packed with actionable marketing advice specifically tailored for farmers looking to increase leads, sales, and lifetime customer value.
Definition:
A gateway offer is the product most customers buy first when they encounter your brand. It's often lower priced and designed as an accessible entry point into your business.
“This is the product that most customers buy first when they meet your brand. It’s the entry point into your sales funnel.” (19:05)
Purpose:
The main goal isn’t profit up front but lowering the risk and barrier for new customers to ‘just try’ your brand.
“Their [gateway offers’] marketing tools first. Profit generators second.” (29:43)
Addressing Farmer Hesitation:
Many farmers resist creating discounted or lower-margin entry offers, fearing lost profit, but Corinna reframes this as a crucial investment in customer acquisition.
Reduction of Customer Risk:
New customers carry risk and uncertainty—will they like the product, will it be worth it? A gateway offer removes much of this friction.
“Risk is a really big deal. You need to learn how to manage risk as a salesperson.” (32:00)
Building Trust:
The gateway product acts like a first handshake, beginning a relationship that can be deepened with subsequent, higher-value offers.
Maximizing Lifetime Value:
Instead of focusing on margins for the first sale, focus on the potential long-term value a well-nurtured customer can bring.
“The value isn’t in that $5 or $10 they’re spending today, but it’s in the lifetime value of the customer.” (33:10)
Vegetable Farms:
Meat Producers:
Flower Growers:
Value-Added Producers:
“Notice how each of these items…they’re not necessarily your most expensive product. They’re the ones that are easiest for people to take a chance on because they’re common, things they want to eat on a regular basis.” (23:54)
“You may have a couple, two or three, that you feel really confident leading with, but usually it’s like, not more than three.” (38:55)
“Gateway product is just like, what’s the actual thing that you pitch… The gateway offer is a little bit more of a distinction because you can take the product and then build an offer around it.” (43:35)
“If you want our market carrots, our crack carrots, you gotta be here in the first two hours because they sell out. And that caused people to know, oh, that's the thing everyone's crazy about.” (49:02)
Sales Funnel Progression:
Guide customers into upsells or “graduated” products via nurture emails and backend automation.
Examples:
Carrots → Salad bundle → Salad dressing → 4-week CSA → Full CSA
Petite bouquet → Deluxe bouquet → Subscription
Ground beef → Burger pack → Quarter beef share
Marketing Assets:
Build nurture email sequences, sales sequences, social media campaigns, and store categories to shepherd customers forward.
“So remember, the gateway offer is just the first rung on your product ladder. And your job is to help them climb higher.” (58:30)
On overcoming resistance to gateway offers:
“So many people are reluctant to create a special gateway offer… they just see the lost dollars. And I just want to remind you, if this works the way it’s supposed to… you make your money on the back end.” (30:11)
On investment and customer acquisition:
“You are investing in acquiring a customer. Okay? Lifetime value, that’s the metric that matters.” (36:18)
On personal experience and what to recommend:
“Imagine a customer is asking you that, what should I try first? What do you say? That’s probably your gateway offer.” (41:10)
Challenge:
Identify your gateway offer this week. If you already have one, test an additional offer or build seasonal variations.
Questions to Ask Yourself:
“The gateway offer isn’t about today’s sale… it’s about tomorrow’s relationship.” (1:03:45)
Your gateway offer is the essential opening to your farm’s sales funnel and long-term customer relationships. By identifying and promoting a compelling, low-barrier product, and combining it with backend marketing assets and progression steps, you’ll convert more leads, nurture loyal customers, and dramatically increase the lifetime value of each person you serve.
Show notes and more resources:
mydigitalfarmer.com/333
Connect with Corinna and Farm Marketing School:
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