Innovator of the Year - Marketing

The Calloway's 11 focus group

Their journey finished and their fine-tooth combs stashed safely away, the “Calloway’s 11” took their assigned seats at the long table, each member of the party perched behind a name placard that would serve as a reference point for the audience assembled before them.

For the better part of a week, these house fraus, former school teachers, business professionals and single moms had become adopted members of the Calloway’s Nursery family. Ten females, gardening veterans and newbies alike, had joined a single “every man” – assuming every man likes to dig holes and water annuals – to tour each store in the Calloway’s Nursery chain. That’s 17 locations, for those keeping track of the company portfolio at home, an assembly that spans various burgs in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex and that serves as the area’s largest L & G resource under one corporate umbrella.

The Calloway’s brain trust had summoned these folks, each of whom was a regular-enough patron to have signed up for the company’s Garden Club, and had charged them with a two-fold task: Go check out our stores; then tell us what you think.

And, boy, were they doing some telling telling.

First, they waxed enthusiastic, citing, one by one, the garden centers’ strong points. “Great people,” “wonderful plant selection,” “quality green goods and ancillary products,” and “handy locations” all found a place in the “plus” column.

Then they took off the gloves. “Your prices are too high,” more than one panelist opined. “Your checkout process on busy days can be a nightmare,” chimed in the every man. “I really wish you had wider aisles,” was a third assessment. “You could use more parking at the store closest to my house,” was yet another verdict rendered.

All the while as the customers talked, the Calloway’s staff listened. And nodded. And jotted notes on legal pads – the signal sent that the people in the blue shirts were taking the critiques to heart, even if some were daggers. Finally, after the last review was delivered, Calloway’s President Jim Estill thanked the panel and assured its members that what they had contributed would go a long way toward helping make the chain stronger.

The payoff. Recent history suggests he is right. Some 22 years after he and fellow company officers John Cosby and John Peters created Calloway’s Nursery Inc., the Fort Worth-based business is perhaps at its zenith – largely because of its commitment midway through this decade to get to know its market better. That quest – and the fruits it produced – is why Calloway’s has been named one of the recipients of Garden Center magazine’s 2009 Innovator Award.

“Our store teams are a direct connection with our customers,” Estill said. “If they feel supported, appreciated, and empowered, that will be transferred to the customers with whom they interact.” Thus, the company’s bid to marry the two key parties via the panel. Thus, likewise, a handful of other recent marketing-driven projects that have helped teach the stores’ staffs their collective role as resource, mentor and friend to the local gardening community – and show the members of that fraternity that Calloway’s is “their” place to find plants and items that enhance them.

As with many long-standing businesses, Calloway’s journey from fledgling company to established entity has been traversed on the proverbial winding road. The path once meandered from the DFW metroplex south to San Antonio, then to Houston. As recently as 2003, the company operated 27 stores throughout those Texas cities and served roughly 11.5 million potential customers. But when “potential” trumped “customers” at some of the sites, Estill and Co. scaled back, and now the Calloway’s stable includes the 17 Dallas-Fort Worth garden centers along with three Cornelius Nursery locations in Houston.

It was during this transition period that Calloway’s made one more move that ultimately smacked of brilliance. The company named Kimberly Bird Vice President of Marketing, and almost immediately, the stores’ makeup got a makeover. While the chain had long been staffed by some of the industry’s brighter – and friendlier – folks, Bird added a fresh, new element to the mix. And she quickly began a movement to help the entire Calloway’s team better connect with prospective customers, implementing programs designed to learn the market, serve its needs and claim it as its own.

Social gatherings. For example, Calloway’s recently started targeting younger, techno-savvy prospective gardeners by launching a social networking project that tapped the resources of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube. Working with Kara Roberson, another marketing specialist at the company, Bird convinced Calloway’s management that the store needed to be in the virtual places these potential customers frequented. Suddenly, the chain had new “fans” in places they had never dreamed of visiting. The company uses the social network to share news, pictures, videos – the works. In the process of getting the word out, Calloway’s began bringing new customers in.

Bird takes special pride in the project. “Take a quick glance at the pages, and you can see that we’ve regularly and routinely updated content, and our network continues to grow.” she said. “We have links to our social networks across the bottom of our micro-site, mytexasgarden.com (there are plant tags in soil with the social network logos). Other than a $3,000 investment with an outside programmer who helped us we did this all in house – during a lot of late evenings trying to get this up for Spring.”

Another marketing-based program to strike gold is the company’s “Perennial Swap,” implemented at select Calloway’s stores. Here customers share plants and plant care advice on a regular basis, thus marking the chain as a viable, interactive venue for plant enthusiasts wanting something new in the way of plant material or plant knowledge.

A third project, Tree Stories, partnered Calloway’s with Greenleaf Nursery to present the “O2 Planting for the Future” program at Calloway’s and Cornelius locations. Sustainability workshops are held, along with a “Tree Stories” contest in which customers can share their best tales of how trees add vitality to the environment. The story that receives the most votes in an online poll receives a $1,000 American Express gift card from Greenleaf Nursery.
The sum of these parts – along with interactive projects such as the focus group meetings – is a whole new realm of customer appreciation, the likes of which Estill could only dream about prior to the company’s decision to better promote marketing – and to let Bird do the promoting. “Kimberly was selected because of her drive and passion for connecting with our customers through our store teams,” he said. “As [the panel shows], she regularly establishes forums that help us to do just that.”

New AND improved. In essence, what Bird and Calloway’s has done is re-invent the nursery chain, further earning the trust of regular customers, while becoming a viable shopping destination for new ones. Estill said the entire company has benefited from the new marketing-based strategy. “The key to remaining pertinent in my view is to listen to our store teams and our customers,” he said. “If you stay connected to your customers, are willing to accept their input, and are willing to make adjustments to the business as a positive response to that input, I believe you remain pertinent.”

Bird sees his “pertinent,” and raises him a “cool.” Shortly after the panel disbanded and the members went their separate ways, she got word that several of the previously mentioned “gardening newbies” had paid her company the ultimate 2009-vintage compliment. “They blogged about us,” she said.

And this time, they said only nice things.