For rural entrepreneurs, authenticity is rooted in their craft, the traditions it stems from, and the genuine narratives behind each product. Photo by Deb Brown

Why Rural Craftsmanship Resonates in Online Sales

Guest post by Tance Hughes

In today’s digital age, the online marketplace is bustling with options at every click. Amidst the buzz of big brands and flashy advertisements, there lies an understated yet profound power: the allure of authenticity. For rural entrepreneurs, this authenticity is rooted in their craft, the traditions it stems from, and the genuine narratives behind each product.

A jar of jam preserving the flavors of a bountiful summer harvest can embody more than mere utility.

Handcrafted Goods: Beyond Just a Product

Each handcrafted item carries with it a story of its origin. Whether it’s a quilt stitched during the quiet hours of a winter evening, or a jar of jam preserving the flavors of a bountiful summer harvest, these items embody more than mere utility. They represent hours of labor, generations of passed-down knowledge, and a deep connection to the land and community.

When consumers purchase these goods, they’re not just buying a product; they’re buying a slice of history, a tale of dedication, and a bond with the artisan. This level of personal connection is something mass-produced items often lack, no matter how high their quality might be.

Telling the Tale: Narratives That Captivate

For rural entrepreneurs looking to stand out in the online market, the key is to emphasize these narratives. Detailed product descriptions that talk about the craftsmanship, the traditions that inspired the product, or even anecdotes about its creation can captivate a potential buyer’s imagination. High-quality photos and videos, showcasing the product in its natural rural setting or in the process of being made, can further enhance this narrative.

Platforms like Etsy or ArtFire thrive because they promise products imbued with authenticity.

The Modern Consumer: Seeking Genuine Connections

Modern consumers, bombarded by generic advertising and overwhelmed by choices, are increasingly drawn to authentic experiences and products. A survey by Cohn & Wolfe found that 91% of global consumers value honesty from brands most. This means that rural artisans, with their genuine products, have a competitive edge. Their offerings stand as a beacon of genuineness in an oversaturated market.

Moreover, the rise of platforms like Etsy or ArtFire, which specifically cater to handmade and vintage goods, attests to this growing consumer trend. These platforms thrive because they promise products imbued with authenticity.

What Does This Mean For Me?

The digital marketplace might seem vast and impersonal, but therein lies an opportunity for rural entrepreneurs. By leveraging the inherent authenticity of their crafts and effectively communicating the stories behind each product, they can forge deep connections with consumers. In an era where genuineness is increasingly cherished, rural craftsmanship is not just a relic of the past but a vibrant force shaping the future of online sales.

About the guest author

Tance Hughes is The Ruralpreneur, empowering small town entrepreneurs to expand their product-based businesses through e-commerce. Sign up for his regular newsletter at The Ruralpreneur.

Business Insider rounded up the trends reports from LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social-driven sites. They didn’t dig out the best trends for rural businesses and small town entrepreneurs, so I did that for you.

Retail is recycling

Deb Brown browsing in a Galveston, Texas, vintage store. Photo by Becky McCray

Pinterest points to vintage and mixed decor trends. That’s a good trend for rural antiques hunters, thrift stores and auction houses. Especially those who sell online and handle shipping.

LinkedIn says sustainability remains a hot topic, with vintage, secondhand and resale stores seeing a boost for clothing, too.

Related, in-person retail is coming back. Looks like more new stores opened than closed in 2022. Big note for small towns chasing retail, this may not be new construction. There’s “a rise in developers renovating and reimagining existing, outdated properties.” Listen, if anyone has existing outdated retail properties, it’s probably small towns.

Customers have paused in their rush to online shopping. Online sales shot up in 2020 and 2021, but 2022’s online shopping totals declined a bit.

Rural businesses could make more use of social influence to drive sales. You don’t have to be in a big city to use TikTok and other channels with hashtags like #MustHaves and #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt. If you didn’t notice it in your own feed, Instagram turned into a yard sale with friends during 2021, as people redecorated and vintage home decor sellers boomed.

Tourism: trains and fun dates

As interest in train travel grows, small towns that have rail service can vie for more tourist attention. Photo by Becky McCray.

Trains are making a comeback, Pinterest says. That’s pretty cool for small towns with active train service. Make sure you’re playing that up in your tourism.

Also this interesting dating trend: people are searching for experiences. Book store dates, date picnics and more. I’m saying that rural places could host the best date picnics ever, not to mention hiking dates, nature walk dates and stargazing dates.

Manufacturing mushrooms

Local manufacturers can find more business by easing supply chain issues for big customers. They’ll need a strong workforce to tap this trend. Manufacturers in Ponca City, Oklahoma, are reaching out to middle school students to show them possible careers. Photo via Kat Long.

