Case Study: 3C Joppa Cattle Co moves from selling one-on-one to smart marketing with help from the Meat Squad

After a career in sales, Jeff from 3C Joppa Cattle Co has had success selling his bulk beef in the way he knows best: selling one-on-one.

But that success comes at a cost — his time.

Using Facebook lead generation ads, Jeff built a strong list of potential customers. After someone opted in, Jeff personally followed up via email, text or phone call to understand their needs and close the sale.

While this approach worked, it required Jeff to be personally involved in a majority of orders, making it difficult to scale and exhausting during busy seasons.

Jeff had experimented with ads before, but without clear tracking or strategy. In his words, he “threw a lot of money away, not knowing what I was doing” and couldn’t confidently say whether the ads were profitable. 

Finally, Jeff reached out in the fall of 2025 for help getting ready for holiday meat sales.

We began working together in November and focused first on foundational marketing infrastructure that would support both short-term holiday sales and long-term growth.

In the first 8 weeks, the ChopLocal MeatSquad

• Refreshed the Shopify website design to better reflect the 3C Joppa brand, incorporating logo colors, improved product photos, and clearer messaging focused on customer benefits—not just ranch history. Jeff had a strong understanding of his target customer, but needed help crafting a website to reach them.
• Launched Google Ads (Shopping, Search, and Performance Max) and implemented Google Analytics to enable accurate performance tracking.
• Deployed two Meta ad strategies aligned with Meta’s new Andromeda ad retrieval system.
• Established KPI tracking to clearly identify which channels and strategies were driving sales.

Because Jeff genuinely wants to understand how his marketing works, our partnership combines done-for-you execution with one-on-one coaching and strategic guidance—giving him both results and confidence.

As Jeff shared on the Meat Success podcast (Episode 30), “One of the real values since joining forces with you is you bring these KPIs to me and force me to look at them… I’m running so hard and doing a crappy job at too many things, that that just kind of gets pushed aside… So thank you for doing that.”

Before ChopLocal MeatSquad:

• 65% of orders required a direct, manual sales approach (calls, texts, emails)
• Meta ads were running without clear profitability
• Uncertainty around how to measure marketing performance

After ChopLocal MeatSquad (within ~8 weeks):

• Sales increased 2.2x from November to December
• Direct-sales orders dropped to 50%, reducing Jeff’s hands-on workload
• Total number of orders increased 78% in just 6 weeks
• Clear visibility into performance metrics and ROI
• A trusted marketing partner to help interpret data and guide decisions

While we’re still early in the partnership, the shift has already been transformational—not just in revenue, but in how Jeff spends his time and makes marketing decisions.

Jeff’s advice to other producers is simple: don’t treat ads like a slot machine. “I can’t tell you how many thousands of dollars I’ve thrown away on meta ads… it’s just like gambling… maybe this will work,” he said on Episode 30 of the Meat Success podcast. “Find somebody who’s been down that path before and get them to help you with it, even if you have to pay for it.”

Want the full story? Listen to Meat Success podcast Episode 30 to hear Jeff share what he’s learned about selling beef direct-to-consumer—and how he’s building a marketing system that supports sales without requiring a phone call for every order.

Ready to work with the MeatSquad? Learn more here!