Alaska Marketing: 6 Ways to Sell Your Product Beyond the Anchorage Farmers Market
Learn six ways to sell your Alaskan product to generate more revenue and grow your business.
You've done it! You’ve created a masterpiece.
Maybe it’s an incredible clothing line, custom jewelry, homegrown mushrooms, or delicious pastries.
Whatever it is… you've cracked the code and are getting rave reviews.
You sell at different Alaska farmers markets, and you're doing well, but you’re ready to take this dream to the next level. Is it really possible?
Yes. Yes, it is.
And here’s why: Locally grown and handcrafted products are becoming increasingly popular and valuable as people turn more toward sustainability, self-care, and well — everybody loves to eat well.
Plus, we all have a purpose, and you should follow your calling, no matter what it is!
Hi. I’m Karla — SEO copywriter and website designer. I’m passionate about helping Alaska locals grow their businesses so they can thrive in the 49th State.
That’s why I wrote this article that lays out six different ways to grow your business beyond the farmers market.
Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get into it.
1. Build Your Own Website
Starting a website is critical in growing your business in today's digital age, even if you’re a super-fan of nature and living on Alaska time. 😉
A website should be your digital home base to ensure that your customers always have a way to find you online.
Even if you have a solid Instagram following, a website is a great place for your Insta-fans to go to go to purchase your products and learn more about them — and you.
Plus, a website ensures people can find you on Google. By incorporating keywords into your website copy using SEO (search engine optimization) your business comes up in Google search results.
Using SEO, I've boosted website traffic for my clients by up to 1400%. It’s a very effective technique and a surefire way to grow your digital presence so that you can keep doing what you love.
It’s never been easier to build your own website! My favorite website builder is Squarespace.
The platform offers sleek design and doesn’t require you to know any code. Plus, they have a ton of tutorials and templates to get you going and award-winning customer support.
A lot of people in Alaska use Wix, which is easy to get going on, but is more difficult to grow from when you’re ready to scale. The SEO features are somewhat hidden, and some of the foundational structures are messy.
Wordpress is also a popular option, but it has a steep learning curve and requires hours of expensive hosting each month, which isn’t quite the scrappy Alaskan way for a small business owner.
If you're short on time, hiring a professional Anchorage website designer is a great option. I’ve designed many websites in Alaska, and I’d glad to chat with you about your needs when you’re ready!
2. Start Email Marketing
A website also gives you a place to start collecting the email addresses of your brand’s fan base.
It’s a fabulous way to stay in touch with your customers and nurture a connection to set your Alaska business up for long-term growth.
For example, let's say you make an incredible organic syrup made from Alaskan berries and produce used to flavor coffee and drinks.
People who sign up for your email list this year when they purchase your syrup may be the same people who want to buy your book five years from now, which is about starting a successful syrup business or growing rhubarb.
Getting the email addresses of people who are already interested in your business can help you increase sales as your business evolves because they’re already interested in you.
Email marketing is so effective because you’re meeting your customers in their virtual living room rather than hoping to get their attention while they’re scrolling on Instagram. SMS or text marketing is also effective for the same reason: undivided attention.
Launching a website that offers people the option to join your email list in return for a free gift, often called an opt-in, is a great way to build an email list and set yourself up for wild success.
Squarespace has email marketing integrated into its platform, which is another reason I recommend it to new business owners.
MailChimp and FloDesk are other popular options for email marketing.
Email marketing has a return on investment (ROI) of up to 4200%, and is considered a must-do in the Alaska marketing industry.
3. Launch a Subscription Service
For some businesses, creating a local subscription service for your product is a fantastic way to generate reliable income as you grow your business.
A subscription is a win-win for both you and your customers because you can plan for the number of products you need to make each month, and your customers get first dibs on the things they love.
Plus, subscribers only have to sign up once with their desired order and payment details, which saves both of you a lot of time and effort.
Some sample subscriptions could include:
Five bars of locally-made chocolate per month… (or week, I won’t judge.)
Bi-weekly gluten-free pastry box (pick up each week in Anchorage!)
Locally roasted coffee that arrives at your door every month.
Subscriptions can work for clothing, beverages, and even digital products!
Subscriptions also create exclusivity and demand, making your product appear more desirable (as it should be!)
Squarespace has an excellent set-up for automated subscriptions on the commerce side of their website-building platform. If you already use Stripe but don’t have a website, you can create subscription products there, too.
The best part of offering a subscription is ensuring that the customers that got you started still have reliable access to your product when you make it big.
And you will!
4. Start Selling Online
Here’s the truth about sales: You can sell almost anything online, and people will buy it.
Not every Alaska business owner feels good about shipping their products out of Alaska because of the environmental impact, but here’s another truth: It’s okay to make a living in the place you call home.
