Small Farm Central Gives Farmers A New Tool To Drive Business, Twilio’s API

Small Farm Central Gives Farmers A New Tool To Drive Business, Twilio’s API

In the pantheon of tools it takes to operate and maintain a farm, a RESTful API is probably not high up on the list. But, Simon Huntley is showing small farm owners how to grow their distribution network, and land new customers with Twilio’s API.

Huntley grew up on a farm in southwestern Pennsylvania. By the time he went to college to study Computer Science he was deeply versed in what it takes to run a farm, and the business challenges farms face.

Simon saw farms struggling to find people interested in buying their produce, meat and other offerings. They didn’t have the tools to build a website for themselves, and their business was suffering for it. Simon took matters into his own hands and founded Small Farm Central, a one-stop shop for farms’ online needs. Through SFC, they can easily set up a website, an online store, and manage customer communications via Twilio SMS, all without touching a line of code.

“I’m hoping to help bridge the gap between small farms and their customers using technology,” says Simon. Twilio SMS is a key tool he uses to help farms establish personal relationships with customers buying from their farm share, or visiting them at farmer’s markets.

The hour before a farmer’s market, families are making the critical call on if they’ll go or not. Small Farm Central helps farmers capitalize on that critical window through Twilio SMS and MMS. When customers opt in to the farm’s text message updates, they’ll get pictures of what the farm is selling an hour before the farmers market, encouraging them to come down and buy some great food.

“People let farms and farmers markets into their lives in a different way than they would larger brands. Text messaging helps cement a personal relationship,” Simon added. “Opt in rates are really high, we have text to join features so they can join the mailing list easily.”

Simon sees more and more farms adopting SMS outreach, and hopes that Small Farm Central will be a de facto tool farmers use to keep their farm up and running.

Learn more about Small Farm Central here.