7 ways to show your cheapness this Valentines Day!
Shows us how to be cheap this Valentines Day
Boston.com posted an article titled, “7 Ways to Save on Flowers”. (If you cannot access the article from the link, go here and click the top story)It seems The Boston Globe only knows independent florists as places to go and bicker about price. The only mention of independent florist is this. “Your local florist may also do business online at competitive prices. Read customers’ online reviews and scour coupon sites such as retailmenot.com, couponshack.com and coupons.com for discounts. And don’t fall for throw-ins like chocolates and stuffed animals – those just add extra costs and create the illusion of a deal.” Kindness, it’s just an illusion!
Well, where do I go to get a deal on flowers? The Globe knows. Costco and the local grocery store! This from the post, “Check grocery stores, whose floral departments may be bigger than you realized. For example, last year Costco was offering three dozen long-stemmed red roses in a vase with baby’s breath online for $99.99, and the company’s warehouse stores were selling a dozen long-stemmed roses for $14.99.” Online ordering is mentioned twice in the article.
How about a little Valentine love for your local florist trying to compete against this kind of publicity? On top of it all Boston.com tells us, “Giving your loved one a single long-stemmed rose is a powerful statement of commitment. And you can put the $75 or so that you save toward dinner for two — or another gift.” Gee Boston.com, couldn’t they save even more money and take that $75 and spend it at the Costco food service court, instead of some overpriced restaurant? Paying $75 for a dinner for two is not an illusion!
Social Media Amplifies the Meow!
I'm fighting mad!
When you take on social media as part of your marketing efforts you are attempting to connect with your customers, and potential customers. Once you make that social media connection people may respond to you, often in way’s you didn’t expect.
Earl May Nursery & Garden Center is having a lesson in how social media works. As you may have read here yesterday Earl May Nursery recently banned cats from it premisses. The cat’s which had been at the nursery for awhile performing the job of rodent control and customer greeters we’re fired recently. The human employee who worked there complained and started a campaign to get the cats back. He was then fired.
Now Earl May’s Facebook Page has turned negative as customers, and maybe ex-customers vent. One commenter say’s, “It’s just plain wrong what you did to the employee who defended the cats. I will make sure all of my friends and family learn of this and never spend another dollar in your stores.” Ouch!
This will be a great lesson for those of you involved in, or thinking about becoming involved in social media. Just remember, you social media efforts will reflect your companies ethos, good or bad. There might be good reasons why Earl May fired the cats, as one commenter at this blog points out. The problem is the damage was done. What’s worse? Cats apparently have Facebook pages now, and they are not happy. “The cats out of the bag”, so to speak.
No Cats Allowed at The Earl May Nurseries
No cats allowed!
It seems the Earl May Nursery and Garden Center recently banned cats from it’s stores. According to The WCF Courier “Steve and Ginny, it’s fair to say, love their jobs. Each day they (the cats) greet customers out in the parking lot, escort them inside and are available to anyone. Each night, they rid the store of furry burglars — mostly mice and chipmunks — who try to steal the bird seed and corn. Both have been at their jobs longer than most of the other employees at Earl May Nursery and Garden Center in Cedar Falls — especially Steve, who has been at the store for eight years.”
Now it seems the employee who complained about the cats being fired has himself been fired! Again, according to The WCF Courier, “In speaking up for the two feline employees he worked with at Earl May Nursery and Garden Center, Rich Congdon hoped to keep them both on the job. Instead, his job might now be severed, too. The latter came after the Courier, and later several regional and national newspapers, ran his story last week after a corporate memo forbidding cats on store premises all but assured that cats Steve, 8, and Ginny, 4, would no longer be allowed to live and ‘work’ at the Cedar Falls store they’ve lived at for years.” In addition according to the Courier, “Employees, not the company, pay for the cats’ upkeep, and both regularly greet customers and rid the garden center of pests, Congdon told the Courier.”
The story has now made it to The Chicago Tribune. What do you think of this move by Earl May Nurseries?
New Media Matters
Kind of like foot in mouth. "Shoe", Navy Pier, Chicago.
What was learned from the Scotts Miracle-Gro, National Wildlife Federation fiasco? First, the bigger a non-profit gets the more likely they are to partner up with questionable allies. What was The NWF thinking? Partnering up with a company that had just admitted to poisoning wild birds through tainted seed? The question for the NWF is, will they recover from this? Simply through association with Scotts, The NWF has called into questioning their entire vetting process.
The second lesson in this affair is profound for us in the gardening trades. The customer has more influence than ever before, and they are calling the shots. Not only are they calling the shots, but they have the means to spread their thoughts quicker than ever before. So quickly with the Scotts-NWF affair, it caught them off guard. What do you do as a garden retailer if a local garden writer with influence decides to start a boycott through social media of your Scotts Lawn Fertilizer and pre-emergent, and hence your store? How you respond will be spread through the community, for better or worse.
It use to be things we’re done differently with “old media”. Your store might advertise with the local paper, or radio station. Therefore that media might give you the benefit of the doubt before they published something negative about you. Give you the “heads up” so to speak, or not publish it at all. Of course advertising dollars are at play in new media also. Yet some are driven by passion, and not dollars. If they believe in something with enough passion, it may not matter whether you buy ad space with them, or not. It’s a whole new world.
