5 Steps to Success with Delivery-as-a-Service
Stop wasting hours in parking lots! Discover how DaaS helps Farmers automate local logistics, reach more Buyers, and look like a pro with doorstep delivery.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself Farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman, and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale Buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for Independent Farmers to manage their business, promote their brand, and sell online and in person.
Let's dive into today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
James Maiocco: Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As you may be aware, Barn2Door is all about helping Independent Farmers make more money, ditch the office, work, and look like a pro. By getting a system in place to sell direct market under their own brand and manage orders, Farmers can skip the middlemen and build a [00:01:00] strong local business with recurring sales. And we just debuted a new capability helping Farmers with local delivery.
In today's conversation, we're gonna cover the five steps to success for a newly launched Delivery-as-a-Service. Now, Farmers who use Barn2Door can leverage a third-party logistics partner to actually pick up food from their Farm and deliver it directly to their Buyer's doorstep.
Today. I'm happy to welcome back Ryan Grace from Barn2Door’s success team, who's helping many of our Farmers on this new Delivery-as-a-Service initiative.
Welcome back, Ryan. It's great to see you.
Ryan Grace: Thanks James. Always great to be on here!
James Maiocco: Well, I'm really excited about this topic 'cause I know many Farmers have been asking for this for a long time, and it's fun to finally see it come to fruition. But before we dive into delivery, why don't you share a little bit more with the listeners, more about your role here at Barn2Door.
Ryan Grace: Yeah, so I've been with Barn2Door for two years now. Actually, I think I had my two-year anniversary on the first, which was exciting. My role has changed over the time here, and I've been able to grow, into the account management role where I work with Farmers [00:02:00] on a day-to-day basis. Helping them implement best practices, utilize the tools that we give them, that help them save time, look like a pro and excel their business into what's next for them.
James Maiocco: Well, that's exciting. And I know you had a lot of experience before joining Barn2Door, 'cause I know you used to do point of sale systems and integrations for Toast too, so you've had a lot of experience working with small business owners.
Ryan Grace: Yeah. Even before Toast working for Apple, I've had a lot of hands-on experience with getting people comfortable with the tech that's out there that will help them save that time, earn more money, and look like a pro. So that's the goal here on the account management side of things.
James Maiocco: Well, now I know you manage hundreds of Farms and you speak with dozens of Farms every week. Today, we're gonna dive into our new Delivery-as-a-Service capabilities. So let's dive in right away, 'cause we're gonna talk about the five steps to success for building a delivery for your Farm.
So, for listeners who are not familiar with Delivery-as-a-Service, can you just give a quick summary of what Delivery-as-a-Service entails?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. Delivery-as-a-Service makes it so easy for our Farms to be able to get their products into the hands of [00:03:00] consumers. When we're looking at a lot of the analytics that we get back from Buyers, the main thing that keeps them from buying from local Farms is the convenience, and so this solves that big barrier, right?
What's more convenient than getting something dropped off at your door? And six out of seven Americans are getting stuff delivered to their house on a regular basis as is. So it's the way the world is moving. People want things easy, they want it convenient, and they wanna buy from a local Farmer. They wanna support Farms, and get good food that they know where it comes from, and that it’s high quality.
So Delivery-as-a-Service is a way that our Farmers can offload all that work onto our delivery partner. They can come pick up directly on their Farm, do the drop-offs. Customers will get nice updates. The Farmers will get updates on where those deliveries are at, live when they're at that route. Be able to put in notes and details to let the driver know if there's anything that they need to know about that customer they're dropping off for. So it's really gonna streamline a lot of businesses. When you think about the time that saves from a Farmer who would have to go door-to-door for 20 plus [00:04:00] deliveries. It's a game-changer.
James Maiocco: It is a game-changer. I know we have many Farms who are doing 20, 50, a hundred, and even several hundred. Some of our largest Farms do almost a thousand deliveries every week and so I know this is just a huge shift. Like you said, time back to focus on Farming and handing off those logistics to a third party.
