Ohio: Value Added Producer Grants
Farm Market & Winery uses VAPG Grant to Develop Customer-Friendly Website
The Maize Valley Market, which opened in 1998, took a big leap when it added a winery in 2005. This expansion called for a redoubled effort to reach out to new customers. The Maize Valley Market & Winery had a basic website, but they needed more. “At first I tried to go the economical route, only to have the website go down in mid-July when I was trying to sell fresh produce. I didn’t get it up and running again for two weeks, and lost peak season business as a result.” says marketing manager Bill Bakan. The lesson: for a farm engaged in direct marketing, the website can be just as critical as the tractor.
Maize Valley Market & Winery received a VAPG grant in 2006, and used the majority of the funds to develop an attractive, sophisticated website that has remained stable even during the periods of highest use. Maize Valley hired The Karcher Group, a local web design firm with 34 employees, to create a website with room to grow. The timing could not have been better. “The web was becoming more important just as we were positioning ourselves to take advantage of it through our new site,” says Bill.
The Maize Valley’s web redesign “was a perfect example of preparation meeting opportunity.” Even now, four years after the VAPG grant, Maize Valley Market & Winery continues to send about $6,000 of business per year to The Karcher Group, which performs monthly website optimization and has added features such as Facebook and Twitter to the site.
“The website that we created with VAPG funds continues to pay dividends,” says Michelle, who manages the farm market, winery inventory, labor, and bookkeeping. The operation went from hiring about 12 seasonal employees to 40 last year, and the operation’s full-time employment numbers continue to grow, even in this declining economy. “The small injection of funds that we got through the VAPG grant will continue to reap rewards in our community for years and years.”
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