Plus, you can always offset your impact in different ways, like using environmentally friendly packaging, paying your employees well, or anything that makes you feel good about your choice.
Whether you decide to ship or not, online shops fall under the e-commerce umbrella. E-commerce stands for electronic commerce and is the term for buying and selling goods online.
Not all website builders have an e-commerce platform. But, most website builders allow you to integrate an e-commerce platform into your website. For example, you can build a Shopify e-commerce platform and integrate it into Squarespace, the website builder.
Some of the leading e-commerce players include Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, Oracle, Netsuite, and Squarespace. The best platform for you depends on your business and personal goals.
Some considerations include:
Do you want something straightforward to use, or is customizing the look of your shop super important to you? Easier-to-use platforms have fewer customization features to make them easier to use. But, your shop may not stand out amongst the sea of online shops.
Are you going to have a lot of inventory to track? If you're planning on rapid growth, you'll want to ensure your chosen e-commerce platform is big enough to grow with your business. You can get a free trial of almost anything; think big so you don’t have to switch platforms later.
Will you need a barcode scanning system? Before you commit to adding additional applications to your e-commerce system, like a barcode scanner, ensuring they are compatible and can integrate into your e-commerce platform and website builder is a good idea.
Regardless of what you're selling, something out there will work for you, and most e-commerce platforms integrate into any website builder you're using.
My vote again goes to Squarespace because of its ease of use and all-in-one platform that allows small business owners to have a website, email list, and shop in one place. Squarespace helps make Alaska marketing easy.
5. Build a Local Retailer Collaboration
Local retailers are a great way to sell your products without you physically needing to be present, like at a farmers market.
The upside is that as your product expands its reach, more people will hear about it and start to buy it.
The downside is that the retailer may take a more significant profit cut than you'd prefer. But you’ll only know once you hatch out the details and crunch the numbers.
To start this process, I recommend the following steps:
Research local businesses and make a list of stores that you think would carry your product and whose philosophy and vibe you want to be associated with.
Start building relationships with the owners of the shops. Reach out to let them know who you are. Awareness is the very first step of a sales funnel — people need to know about you before they can buy from you.
Prepare a pitch. Figure out how much of your product you want to sell and how much it costs. Consider creating packages with different price points. Then write an email template with your pitch, customize it, and send, send, send (this is how I get clients! I call it “cold emailing.”)
Follow up and stay in contact. People are busy. Sometimes, reaching out to someone takes the mental lifting off their plate. A nudge can be a welcome reminder that you're still interested and could arrive in their inbox at the perfect time. You just never know.
Local retailers can be a huge asset for busy small business owners, plus many local retailers love supporting small businesses and promoting their products. If you can find your match, the sky’s the limit.
6. Offer Tours
As Alaska residents, sometimes we forget how fascinated other people are by our State and its culture.
My partner often tells the story of tourists driving up his driveway when he was kid and asking if they “had” bears. 🐻
The point is: People are interested in Alaska.
Thus, offering tours of your operation could be a win-win and give you another source of income by showing people how you do what you’re already doing.
Tours can be a successful side-gig for farmers who make locally grown produce, arts, or crafts, and are open to pulling back the curtain to visitors so they can learn about Alaska life or Alaska Native history and culture.
If you offer tours, think about incorporating SEO into your website because there is a big opportunity for tourists to find your tour.
As a reminder, SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s the science behind Google’s algorithm that determines which websites to rank first and which to rank last.
For example, a tourist visiting Palmer on a rainy day may Google something like “Best things to do on a rainy day in Palmer.”
If you can get YOUR tour to come up in THOSE search results, it could mean big things for your small business. The best way to implement a strategy like this is to post SEO-optimized blogs on your website.
There are lots of free online tools to help you learn SEO. My favorite is UberSuggest. Or, you can hire a copywriter (like me) to write blogs, keep your website SEO-optimized as the market changes, and ensure more people can find your business when they Google things during their Alaska vacation.
People are fascinated with Alaska, and it’s ok to leverage that to grow your business and support yourself. Living in Alaska is expensive; you do important work and should be compensated accordingly. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Expand When You’re Ready
In my opinion, the best part of owning a business is that you get to grow at your own pace, or not at all.
You make the rules!
Running a small business is inherently messy, and being the top decision-maker at a company – even when it's yours – is hard.
While selling beyond the farmers market may seem intimidating, if you take it all brick-by-brick, mistake-by-mistake, sale-by-sale, and win-by-win, it will come together exactly how it’s meant to be.
Do you need help with your Alaska marketing? Book a free consult — I’d gladly help you brainstorm. Until then, go crush those farmers market sales. I’ll bring my wallet.