Now, before we dive in further on some of the tactics, I know one of the things you've done is you've talked to several Farms who are just getting implemented, getting started. In terms of the enthusiasm people have for this, what are the ideal use cases do you see for Delivery-as-a-Service? Because I know many Farms have a large base of customers, but like you said, maybe only five to 10% of their email list is even buying from them on a regular basis.
Ryan Grace: Yeah, this solves on two fronts. You can win back some lapsed customers, some of those who maybe have bought from you at the Farmer's market, loved your product, but aren't able to make it every Saturday to go and see you at the market.
So you can win back some of those customers who have purchased from you before, but may have maybe fell off because of that convenience. [00:05:00] And then you can also expand that delivery. 'Cause as you know, depending on the neighborhood you live in, getting to talk to my neighbors when we're out mowing the lawn and they see a delivery coming in, we talk about it and tell 'em, I order from a local Farm.
Most neighborhoods have a community page you can post on. And I'm always excited to talk about the Farms that I'm ordering from, and I know you're as well. And so it just then expands and grows. It's really just putting in the investment, the time early to market, and to push this. That will pay dividends in the long run.
James Maiocco: Well, that's a great starting point. So let's talk about market analysis. Cause just like you said, I too am excited to share about the Farms that I buy from. I have three that deliver directly to my door here in Nashville, and I happen to also be in a neighborhood Facebook group, which has 200 neighbors in it.
So I happily post those Farms into those neighborhood Facebook group, so they get more purchases and more Buyer density. So many Farmers struggle to reach their full customer base, due the lack of resource at bandwidth. So Ryan, let's talk a little bit more about the five steps to help Farmers build a successful delivery business. And I'd love [00:06:00] for you to share a little bit more with our listeners about what we do to come alongside the Farmer, help them to get started. The first step I know is market analysis. What does that entail?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, the first step to market analysis is knowing who you're trying to market to. So identifying your ideal customer profile. That's the customer that you wanna be reaching. You don't need to be selling to everybody. There is a customer that is looking for your products that you can be capitalizing on.
Identifying what businesses is that customer also spending their money with, that compliment your products that you could set up some partnerships with. Maybe drop off some flyers, do some raffles to help build some of that demand to get the word out there. And then the other piece is being selective with the offerings because the goal here is to have local Buyers who choose Delivery-as-a-Service before they head to the big box grocery store.
So you wanna have products that draw that customer in, that increase your average order value, simplified for people to go in, pick a couple different box options, that really would make sense for delivery. Because the customer who is drawn to delivery, they're drawn to the convenience piece. Decision fatigue is a real thing. They don't wanna [00:07:00] scroll through every la carte item. They wanna see a couple different boxes that would work best for their family and their household style.
James Maiocco: Bingo. So the big thing here is you don't have to offer your entire inventory for delivery. Like you said, you might, pin a few of those kind of key, boxes or delivery boxes or bundles that are available for delivery that are gonna have a high AOV, 'cause who wants to spend $5 on a product and then pay a delivery fee? That doesn't make any sense. But if I'm spending $200 on a meat box, which I do, I have a $250 meat box that gets delivered to me each month, that I pay, I think 12 or 15 bucks for delivery.
It's a no brainer. Makes sense. It's convenient. It's also worth the Farmer's time. Can you share with our Buyers a little bit? Are there any other things you think about or any examples of Farms who've had success with this?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, so one Farm that comes to mind, Grass Fed Cattle Co, they were able to expand from serving a 10-mile radius to a 45-mile radius.
And a lot of that came when they were handling everything on their own. Time is limited. It was hard for them to invest the time on the Farm, on the marketing, Farmer's markets and do all the deliveries that they wanted to be able to scale to; they had [00:08:00] a strong buying base, so they had customers who wanted their products.
And like you said earlier, some of them maybe fell off not because they didn't like the product or didn't wanna buy. It just wasn't as convenient for them to meet them at a pickup location. So by reaching to their already existing customer base, letting 'em know that now they have home delivery, picking a launch date and then sticking to that, helped them grow from that 10-mile radius out to a 45-mile radius. And they’ll continue to expand as they grow their customer base.
