The OFMA Resource Library
Brand & Marketing Toolkit

Brand &
Marketing 101

Just like you have a unique personality — the way you look, talk, and experience the world — your farmers market has the same. When we're referring to a business's personality, we call it their brand. A brand is your market's identity — the unique combination of your looks, market culture, ideals and values, and your reputation. Branding is the experience that you promise your customers will have when they visit your market, and marketing is how you reach out to them.

Watch our Branding and Marketing Toolkit Launch Workshop to learn how to best utilize the toolkit

This chapter includes:
What is branding & marketing?
Case study: Sisters Farmers Market
How can you get started?
Hands-on Exercise
Tools & Resources
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Tips, Tricks and Definitions:

What is branding?

Branding your market is made up of 3 parts: visual identity, verbal identity, and experiential identity.

Your visual identity is all of the visible elements of your brand, such as your logo, typography (fonts), colors, shapes and patterns. Not only are these all things you can see and touch, but they also convey symbolic meaning that is difficult to capture through words alone. Your verbal identity is the messaging and values your vendors, staff, and volunteers are sharing. Your experiential identity is everything else that makes up the felt experience of your market to the people who are visiting (in person and online!), like your signage and decor; the types of events and programs that you’re hosting; website and social media; and more.

What is marketing?

Marketing is the way that you use your brand to communicate with current and potential customers so that they will visit (and spend money at) your farmers market.

Marketing is the process of bringing your brand to your customers, it includes all of the activities that you do to communicate the unique experience and products that your market has to offer — with the ultimate goal of attracting customers and generating more revenue. Marketing includes identifying target audiences (people likely to become customers), creating strategies to connect with those audiences, and motivating them to take actions such as attending an event, visiting the market, or trying a new product.

Case Study:

Sisters Farmers Market

The Sisters Farmers Market in Sisters, Oregon uses a simple, hand-drawn logo with a symbolic green heart to keep their market memorable.

The green heart is simple and iconic, and consistently used across materials, from signage to t-shirts and hats to products to their website, to social media. In social posts, they continue the brand theme of green, making sure posts are easily associated with their Sisters Farmer’s Market brand.

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Getting Started:

How can you get started with a branding and marketing plan at your famers market?

Planning for branding and marketing is ideally a team effort. Start small by brainstorming the people that you can gather to support you in developing branding and marketing. Think of star vendors who have worked by your side and know all of the ins and outs of the market, volunteers who consistently show up for you, and repeat customers. If available to you, call on staff members as well. These are the kinds of people that know your market best and having their outside perspective can help you to see the parts of your market that are unique and shine the brightest.

Gather your team and dedicate time to dive into the exercises and tools shared below. You may pull in some people for one or two conversations, and others may be with you every step of the way. Try to build a working committee who will support you on this journey. While one person may carry the vision for a market’s brand, it takes a team — including your vendors, volunteers, and others — to bring that vision to life.

Hands-on Exercise:

Find your Brand Strengths, Values, and Personality

After you’ve gathered a team to brainstorm alongside you (it can be just one other person if you’re starting small!), pick a time to meet to brainstorm the unique value that your market brings to your vendors, customers, and the community as a whole. Identify your strengths and key assets, values, and personality.

More on your own:

Tools & Resources

 

Build Your Visual Identity

Continue developing your brand with this exercise adapted from a Studio MESH and OFMA workshop to select colors, typography, & materials.

 
 

Define a Brand Personality

This free resource from Investopedia breaks down different ideas for ways to define your brands personality. Consider it a level-up from the Hands-on Exercise shared above.

 
 

Survey Your Community

Sometimes we need to ask our people. Use this example audience survey to engage your most-valued stakeholders in defining your brand.

FAQ

 

Find answers to frequently asked questions about branding and marketing for farmers markets below!

  • If you can create a friendly, approachable feeling at your market, that is consistent week to week, you develop an experience for your customer that is recognizable, makes them feel comfortable, and leaves them feeling the way you want them to feel. Building a brand develops recognition around your market, and when this recognition is supported by positive customer service and quality products, it helps reinforce trust in your market and helps build loyalty to your market. This kind of loyalty means you have customers that will return to your market time and time again, and also they will become champions for your market to their friends and family (who will then become your customers!).

  • A typical farmers market brand will represent high quality food that is fresh and healthy; showcase support for building the local economy; symbolize a reconnection with where our food comes from, and the people who make & grow it; and appeals to a community need for a central meeting point for people (revitalizing the idea of a town square, where commerce and personal interactions overlap).

  • A brand is a living thing - it will grow and change alongside your farmers market. But there are some things to look for to know you are successful in building your brand. What you say, your brand visuals, the culture and experience you create when folks engage with you or your company is consistent. All of your touch points—website, social media, space, packaging, print marketing, giveaways, product, and you-are consistent visually and verbally. This will all extend into your vendors as well. Your vendors will go beyond just speaking about their own businesses, they will be able to speak to the value and purpose of the farmers market as a whole, and they will all speak to the same kinds of things.

Explore the Toolkit