STEVENSVILLE, Md. — Lisa Goetz never imagined becoming a flower farmer. She just loved growing plants.
“I'm someone who's always been in the mud,” Goetz said.
Her hobby of growing flowers took off in 2017 when a former student asked Goetz if she could grow flowers for a wedding.
Thanks to encouragement from her daughter Lizzie, Goetz said yes, and Chestertown's Wildly Native Flower Farm was officially born.
However, when the farm started in 2017, it was not in the current situation. Goetz said he took “baby steps” on his path to farming. The farm currently has two acres of flower production, three hoop houses, and a heated greenhouse.
“It's been a slow process,” Goetz said Feb. 15 at the Mid-Atlantic Women in Agriculture Conference. “You have to learn. You have to make mistakes.”
Marketing helped this expansion.
While Goetz likes to see the flowers actually grow, she also pays attention to what her 12 employees do on aspects of the business that are less appealing to her.
“You need good branding,” Goetz says. “You need good marketing. You need to define where your authenticity lies.”
Her goal is to collect email addresses from customers and potential customers, and one way she does that is through social media.
“There are many ways to use social media,” Goetz said. “There are so many ways to get your brand, your image, all your information out there.”
Goetz said each platform is different, so farmers need to learn what types of posts perform best on different apps such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
But how does Goetz turn social media posts into direct mail marketing?
“A call to action, or CTA, is one of the most important things you do in your social media posts,” Goetz says.
A call to action provides your audience with a specific next step, such as “Order a bouquet here” or “Sign up for your newsletter now.”
Weddings are a big source of revenue for Wildly Native, and the 2024 season is already fully booked.
Mr. Goetz has performed weddings throughout Maryland and as far as North Carolina and northern Pennsylvania.
Many of her wedding clients aren't familiar with all the native flowers that each season has to offer, so Goetz invites them to come to the farm and learn more about a year before the wedding. Masu.
“Touch, smell, taste and feel the flowers that are in season,” she said.
Goetz also has a wholesale license if a customer is interested in flowers that aren't grown at Wildly Native.
In addition, Goetz operates a flower subscription service. This was born out of too many flowers going to waste.
“It's always a game of 'how much can we grow?'” Goetz said. “You want enough, but the flowers have to be perfect.”
Goetz handles all of the subscription distribution himself, and says that keeping the program running smoothly is all about planning. If he drives north, he takes all the flowers he needs to head in that direction.
Additionally, the farm uses the petals to make soap and bath soap, and has an Etsy page selling crafts that incorporate dried petals.
Goetz himself is not crafty. She has employees who see beauty in her discarded petals.
“That's trash, guys,” Goetz said. “But she cleans it up.”
Goetz is in charge of the cultivation and soil preparation, and her daughter Lizzie is in charge of arranging all the bouquets.
“She hated dirt and I hated arrangements,” Goetz said.
Her daughter is also in charge of social media for the farm.
“She really thinks, 'We need to (tell) our stories,'” Goetz said.
