Blogging off our lamb

Cole and her husband run 5500 breeding ewes and 200 steers in the central North Island. It's seriously steep country but the pair have used the latest research available to improve the profitability of their operation.

Now Cole, who's been active in BLNZ's farmer council, has taken on a role of helping to promote New Zealand lamb in the discerning and high priced German market. Germans are known to look for information on the web and BLNZ has a specific site for the European powerhouse with a range of information about our lamb.

But the levy-body decided to go one step further and called for farmers to volunteer to become regular bloggers on the site to establish a strong relationship with consumers, based on the marketing adage "before you make a sale, you have to develop a relationship".

Cole volunteered and sent in a copy of what her blog might look like and was immediately accepted. "I try to pick a theme that's topical like shearing or something that's happening at a particular time of the year. Something that's simple and not hard to explain and something that can come with lots of nice pictures. The last one I did was on docking but I'm due to do another one shortly."

She does a new blog about every four months and says her objective is to try and personalise the product on the supermarket shelves, enhancing its popularity.

"What I'm trying to put across in my blog is how we farmers care deeply about the product we produce. Right from the rams that we choose to the daily tasks we undertake with our stock to ensure that a good tasting, safe, healthy product is delivered on their table."

It's not all one way traffic and she responds to consumers who put posts on the website.

Getting feedback is exciting, she says, and as a result of her blog there's the possibility at least one online consumer contact will visit their farm to meet face to face sometime this year.