LinkedIn’s report points to eco-friendly materials like those made from mushrooms and plants coming up. Lots of eco-friendly materials innovators are in small towns or rural places.

Shopify’s trends report shows big companies addressing ongoing logistics challenges in part by looking for more local supply sources. For small towns with idle manufacturing space or flexible makers, this is an opportunity.

Entrepreneurship on your side

Self care takes many forms, including physical activity and forming strong social ties. This team participated in the Beer Mile run in Colfax, Washington. Photo by Becky McCray.

Rural people have long had a higher rate of self-employment than urban people do. LinkedIn points to the rise in side-gigs or part-time businesses in addition to a main job. Maybe it’s not surprising that more of the youngest workers do this. Around 25% of Gen Z had a side-hustle, compared to 16% for all older folks.

A trend to tap is self-care, according to TikTok. With social channels as close as your phone, rural people can improve their offerings in “mental-health improvement, fitness, public health, and work-life balance.” Since we know that being in nature is good for you, rural communities are some of the best places to host self care experiences.

This article cited by:

• Ag Journal, Simple low-cost tips for small towns in year ahead, Jan 5, 2023
• Reprinted in the LaJunta Tribune Democrat and Bent County Democrat

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Creating a warm welcome to your business can include sharing simple videos online. Here are some simple ways to get started. Photo by Chris Brogan.

By Chris Brogan

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, it might be worth a thousand dollars, too. Over the last ten years, restaurants and bars who post their best dishes or drinks as photos on sites like Instagram have learned that people love seeing examples of what they’ll get if they drop by for a drink or a bite. As great as a photograph might be, I thought I’d talk a moment about why you should consider video as part of your selling toolkit, even if that feels a little scary to think about at first.

Video Shows People Your Business in Special Ways

No matter what you sell, a video goes a long way to giving your prospects and customers new opportunities to experience your business. If you have a service business, like plumbing or landscaping, spend time interviewing the team and give people a sense of the folks who work there. If you sell a product, show off that product, the making of, the behind the scenes. All that.

There are a few ways to do this. You can shoot videos that are somewhat generic to the business at large, which are great. But you might even consider putting together a few “for special customer” videos. Instead of a product video, it can be “Claire, I know you love when we get in new fabrics. You’re going to love this batch we just got from South Dakota.” My friend Mick sends kids that collect various comic books photos and videos of their specific Wednesday deliveries and that ups his sales a lot!

Is Video Hard to Make?

No. (Boy, I wish I could end this section right there.) You use a smartphone. There’s a video camera in there. If you practice even a little bit and learn to hold the phone sideways (landscape, they call it), you can probably shoot a video. There are free editor apps for iOS or Android aplenty. And you can upload it for free to YouTube (which is also free).

If you want to edit on your computer, Microsoft Photos has editing tools on a PC and iMovie works easily on a Mac. When I say “edit,” realize that most of the time, I don’t mean much more than learning how to cut and paste a little bit. That’s all. (You can search YouTube for “how to edit movies using ____” and you’ll see tons of free tutorials.)

Small Town Business Runs Better on Video

When I was a kid, my grandfather lived out on a farm in rural Maine. There was an old timey general store about two miles from the house, but any full-line stores were about 45 minutes away. “Going into town” was something of a pilgrimage. Sometimes, we’d be smart and call ahead to a store if we wanted something specific, like when we needed rock salt to make a hand churned ice cream turn out just right. Other times, we’d forget and drive all the way into town to find they didn’t have what we needed.

The world searches online before they go anywhere these days. And that means big companies try to take your customers at every turn. One way to compete is to get video of your products and of the people in your company up online so that people develop a relationship with you. If it’s a choice between some faceless corporation and “Old Alva’s Garden Supply,” there’s a chance you can win over buyers who will trust your advice over some faceless competition.

Let’s Run This Down Really Quick

Pretend I’ve convinced you. Here’s what to do:

1. Get a free YouTube account (name it after your business or yourself – either way.)
2. Practice shooting brief videos (1-3 minutes tops usually goes best)
3. OPTIONAL – If you’re you’re feeling clever, learn to edit a little, and turn a series of clips into one video.
4. Upload your videos to YouTube
5. Promote them by posting on your website where it makes sense, and/or by pointing to the videos through your email marketing efforts.

And that’s it. If you ever get stuck or have a question, you know you can always ask me. My email is chris@chrisbrogan.com . Feel free to drop me a line. And hey, show me your videos!

Leslie McLellan and Sheila Scarborough of Tourism Currents presenting at Main Street Now 2019 conference. Photo by Becky McCray.

Sheila Scarborough and Leslie McLellan of Tourism Currents laid out a simple starting point for all your social media efforts. Good news: it’s as easy as filling in the blank.

