6 Tips For Selling Piglets
1. Take appealing pictures of your piglets! Make sure that your animals are clean. No one is going to look twice at a muddy animal eating out of a feed pan. We bathe every animal before pictures and have multiple people helping to herd them in the correct direction. Consider the light, we take pictures before lunch when we have the best sunlight. The middle of the day is not a good time to take pictures because there will be dark shadows. It's not that easy to take good pictures, so take LOTS. We often take 500 or more pictures in a sitting in order to get 5-10 really good ones. Kneel down and get at the same eye level as the animal. Then, edit! We usually choose the vivid setting and crop the pictures to make them more attractive. Make sure that you take pictures of every angle, and photograph them separate from other animals. Don’t forget the “money shot”, a cute shot of the animal’s face with their ears forward!
2. You need to be knowledgeable about this breed. What do your piglets have that other farms’ animals don’t? Are your piglets a unique color? Do they have extraordinary growth rates? Do they have rare bloodlines? Do they come from champion stock? If you’re not knowledgeable about conformation, do some research! Watching the nationally aired Kunekune shows is a great way to learn what you’d like to be breeding for.
3. Start a free farm page on Facebook! Post something at least once a week, and make sure that the pictures are engaging and interesting. Not every post should be about piglets for sale. You want to give people a reason to follow your page- that reason could be entertainment, marketing, networking, education or all of the above! You can also try paying to boost your posts. Generate more activity on your page by sharing some of your posts to some popular Kunekune groups. A helpful hint: always be positive. Don’t fall into the trap of venting or whining publicly on Facebook! It’s not professional and you are trying to sell yourself as well as your product.
4. Try Craigslist- it's free! This is a great outlet for us to sell meat barrows. Many times people come to the farm to buy a meat barrow when what they really want is a breeding pair or trio. Taking the time to educate buyers can yield big rewards! This group of people wouldn’t have known that they wanted Kunekunes if they hadn’t seen my meat barrow ad!
5. Create an attractive, easy to navigate website and KEEP IT UPDATED! This provides a one stop shop for buyers and saves you the work of having to share eight million pictures of all your availables.
6. Show off your program at a Kunekune show! Each of the three registries, IKHR, AKKPS and IKKPS have annual shows. They are inexpensive to enter and can really showcase the hard work you’ve put into your herd genetics.
