Don't be late for the party

New products are often seen as the lifeblood of our industry. Scratch that. They should be seen that way, even if too often we don’t go about embracing “new” in the right way.

Take the California Spring Trials, for instance, when hundreds of people converge in California for a big 10-day event spotlighting plant introductions. For the past few years I’ve heard a lot of complaining that there really isn’t much that’s truly new or innovative coming out of breeding companies. It’s just more petunia, verbena, pansies and impatiens, and no one seems able to get very excited about those crops.

Is that an accurate perception? I tend to think that we’ve got quite a lot of new products coming out each year that are different and unusual —though anything that’s too big of a departure from the boring has a hard time getting adopted by growers and retailers. Our normally conservative industry, in the midst of an economic downturn, becomes even more resistant to change than usual.

This whole allergic-reaction-to-new is hard on me, because I’m a big and enthusiastic fan of new products and ideas being featured prominently in the mix of independent garden centers. Risk-adverse buyers are becoming less innovative in their product offerings and reverting to the safety of the tried and true. The danger of this is that independents become more like the box stores and end up competing on price rather than on selection.

Facebook to the rescue, sort of
The importance of taking a risk and going for the “new” becomes readily apparent when you look at how independent garden centers attempt to incorporate social media into their marketing mix. I see a tendency to focus efforts on the most boring products in their mix. Mums, impatiens and roses seem to get prominent treatment … pardon me while I yawn. New media should be the perfect way to promote new products. But instead of using Halloween to talk about the new black flowers from Ball, we post something about boring old mums.

Write this down:
New products provide the best opportunity to have an online conversation with your customers. This winter make a list of your new products and outline their features and benefits. As a social-media cheat sheet, it will be invaluable in the spring.

Josh Schneider is a founding partner of Cultivaris, a hort consulting firm. E-mail Josh at josh@cultivaris.com.