Fill in the Blank

• (Our company) is where
• (our customers)
• find (the thing we offer)
• with (this benefit)

So all you have to do is fill in the blanks.

• Small Biz Survival is where
• rural business owners
• find practical information
• that helps their businesses prosper

Run it all together, and it looks like this:

• Small Biz Survival is where rural business owners find practical information that helps their businesses prosper.

I’m sure you can see how this helps with all your marketing, not just social media. Every piece of marketing should relate to what you just wrote.

Social Media Application

Because I have that clear understanding of what Small Biz Survival is, my social media strategy is easy. With every post on social media, I can address rural business owners with one of these four things:

• increasing their awareness of Small Biz Surivival and our articles,
• offering our free email newsletter so they can sign up,
• sharing a link to an item we have for sale that helps them,
• or sharing a link or information from another site that’s useful and practical.

And those, it just so happens, are the four types of social posts that Sheila and Leslie identified:

• Awareness
• Lead generation
• Sales
• Nurturing

Take your fill in the blank answers and then brainstorm examples of the four different types of posts. I can think of a dozen different ways to remind people that we have a newsletter. That’s lead generation because they give me their email address in order to sign up.

That might be enough for you. Maybe that’s all you need to think clearly about your social media marketing. That’s cool. But if you want to do more, hang in there with me.

Secret Power Tool: Your Calendar

Now that you know what you’re all about with the fill-in-the-blank answers, and you know some things you could be posting online, you’re ready to power up your calendar. And the best way to do that is to jump over to Tourism Currents for their story on Creating your social media content calendar: a planning process.

They’ll walk you through a super simple fill in the blanks calendaring approach that works for anyone.

Jump to Creating your social media content calendar: a planning process

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• Post your local hashtag where visitors will see it.

The Cathlamet Chamber of Commerce does an awesome local photo contest. Most of the photo submissions come from locals. They use these on their annual events calendar and other publications.

Cathlamet also has visitors, people who boat along the river from the big city and stay at the local marina. Some are taking photos and posting online, surely. But it’s not always easy to find those photos or posts. So let’s make it easier.

• Decide on a local hashtag.
• Work with a local artist to put the hashtag on a sign that suits your local style.
• Post it where visitors are.

Cathlamet is a town of 553 people, and I don’t think there is any other place named Cathlamet anywhere. So they can just use #cathlamet as a tag.

They have a casual rustic mountain town charm. They also have a vibrant artist community. A handpainted wooden sign suits them perfectly.

Visitors tend to come in through the marina. Let’s go post that sign right at the marina.

Then it will be just that much easier to find photos and posts from visitors. The chamber can reach out to these folks when its photo contest time and even throughout the year.

Simple.

When I first shared this article in my email newsletter, I heard back from Brandynn Stanford, in Dublin, Texas, where they have a hashtag sign right at the local airport. They chose three hashtags to include, based on what is already shared on Instagram. Brandynn said that #dublintx already had 2,274 posts, and #dublintexas had 1,856 posts. That’s pretty awesome!

Hashtag Sign-Dublin, Texas, Airport. Photo courtesy of Brandynn Stanford.

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Early on Friday morning I received a message on The Front Porch (our local bar/restaurant) Facebook page from someone I didn’t know, which happens often. The person said they would like a catered meal for 50 people that evening at an offsite location. I called the restaurant manger with the information so she could be prepared. It turns out that man was a logistics director with TransCanada. By the time he made direct contact with The Front Porch manager he didn’t need an evening meal for 50, it had ballooned to 7 onsite catered meals for 120 oil spill workers from Friday until Sunday when their contracted food truck would arrive.

When we drove into the corn field that first evening with 7 roasters of hot food to set up on a table out in the cold winter air, I asked the logistics director, “How did you find the Front Porch?” He said he Googled us. That is also how he found access to portable toilets, hotel rooms, dumpsters, trucks, and other needed items to set up shop. This was good for us and the other businesses he accessed through Google, but bad for several businesses in nearby towns who also could have provided some of these much needed items. However, these other nearby businesses had never claimed their business location on Google maps, nor did they have a social media presence or website.

Because of that initial connection through Google, The Front Porch served a hot lunch onsite, Monday-Saturday to 80 workers from December through March. This is a financial boon for a small town restaurant especially during the slow winter months. Thanks Google!

Every month, as the social media manager for The Front Porch, I get a report from Google. On November 17, 2017 our activity skyrocketed! (see photo below) The red spike shows searches from Google maps.

Paula is a co-founder, investor, and agent of the board of directors for The Front Porch, a local community-owned bar/restaurant that also holds office space for three additional businesses in Langford SD. #Iamrural

Answering customer questions is a great start, but there’s another level to the conversation. Photo by Becky McCray.

