Reeling in the Non-Gardeners
An excerpt from Ball Publishing's GreenProfit
(With comments by Danny Summers)
This past week GreenProfit published an article as titled above. They posed the question: "How can you attract non-gardeners as new customers" to the three finalists in the 2018 Green Profit/Dümmen Orange Young Retailer Award competition, sponsored by Dümmen Orange and AmericanHort!
All three finalists had lots of ideas, but one was a stand-out to me - Matt Webster, General Manager at Dambly's Garden Center, and a Group Client. Here's just a portion of how Matt answered the question:
Matt Webster, General Manager
Dambly's Garden Center, Berlin, NJ
"Now is the perfect time to be excited about working in the plant industry! With an improving economy, a nationwide interest in knowing what we put in our bodies, and small-space and indoor gardening trending up year after year, we have an opportunity to provide people with a great selection of edibles, houseplants, miniature plants and plants that simply make them feel good!"
"Over the last few years we have heavily emphasized our advertising (both print and digitally through billboards, website and social media) on what we have unofficially termed “homesteading.” We are showing people that they ARE capable of living more sustainably right in their own backyards and houses! We have focused on edible gardening, raising chickens and indoor gardening in our campaign, and have seen tremendous success, gaining hundreds of new customers from a very wide radius, all because of committing—week after week—to advertise focusing on these trending categories, and following through with consistently providing a thorough line of plants and essential products to make sure our new and old customers are successful. We don’t just stop at promoting our product lines, we promote and hold classes and seminars that teach our customers where to start and how to be successful in their projects."
"One of the truly great things about running an independent garden center is that we have the opportunity and privilege of getting to know our customers—both loyal and new—and hear from them what it is they care about, their gardening goals and what they need from us to be successful. If we can continue to make them successful, we will be, too."
Finding new customers is something every center struggles with. Connecting with them, both current gardening and non-gardening consumers, especially younger generations, ones who may very well be positioned to be attracted to gardening activities, is high on the priority chart. We need to hear from more of you who are working on your center's marketing efforts. I encourage you to share ideas through our GroupEs e-List.
Congratulations to Matt Webster for being one of three finalists in the GreenProfit Award! I encourage you to read the entire article at the following link!