James Maiocco: That's great. So instead of having to run all the deliveries themselves, now they can have a partner that can reach a much wider audience. So that's fantastic. That kind of leads into the next step to success, which is like your delivery zone.
How did they know to even expand it to 45 miles? So there must have been some analysis, based on their Buyers that they had how do we help with that? When we look at a Farm, when you get started, you talk to a Farm who's interested in delivery, how should they be thinking about the delivery zones?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, I would scale into the delivery. You obviously wanna start with your local market, what's doable, the people closest around to you, that's gonna be your lowest lift. That's where you can really maximize your efforts. [00:09:00] And then looking as you start getting data, our team will put together some really cool mapping tools that will show you.
Where is your Buyer density? Where are most of the people buying from you? Where are some other pockets that may be some high-income areas, in a downtown that we can start marketing to and start doing some promotional campaigns to that?
So we'll bring that heat map in for you. We'll show you where your Buyers are already purchasing, from what the zip codes they are, and then we'll start to market heavy to some of those other ones that are close by that maybe we can expand on.
James Maiocco: Oh, I know this is a big deal. Because a lot of times Farmers have a perception of where they think their Buyers are and they set up their pickup locations based on that perception. But to your point, some of the more sophisticated mapping tools that we have, we can actually do it by zip code to every individual Buyer.
And those heat maps, I've seen some of these that you and success team members use. It's pretty profound there's no hiding from the truth of like, oh, geez, I thought my Buyers were in this section of the city, but they're actually, they're over here and over there, right?
Like you said, the ability to expand or reach a wider audience of Buyers is a big deal. You mentioned pickup. Because I know this is also something [00:10:00] we've seen Farmers use with setting up the delivery zone. Thinking, hey, today I drive, maybe you're a Farm that's located one or two hours away and you drive into the city or to a suburb and you have a pickup and you have to stand there for two or three hours, then wait for Buyers to come through.
Have you seen some Farms flip that into a delivery model going forward to make it more convenient for them as a Farmer and for the Buyers?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. One of the Farms we work really closely with Veterans Liberty Ranch. Some of my two favorite people to meet with on a regular basis. But they were able to convert one of their pickup locations where they're having 30 to 40 people meet them, at a spot and like you said, sometimes you're there for longer than you wanna be because maybe a customer, their car broke down, they're a little bit delayed, they had a sick kid, they're not able to get there. And so you're waiting around this parking lot for those people to come pick up their orders.
So they just converted all those Buyers into even more convenient than meeting us at this parking lot or meeting us at this location, we'll drop it off at your door. So it was a very easy switch for them to just convert those people over and save them a ton of time. Then just from an environmental it's also a win. Because if [00:11:00] you're just having one vehicle, go out and do these deliveries, and that's a lot better than having 30 to 40 cars driving out to meet you at one location.
James Maiocco: And like you said, way more convenient. People are so busy today, kids, soccer practice, music recitals, whatever it may be. Things go long, people get stuck in traffic and too often Farmers they're already spending an hour driving into the city or more. Then having to stand around, wait two, three hours, it's like, get all that time back.
And it's so much more convenient for the Buyer too, because that can just show up at home after soccer practice or after picking up the kids from music recital and the food's on their doorstep, just waiting for them.
So it seems to be, again, another super convenient, no-brainer option for both the Farmer and the Buyer. So you got me convinced, now let's say I wanna get started, as a Farmer, what's next? You mentioned the word launch date earlier. Why is picking a launch date such a big deal when it comes to getting started?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, picking a launch date is crucial, not only for the Farmer's accountability to have something to work towards, to have a goal to go to, but also from the Buyer. We wanna know when this is coming out, and you'll see this [00:12:00] across any industry. You look at, Apple before they launch a new phone. There's lots of promotion, there's hype behind it, there's building demand. You'll see it with any new car company that's putting out a new model, they do the preview. So really having that as a way to drive excitement, drive demand, to a certain date is gonna help with your conversion rates.
