Sign Up! – Make the Most of Your In-store Signage

[Originally presented at The Fall Event 2024 - CLICK HERE to download a PDF version]

by Tom Kegley

Sometimes underestimated and overlooked, in-store signage is one of the most valuable tools in your marketing toolbox. Signs come in all shapes, sizes, and substrates. They have multiple purposes– directing, educating, motivating, connecting, storytelling, brand building, and more. 

Celebrating with Signs!

by Tom Kegley

Signage in your Garden Center can be one of the most effective, efficient, and timely marketing tools in the toolbox. This year marks the 50th year of business for Fairview Greenhouses and Garden Center in Raleigh, NC. As part of the commemoration, I was proud and pleased to work with Fairview’s Heather Rollins to create a set of large format banners honoring Fairview founder, Jo Ann Dewar and the 3-generation tradition of the ‘Fairview Family’ she has dedicated her working life to (and still does to this day!)

In addition to banners featuring Jo Ann and family, we took the opportunity to update a series of banners used as backdrops to the shade perennials section of the garden center and entrance to the large greenhouse shopping area. Finally, a 50th-anniversary logo was created to enhance various messages throughout the year of celebration.

The Mark of a Good Mark

by Tom Kegley

Your logo might be the most powerful tool in your marketing kit. Not to be confused with your brand– the sum of your reputation and your customer’s experience with and perception of you. Your logo is the mark of your brand– the salutation and closing signature of all your graphic communication.

Making a BIG Impression

by Tom Kegley

This Large Format Greenhouse Covering at Skinner Garden Store is a sight to behold.

When Skinner Garden Store’s Cameron Rees had the idea to utilize a blank space to connect with drivers on the 4-lane divided highway adjacent to his location, he truly decided to ‘go big or go home’!

Let Your Center's Brand ROCK! 

by Tom Kegley

In case you missed the GROUPtalk-Live session last Tuesday, "Let Your Center's Brand ROCK!" by Tom Kegley, you still the opportunity to see and hear what Tom has created. The session has been recorded and you have an invitation to view the entire presentation below. I want to stress a couple of points here... This is MUCH MORE than simply a redesign of a logo for America’s Best Flowers (which looks fabulous by the way). It begins with  a study of the "essence" or "core values" of the company. For America's Best Flowers, one word that was always in their logo and message was... Joy. Tom says there is so much of what we sell that creates Joy and how we experience that Joy is multifaceted through many senses. Creating a new logo incorporated the "essence" he and the staff at ABF agreed with and Tom also kept a rainbow of colors in the concept, except in a different way.

 

A Millennial’s Garden Comes Into Its Own - Part 2

by Tom Kegley

In an ongoing saga, the journey into gardening for the intrepid millennial has hit stride. Now 8+ weeks into the season, Lee’s garden is blooming with the delight to be expected if you’ve been around the track, as all in our circle have. Not without a few stumbles in the beginning, natural and otherwise, all in all, a well-placed source reports pleasure and bounty from efforts to date!

As a reminder of scope, this first-time gardener resurrected the former house owner’s dilapidated raised bed garden consisting of 6 - 4’x7’ beds. He filled it with a host of veggies and herbs well suited for the city garden– tomatoes (6 varieties), cucumber, squash, zucchini, peppers (banana, jalapeño, bell), and a range of herbs, including parsley, sage, basil, oregano, mint, and eucalyptus.

A Millennial’s Journey to His Garden of Eden - Part 1

by Tom Kegley

News Flash:  After 9 years of a somewhat nomadic existence across two states and three cities, Millennial Son Lee Kegley is now the happy owner of a lovely and renovated 1940’s vintage colonial in the quaint Forest Hills section of Richmond, VA. He intends to stay for the foreseeable future, well entrenched in residential sales with the company he’s worked for since college, Ferguson Enterprises. Ferguson is the nation’s largest wholesale distributor of commercial and residential plumbing supplies, pipe, valves, fittings, waterworks, and HVAC/R products. Recently he attended a National Association of Home Builders conference where the keynote speaker shared insights on the dynamics of millennial home buying these days. Lee’s report to me on that coinciding with his April home purchase was revealing.

In GroupTalk issues to come, I hope to share Lee’s unfolding endeavors in his new residence pertaining to an amazing transformation (for him at least)– he’s become an enthusiastic home gardener!

Integrate Your Marketing Communications for More Impact

by Tom Kegley

 

With so many ways to reach out to your customers– advertising, email, direct mail, in-store signage, events, social media, and more– it’s easy for your marketing communications to become diluted or disjointed. In today’s ocean of messaging, the isolated message gets lost.
 
No Message is an Island is a macro communications approach for today’s media. If you identify your big message, weave it into every channel you use to speak to your customers, and coordinate the execution, your marketing becomes so much more effective. Whether your campaign is for a weekend, a season, or the entire year, make it stronger by connecting your islands of messages into one giant continent.
________________________
Learn why and how No Message is an Island in 7 minutes in Tom’s moving online presentation.