The answer? Run your business in a way that is true to you, and your customers values. The time will come to answer some critic(s), but you’ll have a track record of honesty and trust that negates the negativity. The better businesses always have more positive reviews than negative ones. If your wondering what, if anything is being said about you or your business try a search of “garden centers” and your “zip code” to see what comes up. There might be a Yelp, or Google review of your business. Is there anything being said about your place, good or bad? If not, why not? People are talking. Are you there, and are you listening?
Bringing Your Garden Business Into “The Now”
Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park, S.F.
The plan is working! Slowly but surely we are bringing garden centers out of marketing’s past and into the future with social media. Our group, Independent Garden Centers and Nurseries (IGC&N) is an informal venue where nursery professionals can meet and discuss. What I have noticed is often it’s a forward thinking manager or employee who first joins. Kind of a “check it out for the boss” effect. Or it might be, “if I let you join will you quit bugging me about social media?”
So today there is a post in the group from a member who belongs to a large chain of well known garden centers. She has just received a new smart phone form the owners! Why did the owners, who we’re not huge fans of social media in the beginning relent? One of the reasons the owners gave was this persons work with our group, and social media. They are seeing results from her efforts!
To think that just being a active member of a group of like minded people could change the focus of a major garden business is exciting. It shows “ideas” and not “stuff” is where the action is. If you are looking for a way to bring your garden business into “the now” but are getting a little resistance from the powers to be, this might be one way.
If you are a employee or owner of a Independent Garden Center or Nursery ask to join here. You’ll need a Facebook account, but that’s easy to set up. Maybe your boss will buy you a smart phone. Or perhaps you’ll become so valuable to the company they can’t see running it with out you. Either way it’s a win for you and the business. The group is free to join.
The above picture is of The Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park. It’s well hidden, just behind the California Academy of Sciences.
Still a big opportunity for “real” green businesses
Way out there!
Had no idea the hullabaloo that would arise after my Tweet of an article from Garden Center Magazine about the partnership between Scotts Miracle-Gro and The National Wildlife Federation and their “Be Out There” campaign. It illustrates well the the idea behind my last post, “You Can’t Design a Marketing Campaign to Go Viral“. It picked up a life of it’s own because people feel passionate about the subject, and decided to share with their friends. Passion helps spread ideas.
I found this post from July of 2008 after searching my blog for the term, “greenwashing”. The only thing I would change from that post is this sentence, “Blogs are becoming the the news source for the new millennium.” To be relevant today it should say, “Social media is becoming the news source for the new millennium.”
Here is my Twitter account if you would like to follow.
You can’t design a marketing campaign to go viral
Why do marketing experts tell us that we should design our marketing to go viral? How do you design anything with the idea that people will spread the idea or product enough that it goes viral? You can’t. It’s up to the end-user to spread the word, and if the idea or product is worthy, it could go viral.
Here is a video of Hula Hoop enthusiast that attached a small camera to the Hula Hoop. She thought it would be cool. What she didn’t expect was how it would go viral in just a few days. 8000 views just yesterday, today almost 16,000 views. I doubt she started the project with the idea that it would be spread so quickly through the community of You Tube watchers.
Don’t design your marketing to go viral. Design your marketing to highlight the fantastic service, and products you offer, as well as helping the customer become more passionate about their gardening. Your customers will decide if it goes viral. There are some things you can do to promote the spreading of the word, but we will leave that for another day.
Check out the video. It’s WOW! That’s why it’s spreading. What are you doing in your business that’s WOW?
New USDA Zone Map Released
USDA Zone map
The USDA has released their new zone map of the country. The first new map since 1990, and some zones have been changed. Maragret Roach explains the nuances of the changes at “A Way to Garden”.
Out west we use The Sunset Western Garden Zones, which are much more detailed than the USDA zoning, accounting for hills, valleys, and micro-climates. According to Sunset we are in zone 7, while according to the USDA we are in zone 8B. Seems that always confuses newer gardeners out here.
Social Media Workshop for Garden Professionals
I'll be here
This February 8th I’ll be holding a workshop on “Social Media is the New Village Square-Where Do You Fit In?”. The workshop is held at The Pro-Green Expo in Denver, Colorado. We will discuss the use of social media in your marketing. Most importantly we discuss how to get your customers to spread the word of your wonderfulness. That’s really the key to social media, make or do something wonderful and give your customers a method to spread the word.
This is the latest is a series of workshops and talks I have been holding for the trade. If your interested in having me put on a workshop, talk at your event, or train you or your staff on how to use the available social media platforms, contact me.
Are You a Member of Generation Flux?
Fast Company and Generation Flux
Rarely do I buy magazines. However the latest issue of Fast Company caught my eye. The cover story is “This Is Generation Flux, Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Businesses”. According to the article, “the future of business is pure chaos. Here’s how you can survive–and perhaps even thrive.” We read interviews from various people who are managing to survive and thrive in the new business climate.
The nursery trade is obsessed with how to appeal to a younger demographic. What’s cool about Generation Flux is it’s not age based, like Generation X, Y, or “The Baby Boomers”. You can be any age, and be a member of Generation Flux. It’s not just about the fast changing business climate, but the whole changing at the speed of light world we find ourselves in. You can be 20 or 60, and still be a member of this inclusive generation. Generation Flux ties together differing generations, while labels like Generation X are exclusive to someone born during that period.
I am growing weary of the supposed divides between differing generations. We are all trying to feel our way through this new world, older and younger together. What binds us is a willingness to accept the challenges, and change when necessary. Sure, it can be harder for the older members of this tribe to make those changes, but try they must. Easy or hard, change is coming and how you respond is what matters, not your age. Welcome to Generation Flux.