So that's the goal with selecting a launch date, pick a date, stick to it, and then we can start working into how do we market towards that date.
James Maiocco: That is such good advice, Ryan, 'cause you're absolutely spot on and I love your examples of both. Whether it's a new Apple iPhone comes available on this date, or the new Jeep Scout vehicle's gonna come available on this date, it gets people excited. There's anticipation it also provides a real goal. Like you said, for a Farmer to work towards. How far out do most people plan their launch dates? Are they doing this two weeks out, three, four weeks out? How far in advance do you think people typically are planning when they're thinking about getting started with this?
Ryan Grace: I think giving yourself a couple weeks, so a month tends to be pretty successful. It gives you some time to ramp into things, get all the logistics figured out. So that's what I've been seeing on a more consistent basis. [00:13:00] Cause you'll also see Buyers fall into a couple different categories.
You have your early adopters who will want to jump in right away, be the first to get whatever is new and coming out. And then you have a large group that will wait until that last minute. So you wanna make sure you're capitalizing on those and having that date kind of pushed. To a point where they need to make that decision. They can't just linger around and push it off and push it off.
James Maiocco: Perfect. Really great feedback. So you've got a launch date now, I imagine, the next two steps I see here one is about driving email campaigns and the fifth one is social media. Let's start with email, because I know that's something that's an active form of marketing. Everybody has an inbox these days, so what are you doing with the Farmers? How do you come alongside a Farmer and help them drive outcomes to that specific launch date with email campaigns?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, our design team is absolutely incredible.
Not only do they build more websites than anyone in the world, we also build really great targeted campaigns for our Farmers. So we have these templates that are made mobile-friendly, easy to use, eye-catching, with clickable buttons, call to actions. And so what [00:14:00] we'll do is we'll help you set those campaigns up.
Get 'em preloaded into your MailChimp, customize 'em a little bit to your Farm. And what those campaigns are doing is they're trying to drive that conversion. We're hitting on them on a couple different levels. Some of the things we're sending out again early on, maybe is a early bird special.
The first 10 people to sign get a certain promo or exclusive offer. Then as we start getting closer and closer to that launch date, we wanna start hitting some of the fear of missing out. We wanna say, last chance, don't miss out your neighbor's getting this. Are you missing out on the same thing? Don't be last in line. So start hitting those until we get to where the launch date is.
James Maiocco: Well, and I imagine those email campaigns too, FOMO and limited offers are really compelling. But I also know just the convenience of Farm food is also very appealing.
Every Farm I've talked to who's thinking about doing this, I always ask them, how big is your email list? And I was talking to a Farm the other day. They had over a thousand plus people on their email list of people who had purchased from them at some point in the past, one to two, maybe three years.
And then I asked the Farmer, how many people are purchasing from you today? And she said [00:15:00] 50, and I was like, wow. Think of all these people who would love for your product. Probably love it, but it's just not convenient. So aside from fear of missing out and limited chance, I think convenience by itself has gotta be an attractive offer.
Is that correct? I mean, you guys have templates to that effect too?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, we're hitting on all of it. So there's the, from our Farm direct to your door. It doesn't get any easier than that. And that's one of the biggest selling points with the Delivery-as-a-Service, is it really removes that final hurdle that most people run up against when it comes to ordering from, a local Farm.
James Maiocco: Now you mentioned, some of these offers and things that you've done. With respect to some of these email campaigns and trying to build demand, do you have an example any Farms that you or your teammates have worked with that have had success following these steps after they've picked a launch date?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, we have a Farm out in Georgia who step by step, took all these best practices we've been recommending. They picked their launch date, they did their targeted emails. They were consistent, which is one of the biggest pieces. with this whole thing. Buyers need lots of reminders, so keep at it, keep being consistent.
And they eclipsed their goal, which [00:16:00] was to hit that 20, order minimum, within a couple days. So it was, pretty cool to see and now the best part is most of those orders were for subscriptions that they set up in the store. So those are gonna be recurring, continuous orders that they can bank on that's gonna continue to grow.
