Farm Direct Incentives Guide

Promote

PROMOTE is the outward-facing work of nutrition incentives that will bring new members into your community. Here, we offer resources that will help you to spread the word, letting people know both that your nutrition incentive program exists, and that it’s for them.

You’ve planned your program and your market community is on board. Your behind the scenes work is organized and now you’re ready to start attracting and welcoming shoppers who use SNAP. 

PROMOTE includes everything that happens outside your market, from marketing to customers through traditional and social media formats, to outreach through community ambassador programs,  offsite education programming, and transportation partnerships. 

A customer shows off their love for their local farmers market on a tote bag
Photo by WACO Farmers Market in Texas

We’ve gathered plenty of examples and templates for marketing materials and innovative approaches to outreach. We’ve also also included materials to support your outreach to funders and advocates, since communication and administration costs can add up to a significant financial burden.

One valuable resource as you build is the Nutrition Incentive Hub’s Messaging and Marketing resource page. For projects that are building a suite of nutrition incentive marketing materials from scratch, the Nutrition Incentive Hub can offer support.

As programs grow, ideally they are building relationships along with a customer base. Over the long run, incentives projects strengthen their bonds with other aligned organizations—ensuring a network of organizations and administrators who support one another’s work.

To help you identify those potential partners, we recommend building a community asset map. Connecting with local partners can also ensure that organizations in your area view your farm direct site as an essential partner in the fight for food access. 

Once again, your knowledge of your community and customers are the best promotional tool you have. In PROMOTE, you’ll find support to help you put your knowledge of the languages, communication patterns, and preferences of your community members to work in building relationships and bringing people to market.

Resource Library Guide: PROMOTE

See our best-in-class resources to help you promote your farm direct nutrition incentive below.

Communications

These guides and examples help you build a communications plan to bring customers to your market.

Example

Georgia Fresh For Less FAQs

A one-page FAQ from Wholesome Wave Georgia geared at potential nutrition incentive customers and vendors, this straightforward piece could be a model for other markets, regions, or states to clearly…
Getting Started | SNAP, EBT, and Nutrition Incentive Programs
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Example

How Fresh Access Bucks works

A simple overview from Feeding Florida, this web page is an example of how to communicate the most key information to help people understand nutrition incentives.
Getting Started | SNAP, EBT, and Nutrition Incentive Programs
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Example

SNAP at Farmers Markets: Advertising and Marketing

Hour long presentation from Durham County Dept of Pub Health, for Durham's Double Bucks. Advertising and marketing is one of the most important aspects of attracting SNAP clients to farmers…
Marketing materials | Planning and budgeting | Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement
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Template

BUNDLE: Press and Media Forms & Templates

When working with the press, or publicly sharing images or information about your site, having basic forms on hand is important. Many publications require a photo release form to be…
Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement | Planning and budgeting
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How-to

Washington State Farmers Market Toolkit: Chapter 8

The Marketing chapter of the Washington State Farmers Market Toolkit includes many resources around shopper motivations and attributes, print media, website, social media, graphics, and more.
Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement | Planning and budgeting
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Webinar

CSA Market Research Webinar

This Webinar from the Hudson Valley CSA Coalition shares research conducted into their customer profile. They offer in depth analysis and advice for converting potential customers in the region into…
Understanding your community and customers | Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement
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Fundraising and Capacity Building through Partnerships

Among the best ways to promote the work that your site is doing is through partnerships with local organizations whose audiences and goals overlap with your sites. Partnership-building can begin with the asset mapping activity described in the IMPLEMENT guide, and address a wide array of needs for your site from fundraising to transportation to education and engagement.

Webinar

Webinar: Building Strategic Partnerships

This webinar will support practitioners in identifying who are the key stakeholders to involve in incentive programming, how to bring them to the table efficiently and effectively, and how to…
Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement | Partnership development
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How-to

Promotions and Fundraising Toolkit

This toolkit from Fairshare CSA Coalition shows readers how to run fundraising events in support of subsidized CSA shares, including sample press releases, lists for managing and planning the event,…
Market budgets and fundraising | Program Administration
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Resource List

Farmers Market Promotion Program (USDA Grant)

USDA's FMPP grant program is a major source of funding for promotion and expansion of farmers markets, farm stands, CSAs, and similar activities. Their Website links to awarded grants, a…
Program Administration | Market budgets and fundraising
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Asset Mapping

Helpful at any stage in the process, this exercise in community connection helps you understand where needs and resources exist within your site and among your community.

How-to

Community Asset Mapping

This overview presentation from Cheshire Community Action describes the challenge with needs-based approaches, and how community asset mapping can foster greater positive impact.
Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement | Partnership development
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How-to

Asset Mapping

This presentation from Healthy! Capital Counties introduces an asset based approach to community health, and includes worksheets that farm direct sites could adapt to discover and document the assets and…
Messaging, Marketing, and Engagement | Partnership development
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Community Engagement and Advisory Groups

Many of the most successful nutrition incentive programs are engaged directly with community members who guide program choices and respond to program changes. See below for examples and guides to involving community members and partners in your work.

Resource List

Freshlink Toolkits Page

A library of resources from Case Western including lots of helpful materials in support of the Freshlink nutrition incentive program. Materials on produce incentives, food access at farmers markets, and…
Getting Started
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Stage-by-stage Guides

Our stage-by-stage guides curate our library’s best resources to meet you at every stage of the nutrition incentive journey.

Plan

Learn the basics of nutrition incentives and start building a program at your farm direct site.

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Implement

Take your nutrition incentive program from seed to scale and find support for day-to-day administration.

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Promote

Grassroots outreach, social media strategy, and more: learn how to connect with the community and build your customer base.

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Evaluate

How do you measure your program's results? Access our tools for data collection, management, and publication.

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Reiterate

Turn your data into funding for new programming through reporting and storytelling.

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