You know I’m a big fan of answering customer questions. That’s been part of my marketing advice for 10 years now.

• Should I blog for my small business? Yes, answer customer questions
• Talk less about you, more about them
• Top small business blogging questions answered

But there’s a deeper layer to serving your customers. It’s not just about the questions they would ask you. It’s about the questions that people ask your customers.

Help your customers answer
the questions that other people ask them.

This does involve thinking like your customer, maybe even talking to customers to learn more. When customers make any kind of purchase from you, what kind of questions might people ask them? And how can you help them answer?

A friend of mine is in the hunting business. One of the most common questions that people ask his customers is, “What happens to the meat?” So he wrote an email explaining how careful they are with the meat to be sure every scrap is usable and used. It’s the kind of story customers can hang onto.

If you’re a tax accountant, what questions might people ask your customers? Let’s brainstorm a few:

• How did you pick your accountant?
• What does an accountant even do for you?
• How do you afford an accountant?

Where should you publish these answers?

A customer email newsletter is the perfect tool for this. It’s personal. Customers can save your smart answers to refer back to, and they can forward them to others.

Another great place to post them is on your blog or website. Your potential customers might be searching for answers right now.

Want to see more examples? Just ask in the comments, and we’ll work on ideas together.

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How can local food businesses work together to attract more diners? Here’s one practical idea. Photo M&M Cafe, Monticello, Wisconsin. Photo by Becky McCray

I loved this restaurant marketing idea from the Texas Downtown Association:

Collaborative Marketing for Local Restaurants
In order to compete with new chain restaurants, a group of Longview restaurateurs decided to band together to form a local marketing collective to help encourage people to “Chews Longview”. The marketing campaign urges people to support local businesses that give the community its unique flavor.

Now, Longview, Texas, is a small city at 80,000+ population, but I think smaller towns could adapt this idea.

You don’t have to do a fancy group website. This kind of promotion is perfect for a social media campaign. A simple hashtag is enough to start. Even one local person could start taking pictures and posting positive comments online with a message of “chews local.”

Get more collaborative marketing ideas, for service and retail businesses

In the just-released video from SaveYour.Town, Deb Brown and I share more cooperative and collaborative marketing ideas that any business can use to better reach local customers. It doesn’t take a formal organization or big funding. Anyone can put them into practice right away. Learn more about Cooperation Creates More Customers here.

If only podcasting was simple and used the tool that is most often in your hands… Photo (CC0) by jeshoots on pixabay

Podcasting is a powerful way to build a connection with people. They hear your voice and feel like they get to know you.

The problem with podcasting is it seems like a big hassle. You’re going to need equipment like a good mic, software to record and edit your audio, and some way to host the files. Then you need to figure out this distribution problem.

Podcasting could be much easier

With Anchor, all you need is your phone, and you’re ready to start podcasting. You already have all the equipment you need (your phone), and they take care of the heaving lifting of hosting and distribution.

Read the “how to start a podcast” guide at Anchor.

I used to use a similar podcast-from-your-phone platform called Utterz that was around from 2007-2010. It was great at the time, and its demise is a good reminder that platforms come and go. Download and save copies of any important audio you create with them.

Need more podcast advice?

Read our podcasting basics here. I’ve added some notes on which steps you can skip if you use Anchor or a similar tool.

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Photo (CC) by Thos Ballantyne, on Flickr

I have taken the plunge and have gotten into social media. Now what?

Is this what you are thinking? Does the “Field of Dreams” syndrome, build it and they will come, drive your effort? If only it were that easy. 

Part of getting followers to your online efforts requires you to be regular in posting. And your posts must be more than just a sales flyer or a picture of the store. Good social media efforts not only provide that information (in small amounts – maybe 10 to 20 percent of the time), but it tells your story and the story of your business. It talks about your interests and even random items that you find interesting or that might interest your audience.

But where do you find all this content?

• Some comes from following others. Maybe there is something you want to re-post.
• Or perhaps it’s a trend you want to participate in (remember the water-bucket challenge). Do it and post your picture was the idea.
• Maybe it’s something going on in your community.
• It may be something you learned at a recent convention or read in a trade magazine.
• And some comes from you, your employees and your family.

And a great thing is that few words are needed. You don’t have to spend hours wording a long article. Just take a picture and add a caption. Or perhaps it is a video showing how a product works or fireworks over the local lake. With today’s smartphones, video is available anywhere and everywhere.

As you begin this journey, learn how to track what connects with your audience. Then do more of those items that make people take action. Engaging with people builds your presence.

Being effective in social media means being consistent in your posting. It isn’t a one-and-done tool (neither are any marketing tools).

Having a presence is good. Being involved is great!!