Because as those customers are getting their delivery, those neighbors are gonna see those boxes. They're gonna smell them grilling in the backyard, and they're gonna ask questions on where they got that meat. And it's just gonna, I think continue to explode for them.
James Maiocco: Yeah, that's a really great point. And I know talking with one of our other Farms, Peter Bartlett, on a similar topic, it's the neighbors seeing the other neighbors. He was sharing with me that one of their most successful delivery zones they've set up is they started with just one Buyer, but now it's his largest delivery zone a year later, because neighbor after neighbor kept on seeing and hearing it. Again, now they're doing several dozen people in just one neighborhood.
So that's just a really great example. I'm just really happy to see, 'cause that recurring revenue is such a game changer in terms of financial security for the Farm, but also just streamlining the operations as well. Let's talk about this fifth tactic, social media. A lot of Farms who have large followings and a lot of [00:17:00] people, it's a little bit of a different form of engagement versus email. But how do we support Farmers with social media, thinking about driving demand or awareness there?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, you can think of social media as a great visual aid to what you're doing within your email marketing.
We love email marketing. You get about a 30% higher conversion rate, but social media is such a great compliment to that. What we've done is we've prebuilt some really nice, designs that are bringing it front of mind to your customers. So if they miss you in the email, we're reminding them, “Hey, you want convenience? Our Farm food dropped off to your door”.
We put together beautiful pictures, delivery. designed content that you can have, posted on your Facebook. It's gonna look good on your Instagram. So we have a whole folder that has all this content depending on what kind of Farming you do, and it's gonna look really nice, professionally designed. And again, it's just keeping it front of mind for those Buyers, 'cause they need a lot of touch points for them to make that decision.
James Maiocco: Well on social media, like you said, the visual aspects of it are really exciting. And I also think what's really cool about it too is that Buyers get to see other Buyers' comments about their enthusiasm or excitement about [00:18:00] this.
I know you worked specifically with a Farm down in Alabama recently who's had a lot of success with this. Can you share a little bit more about their experience with this on social media?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. Similar to the Farm I worked with in Georgia, it's all about putting in the best practices, being consistent.
And so for them, they've done an incredible job building a community within their social media. They're asking for feedback. What other products would you be interested in? And so when they post to their customers, they do a lot of engagement. When they were getting started on this, it was a, Hey, we're doing a limited offer first 25 people to sign up will be included hop on. I think within 20 minutes, they hit that mark and had to expand their threshold.
James Maiocco: They sold out in 20 minutes. Are you kidding me?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. If you look their posts, they sent out 40 comments. Tag me in, I'm in, I'm in, people were eating it up.
James Maiocco: Oh, wow. If you're a Farmer listening to this, please don't expect those types of rolls as results. That's an anomaly. But I've heard of people selling out in the first day, but 20 minutes is pretty impressive. Well, that's great to hear. So now what are they doing? Have they expanded that even further? So [00:19:00] the first 25 sold out so quickly, were they able to add additional capacity?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. So after capitalizing on what they have in their existing market.
The next step is going to the neighboring towns, right? They want to go to the next neighborhood and continue to expand in some of those markets where maybe they have a few customers, but there's some opportunity to grow. And then once you continue to grow in those other neighborhoods, it becomes alright, I have this strong customer base.
How do I continue to bump that average order value up to bring in add-ons to do partnerships with other local businesses? 'Cause you have a captive audience now who would want your products, and you've become the local advisor in what products are best for them. That's how they got started. That's how this Farm was able to expand their offerings from just one protein to add in four different variety types, look into partnerships with produce as well, and it just blossoms from there.
James Maiocco: That's fantastic. That's really great advice, 'cause I know that the average American spends $500 a month. So if you've got a couple living by themselves, I think of myself, we're gonna spend over a thousand dollars a month on groceries. Well, how much of that thousand dollars can [00:20:00] you get?
