Signs, leaflets and adverts

Spending money to be seen is a real cost with a real, hard to pin down, return. A sign at the gate costs once and keeps working every day after; a listing or a noticeboard entry costs every year it runs.

Every producer who has tried it reports the same shape: spending on being seen pays back fastest while a good product is still mostly unknown, hardly at all once everyone nearby already buys it. Margins on a craft product are thin before packaging, branding and a market's own fees are taken out, and marketing spent too early is money a thin margin cannot spare.

The return is not cash handed back; it is a customer who would never have found the farm otherwise.