Email marketing is one of the most powerful — and often overlooked — tools in a farm shop’s marketing toolkit. While social media can help spread the word, your newsletter is your direct line to your most loyal customers. With the right strategy, email marketing can increase footfall, boost online orders, and turn one-time buyers into regulars. Let’s explore practical tips to help you craft engaging and effective newsletters that truly connect with your audience and drive results for your farm shop.
With so much competition for attention online, email marketing gives you a direct and reliable way to speak to your customers. Unlike social media, where algorithms decide who sees your posts, emails go straight into someone’s inbox — making it much easier to stay on their radar.
For farm shops, it’s a great way to build a stronger connection with your regulars. Your customers are often interested in how things are produced, what’s in season, and the people behind the business. A regular email lets you share those updates in a simple and engaging way, helping to build trust and loyalty over time.
Email also complements your other marketing channels. If you’re promoting a seasonal offer on Facebook or Instagram, you can use email to give your regulars early access or an exclusive discount. It’s also perfect for pushing key messages like opening times during holidays, new product launches, or event updates.
If you sell online, email marketing can help increase repeat orders, remind customers about your subscription boxes, or re-engage people who haven’t bought in a while. It’s a cost-effective way to turn one-off shoppers into loyal customers who come back time and again.
The first step to successful email marketing is building a quality mailing list — and doing it properly. It’s tempting to focus on numbers, but a smaller list of engaged, opted-in contacts will always outperform a large list of people who didn’t ask to hear from you.
Start by collecting email addresses at every touchpoint: in your shop, at markets, through your website, or during the checkout process. Make sure it’s always clear that people are signing up to receive marketing emails and what kind of content they can expect. Offering an incentive like a discount, recipe booklet, or early access to seasonal products can boost sign-ups.
Under GDPR, you can contact anyone who’s made a purchase from you in the last two years, as long as they haven’t opted out. This is considered a reasonable basis for marketing, but it’s still good practice to give customers the option to actively opt in and to make unsubscribing easy.
Using a proper email marketing platform like Mailerlite or Mailchimp helps you stay compliant and makes managing your list far easier. These tools also let you track engagement and set up simple automations as your list grows.
If you want people to keep opening your emails, you need to make sure each one is genuinely useful or interesting. Your newsletter shouldn’t just be a sales pitch — it should feel like a friendly update from a business your customer wants to support.
A good starting point is to include a few regular sections. For example, feature a seasonal product, share a recipe or cooking tip, and offer a bit of farm news or behind-the-scenes insight. If you’re running events or have new stock arriving, let people know — but keep it brief and clear.
You don’t need to write an essay. A short, well-laid-out email with a few engaging images will do the job. Keep the tone warm and conversational, just like you’d chat with a regular in the shop.
It’s also helpful to give your emails a consistent format so customers know what to expect. That familiarity can improve open rates and make writing your emails quicker and easier too.
Above all, think about what your audience will find interesting or helpful — not just what you want to sell. If your newsletter consistently adds value, your customers will look forward to seeing it drop into their inbox.
One of the best things about email marketing is that much of it can be automated. Once set up, automated emails run in the background, saving you time while still building relationships with your customers.
Start with a simple welcome email that goes out as soon as someone joins your list. This could include a thank-you message, a quick intro to your farm shop, and maybe a discount or exclusive content like a seasonal recipe. It’s a great way to make a strong first impression.
You can also automate follow-ups. For example, if someone buys a BBQ meat box, you could send them an email a week later with tips on how to use the cuts included, or a recipe suggestion. These small touches keep your business front of mind and encourage repeat purchases.
Other useful automations include reminders about subscription renewals, basket abandonment emails if you sell online, and special birthday offers. You might also want to create a series of emails that go out to new customers over a few weeks to gradually introduce them to your wider product range.
Done well, automation helps you stay connected with your customers — without adding to your daily to-do list.
Not all your customers are the same, so your emails shouldn’t treat them that way. Targeted email campaigns — also called segmentation — allow you to send the right message to the right people at the right time.
For example, you might have some customers who only buy veg boxes and others who regularly buy meat. By segmenting your list, you can send meat-related offers or recipe ideas to the relevant group without bombarding your veg-only customers with content they don’t need.
The more you know about your customers, the more tailored your emails can be. This could be based on what they’ve bought before, how often they shop, or even what time of year they usually order. Many email platforms make it easy to tag customers and create segments based on this information.
Targeted emails often get better open rates and higher engagement because they feel more relevant and personal. They’re also ideal for upselling or cross-selling — for example, offering a special deal on your handmade chutneys to customers who regularly buy cheese.
It might take a bit more effort to set up, but once you’re using segmentation well, you’ll likely see a real boost in results from your farm shop’s email marketing.
To get the most out of your email marketing, it’s important to track how your emails are performing. Most email platforms will show you key stats like open rate (how many people opened your email), click-through rate (how many clicked on a link), and unsubscribe rate. These numbers give you a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not.
One powerful tool to improve performance is A/B testing. This means sending two slightly different versions of the same email to a small portion of your list — for example, changing the subject line or image — and seeing which one gets the better response. The winning version is then sent to the rest of your list. It’s a simple but effective way to learn what your audience responds to.
It’s also worth regularly checking your list and removing inactive contacts (people who haven’t opened any emails in several months). This keeps your list healthy and ensures your stats reflect your real audience.
Finally, keep experimenting. Try new subject lines, test different layouts, and tweak your content. Over time, you’ll learn what resonates best with your customers — and that insight is gold when it comes to making your emails more effective.
Email marketing doesn’t have to be complicated — and with the right approach, it can become one of your most effective tools for growing your farm shop. Start simple, stay consistent, and always focus on adding value.
If you’d like more guidance, our ebook “A Practical Guide to Marketing for Your Farm Diversification” is packed with tips on email marketing, social media, and more — all tailored to farm businesses like yours, order it here or if you prefer you can get it directly to your kindle here.
Prefer more support? Check out our coaching or bespoke marketing packages to take things to the next level.