Like you said, you might start with 200, but can you get to 300, 400, 500 because, we're spending money on something. So this has been really a great set of steps. So the five steps we heard from you, just for our audience again, to get started with delivery.
Things we'll do with, Farm is number one, market analysis. Help them identify, their target Buyer, the specific types of products that would be ideally suited for delivery, et cetera, to drive a high order value. Secondly, we'll help assist them with getting all the delivery zones set up, looking at where they have Buyer density, et cetera.
Third is getting a specific launch date. that we can drive a conversion event. And then the fourth and fifth is setting up targeted campaigns, both for email and social media.
Really great to see you. Thank you for all your hard work. Ryan, come alongside Farmers, help them build success with Delivery so they can get more time back on the Farm. Before we wrap up, is there any other piece of advice you'd like to share with Farms as they think about this, and about what it could look like for their future?
Ryan Grace: Yeah. I think as you're getting started, taking it one step at a time. You think about your fundamentals, and anything you do, you wanna be [00:21:00] diligent.
You wanna be consistent and let people know what you're working towards. That's a big part of why I enjoy buying from a local Farms. I like to see what the next project is, what they're gonna be bringing in, what their goals are for the next year. And so even if delivery isn't in the framework in the next few months, start putting in the building blocks for it to be a possibility for you in the next year or so.
Because it is the future. People want products dropped off at their door. They want convenience, and they wanna know where the food comes from. You, as a Farmer have the ability to solve those problems for them.
They aren't gonna get that with a grocery store delivery. They're not gonna have that connection, that relationship factor. But they do get that with you. They get to see where their food is raised, they get to know where it came from, and that is an incredible value. And then when you're dropping it off at their door, that's a no brainer.
Who wouldn't sign up for that?
James Maiocco: Absolutely. Really great advice, and I can't agree enough about the relationship. The relationship's a big deal, and being able to know that you're supporting a Farm family who's not just feeding you as a family, but you're also supporting them and supporting the local community.
Really big one last piece [00:22:00] of advice for me that didn't get brought up is charging a delivery fee. I know that's also a really big deal. Maybe you can just share a couple words on what do you see people charging for delivery fee? I know we've got some other blogs on this topic, et cetera, but for our listeners who might be driving in their car or on a tractor, what do you see as a typical charge for a delivery fee for firms?
Ryan Grace: Yeah, we're seeing anywhere from 10 to $15 is pretty average. And when you think about going all the way back to step one, who your ideal customer profile is, that customer, they are paying for a convenience. They want ease, but they also want quality. They will not bat an eye at the delivery fee.
That ideal customer wants that product dropped off at the door. If my sister's listening, I apologize, but she is this ideal customer. She does not pay attention to what any delivery fee is. She gets everything sent to her house, and is that ideal customer for a lot of Farms, so charge the fee.
It's something that people are used to. There's a lot of different ways you can manage that. You can build it into the cost of your items. The key with the delivery fee is making sure your average order value makes sense for that delivery fee. A [00:23:00] $15 delivery fee on a $10 item, not gonna make sense. So thinking about ways you can package and bundle your items to where it's a hundred dollars order for a $15 delivery fee is nothing.
James Maiocco: Yep. I'm the ideal customer too. I don't even think about delivery fees. I get Farm food from, proteins, produce, and dairy, all delivered to my home, and all of 'em charge me a delivery fee somewhere between 12 and $15. I don't know the exact amount, but I don't really care 'cause I care more about the quality of the food that I'm getting.
So great feedback, Ryan. Well, I wanna extend my thanks to Ryan for joining us on this week's podcast episode.
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We're humbled to support thousands of Independent Farmers all across the country, and delighted to offer services and tools, including deliveries of service to help Farmers access more customers, make more money, ditch the office work, and look like a pro.
If you're an Independent Farmer, just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, you can learn more at barn2door.com/learn-more. Thank you for joining us for today's podcast episode, and we look forward to seeing you next [00:24:00] week on The Independent Farmer Podcast.
Cheers.
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