Stop Facebooking and water something!

Josh Schneider At times, the horticulture industry has a trend “force field” around it that keeps viable ideas from getting through – at least in time to capitalize on them. I’ve talked before about how perplexed I am that instead of embracing something that adds margin and increases profits (see organic plants), we get caught up in bells and whistles.

Take, for example, the breathless media extolling the virtues of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. To hear some people talk, there are these “killer apps” out there that suddenly will make gardening the No. 1 hobby of the under-30 crowd.

I hate to be the crabby nay-sayer, but I think that garden centers have far bigger fish to fry. It’s not that I’m against technology – far from it. But our industry sometimes has a tendency to get the cart before the horse. And it would probably be a good idea to circle back around to make sure we’ve got our other bases covered before we run headlong into blasting our deepest thoughts to all our customers from our rebuilt Commodore 64s.

A history lesson.
If we rewind 10 years and look at the last big thing in media that was going to “change everything” and “revolutionize” us, we can see how we managed to, um, develop that one. I’ve spent time looking at garden center Web sites lately, and I have to say that a lot of them look just fine – for 1998!

I won’t even go into grower Web sites, and if you value your retinas, you won’t either. But it seems like many of us are lagging a bit behind, and if we want to get really get technological with our marketing, we need to get off of Facebook and take a critical look at what our sites are telling our market.

I’ve worked on a fair number of Web development projects over the past decade, and, trust me, I understand how complicated and expensive they can be. It’s like building a house; the projects always cost more and take longer than you thought. Still, certain principles apply to any online marketing effort.

For example, even the most basic Web sites need to be maintained and updated regularly. A woman once told me that “we were landscaped last year” so she didn’t need anything in the way of plants. I thought to myself, “Did you press charges?”

The idea that you can build a Web site and then update it only every five years is a lot like that woman’s approach to the garden. Every garden needs regular maintenance and replanting and pruning to keep looking good – and that’s assuming it was planted right the first time. The same goes for your Web site. It shouldn’t be static. After all, it’s the flagship of your online presence, and it needs to be interesting and engaging. It’s not a Yellow Pages ad.

Web site “musts.”
Here are some things you need to do to have an effective Web site:

Keep it current – make sure that you’ve got seasonal promotions up on your site in advance of the selling season, and take them down at the end of season.

Make sure your contact info is easy to find – if it takes three clicks to get to your phone number, you’ve got a problem. Fix it.

Get staff photos on your Web site, and make sure they are good ones. People who work in customer service should not be pictured looking scary or angry or in orange jumpsuits. Staff photos should reflect the happiness and fun that is (popularly thought to be) part of working at a garden center.

Photos of popular or unusual plants should be pictured – in focus. Most breeders provide decent pictures of their plants, so ask for them. Both close-ups and shots in pretty containers and gardens are available and will help customers visualize what they want this spring.

Reduce the amount of visual clutter. Programmers who build Web sites are not designers. Design is an art-backed science. White space is a good thing. Pair a designer with a programmer and get something that is clean and easy on the eyes. Then budget to do a big update EVERY YEAR and plan for monthly maintenance. It’s great winter work and also a good exercise to help you think through your marketing efforts.

Now that you’ve fixed your Web site, let’s go back to the heavy-breathing news media and the new basic message: Social media is the most important thing you can possibly do for your business! You must immediately set up accounts with Twit-Face, and then friend/follow everyone from your third grade teacher to your dog’s former owner – and then post and tweet likeyour life depends on it – because it does!

Aside from the creepiness of all that following/posting to people you don’t really know, there are a lot of pitfalls in the execution of this whole social media game, and you can’t just run out and start e-blabbing about 3-gallon hostas and bug killer.

Making facebook work.
Facebook is a medium that has huge influence on how people interact. It’s an online conversation/bulletin board that has seen huge growth recently. My page is a public forum where my friends, family and select business associates (those lucky few) can see what I’m interested in.

In theory, this medium offers a great opportunity for garden centers to have a conversation with their customers and to capture their enthusiasm in a way that can promote your store. And tapping into the excitement of customers and getting them to provide information to other customers about new varieties and interesting gardening solutions could help you sell products and build relationships.

You are part of a conversation about your brand and the products you sell, and when you and your customers interact on these subjects, you’re going in the right direction. Maybe you can start with friends and family first and see if you can get them interested in what you do. We all know they’re the toughest audience anyway.