Mary Jane’s Farm: A Model of Community Building

Yesterday’s news that mag­a­zine sales at news­stands are plum­met­ing across North Amer­ica should come as no sur­prise to those who have seen tra­di­tional media like news­pa­pers strug­gle to find their foot­ing in the face of social media. Loy­alty is hard to come by in the mag­a­zine world. Mag­a­zines are a dis­cre­tionary pur­chase. Gum? hand san­i­tizer? magazine?

So how to cul­ti­vate loy­alty among a fickle read­er­ship. Give them some­thing that res­onates on a deep val­ues level then they won’t be fickle. They’ll be devout. That’s exactly what Mary Jane’s Farm has done. Imag­ine a mag­a­zine where read­ers write in to say:

“Thank you Mary Jane for remind­ing me what was most impor­tant in the world, who I wanted my daugh­ters to grow up to be, and how I could return to my true self.”

True Self. Wow. Imag­ine a Lucky mag­a­zine reader say­ing that (ha!).

Mary Jane’s Farm is not just a mag­a­zine for famers or want-to-be farm­ers. It is for women, rural and city folk alike, for whom the val­ues of the farm res­onate deeply. Basi­cally those who believe in the val­ues of homesteading–be they NY cor­po­rate lawyers or stay at home moms in Idaho. In fact, one of the magazine’s cre­dos is “It’s not where you live, but how you live.” And they have four dif­fer­ent blog­gers; city, rural, ranch and sub­ur­ban.

For Mary Jane’s Farm, no mat­ter where you’re from, you’re part of their com­mu­nity if you sub­scribe to the fol­low­ing 5 core values:

1. Want to know where your food comes from
2. Par­tic­i­pate in its production
3. Care about family
4. Cre­ate community
5. Make some­thing with your hands

In his book Mak­ing Mean­ing, Nathan She­droff points to 15 core mean­ings that help cre­ate long last­ing rela­tion­ships with consumers.

One of the pri­mary ways Mary Jane’s farm cre­ates mean­ing for it’s read­ers is through the value of com­mu­nity which She­droff defines as “a sense of unity with oth­ers around us and a gen­eral con­nec­tion with other human beings.”

There’s an awful lot of talk about the word com­mu­nity these days. Throw up a face­book fan page and “bam” you’ve got a com­mu­nity. Those of us who have ever belonged to a com­mu­nity know it’s about much more than push­ing a but­ton, or being a fan. It’s about being a com­mit­ted par­tic­i­pant on a rit­u­al­ized level. Think about Harley David­son devo­tees or those who fol­low the band Phish from state to state.

When you speak to people’s core val­ues, you are not dis­cre­tionary. You are core to their lives. As one Mary Jane’s farm Face­book fan puts it “I pinched pen­nies to get this mag­a­zine com­ing this year.”

Mary Jane’s Farm lever­ages the power of their val­ues based brand in sev­eral ways.

• Con­tent: The mag­a­zine does not suck. It does not exploit its read­ers by over­load­ing them with ads. Instead, it fills the mag­a­zine with use­ful con­tent on sub­jects that mat­ter to its community–from pre­serv­ing, to cast-iron recipes, to shar­ing quilt­ing and pro­files of subscribers.
• Far­m­girl Sis­ter­hood: When you join the sis­ter­hood you get a bunch of spe­cial perks like a newslet­ter and access to the online forum but you also get a badge–the first of many you can earn for things like cro­chet­ing, com­mu­nity ser­vice, going green, etc.
• Real-Life Meet­ings: The Far­m­girl Sis­ter­hood and Chap­ters get-togethers where all the mem­bers get together for a good ‘ol time. I’m dying to go.
• Lots More: There are count­less ways to engage with the Mary Jane’s Farm brand. You can stay at their B&B, get their books and other prod­ucts like sewing pat­terns, organic beef, etc. watch “Farm U” videos and that’s just the tip of the ice­berg. Seriously.

When you do some­thing that is authen­tic and res­onates on a val­ues level a com­mu­nity forms around your brand. A Twit­ter feed or Face­book page means lit­tle if an emo­tional chord isn’t being struck. Would peo­ple pinch pen­nies to afford your prod­uct? Would they want to chat with oth­ers who also buy your prod­uct? Would they want to sleep in your B & B if you had one? Would they want to wear your badge?

This is the def­i­n­i­tion of com­mu­nity. As the Mary Jane’s Farm girls might say, the rest is hog­wash.