Growing Garden Centers Through Great Marketing
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I help Garden Centers grow their businesses. I do this by having a black belt in Internet Marketing.
The Internet represents the greatest development in our business since deliveries moved from horse drawn wagon to trucks. I know that most garden center owners need a person like me to lead them through the obstacle course of POS systems, web developers, e-newsletter applications, and buld junk mail senders. We are business people that know the web. Electronic Marketing is the best resource that garden centers under utilize.
This lens will be the on ramp where you get up to the information you need to leverage this technology. I look forward to sharing what I know, and to seeing other garden centers building customer loyalty, brand value, top of mind presence and ultimately better revenue.
Tools for being a better marketer
I don't invent much, I learn. I added this module to offer links to some books that I think are worth the read for a Garden Center Owner
Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers by Seth Godin
This is dated now, but right on the money. If you more...1 point
The Art of Celebrity Service by Eric Wilder
Eric knows the garden center business, and everyon more...1 point
Make Money Taking Surveys
Discover How to Make as Much Money as You Want, Just more...1 point
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
This is all about the art of scaling your business more...0 points
Firebrands: Building Brand Loyalty in the Internet Age by Doug Millison
This is a great book for the big boys. It is full more...0 points
Do you make rain... or hope for it ?
It's not enough to hope for good weather, and new home owners...
Drought
Rain
Heat
Cold
Disease
Pricing Pressures
Inventory Problems
Employee Issues
It scares me when a nurseries success or failure is predicated on these tactical things that they can't control.
Instead Create Your Own Good Fortune... or Improve Your Position
Focus your time on the following list of things you do have control over:
Improve your average transaction value ($60 is a good goal)
Improve the number of visits per year from your average customer (Industry average is 3)
Create a reason for referals to happen
Use synnergy to work with other retailers (Fund raisers, hosted events)
Add sales of "Special Order" (non inventoried) items (get 30-40% margin on products you don't ever inventory)
Find out what creates friction for your customers (If you don't survey your customers you are only guessing.... and likely wrong)
Align your staff goals with your goals (Do your employees know what your priorities are?)
Sell more products to the same people ( Think of shoulder season products, or lifestyle items)
Garden Center Blog
Eric Wilder and I study whats working for garden centers and report it here
Marketing Links
- Seth Godin
- Seth Godin is the Godfather of the medium.... If you want to know where we are going.. look to where he is.
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Author of "Blink", and "Tipping Point." Malcolm takes all of the hyperbole and uses science and numbers to boil down the truth. In addition to learning, Malcom helps me to "unlearn" some of the mythology we take for fact.
Industry Links
- Roger Heins
- Roger has a wealth of experience, and a keen ear for learning about individual garden centers. I am a student of his.
- Kip Creel
- Kip does market research for a "who's who" in the lifestyles business. Everytime I watch Kip, I leave with about a dozne "did you know's."
- Bill Calkins
- Bill goes to about a million shows a year, and talks to many of the people who are setting examples in this industry. This is an e-newsletter that everyone should read.
- Garden Center News
- This is our site. We want to tell people that they should be doing this, and we are the people that know how. Does are site send that message?
Independent Garden Center sites that work
- The Gazebo Man
- My vision of e-commerce for indy garden centers is selling new products to old customers. Especially high quality, value added products that stretch you beyond green goods into the "Outdoor Living" category. This is one of the best products you can do that with.
Vic Bello sells his gazebos through Independent Garden Centers. You just get the margin without the headaches.
The key to this is working with a gazebo company that makes you look good. Any problems with quality or timetables can make this a bad deal for you. I have several clients that use Vic and tell me he is high quality and on time - The Blogging Nurseryman
- 25 Years in the business.. good links.. good reading list.. check it out.
- Alden Lane
- Great Function..
I chose this site for it's simplicity. We all know about sites that costs thousands of dollars and never create a new customer or a new sale. The design part of this is as basic as it comes... but it is "A Dog That Hunts." See how they harvest email addresses, and sell new departments. The Patio Connection link is a great way to get that "Lifestyle Sale" and not actually inventory the product. So many nurseries want to use e-commerce to sell the same products they stock to the same customers that drive in. I encourage you to sell new products to your old customers, or sell existing products to new customers. NET NEW!
I read this newsletter every week, they do a good job with it.
My Personal Links
by GardenCenterNews
I help Garden Centers build relationships with their customers.
My family owned a fertilizer business in Long Island NY. I grew up walking nurseri...
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