Successful Marketing Isn't As Difficult As It Seems

by Robert Hendrickson

Last time I shared a marketing conversation that took place between a garden center owner, their ad agency and myself. The agency had been following their typical playbook approach with little impact on the garden center's sales or customer count.

Here's an insider's tip on why agencies are so predictable. The plan they suggest clients follow isn't because the process works and actually has a chance to increase sales, it's because the process they live by is easy for the agency to manage. Getting every client to sign-on to the same media plan makes life easy for the agency and their staff. Easy to sell, easy to create, easy to scale, easy to bill. Easy for the agency. A waste of time and money for the retailer.

Let The Battle Begin


by Robert Hendrickson

I knew exactly what to expect. In fact I could have scripted the entire meeting word for word before we started. I've been asked numerous times by garden center owners to play good cop/bad cop with them and their ad agency. No surprise which cop I play. Even after garden center owners finally realize they've been wasting money, losing momentum and being misled by their ad agency representatives, they still want someone else to do the dirty work. Telling an agency they're no longer needed isn't that difficult. I've done it dozens of times. You send a letter to the CEO and simply say their services are no longer required. But for some reason these same garden center owners feel obligated to schedule a face to face meeting with the agency to share the bad news.

Big mistake.

Tell Me a Story - Part 2


by Robert Hendrickson

[Continued from Part 1. If you want to return to Part 1, CLICK HERE]

My last article ended with my belief that the future of the garden center industry depends on  these eight words... 
"Our future is in the stories we tell." But why stories and why stories now?

Tell Me A Story - Part 1

by Robert Hendrickson

To understand the message in this article I need you to stop reading and watch Johnnie Walker "The Man Who Walked Around The World. This is a Watch the six minute video then come back and continue reading what I'm about to say. Ok? Good.

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.