Social Media for Garden Centers
I know there are a great many people telling independent gc’s that they must be on facebook, they must be on twitter and linkedin and … well, you know you just have to be everywhere to connect with your customers.
What they don’t understand is that a good garden center already owns the most powerful bit of social media known to man. It’s called “face-to-face” and it works pretty simply (no power cords, no software, no computers) by looking somebody in the eye, calling them by name and giving them the answer they need.
Want to improve your social media? Take a memory course and learn more of your customer names (heck, never mind “learn them” – you want to remember them, you want to be able to recall details of your top customers). You spend a ton of bucks on other software – go get an upgrade for yourself.
Want to improve your sales? Provide great information about your neighborhood – your growing zones and give customers what they need and want. Yeah, I know what they want isn’t necessarily what they need but your job is to move them to having a successful experience with plants. Your job isn’t to make them into gardeners. And there’s a difference there – particularly with those who are “decorators” and not “gardeners”. Help those decorators succeed – and your business is guaranteed. That takes a lot of that “face-to-face” software I mentioned above. (And yeah, that might take helping them grow something totally inappropriate – they’re “decorators” remember?)
Want to improve your sales? Use advanced face-to-face social media programming and phone your top 100 customers during the off season (you do know who your top 100 customers are don’t you?) Ask them about their growing season. Ask them if they had any problems you could help them with by answering their questions. Ask what you could do better. Don’t try to sell them a darn thing – ask them if you can help and ask them how to help them better. It’s the old 80-20 rule and if you don’t take care of your best customers in some special way – you’re just wasting your time. (And yeah, I used to do something like this in my nursery) This is going to take you 2-4 days of time but given that these are the 20% who keep you in business and make your profits – it’s not a bad investment in time. Write down their answers – and questions (signage hint – answer those questions with in-house signage next spring) and study these things.
Want to test out other social media? Spend a year or more building and developing relationships online. Do not mention a sale – do not mention your business. Track the amount of time you spend doing this (honestly – write it down) Calculate the number of hours times the hourly wage; then take a deep breath when you discover how much this has cost you. Then set up a special landing page for each social media site on your website. Twitter about a special deal with this discount code – send them to your twitter page. Then do the same with all your social media accounts. Track how many hits each page gets and then track how many nursery sales for this special discount go out through the door (only mention the sale on your social-media sites nowhere else).
Oh wait. Social media consultants tell us that small community business operations such as yours can’t measure this kind of social media – it’s all about long term relationship building and not about direct response advertising. Let me introduce you to the concept of community building. This is advanced face-to-face social media programming. Spend some time helping your own community (most of you do) and you’ll be further ahead than if you make friends with somebody half way across the world.
Face-to-face social media programming – I’m telling you it has a future.
Boy, can I relate to this!
I got into online gardening research/purchases because I could never get the help I need from garden centers physically located in my area.
Thanks for the reminder, Doug!
@Carolyn – yeah, there are indeed some advantages to online sales – such as only having to put information up once and not having to answer it time-and-time again. The advantage of face-to-face can also be a disadvantage in some cases where people expect all of their questions to be answered – taking up way too much time from the retailer (turning them into an educator that they don’t get paid for). But specialty plant sales are indeed moving to the Net in a big way- local retailers simply can’t afford to carry the number of products we’d like them to.
Most excellent point Doug. I love the new phrase “face to face software” and agree that face to face social media still has a place in the future. It needs more attention now than it was given in the past. Too many retailers say they aren’t good at remembering names and just need to do what you say and work at it. If the customer is important they should be important enough to get to know them and knowing their name is a prerequisite to really knowing anyone.
The way I look at it social media is ANOTHER media. It is not a strategy in itself, but a tactic for implementing a marketing communications strategy. Just as with email, newspaper ads, radio, TV, direct mail, etc. social media should be used responsibly, appropriately, and in proper proportion.
Sid – absolutely – I’m a firm believer in what they now call “social media” but like all things you have to evaluate what works and what doesn’t work for your individual situation. I can tell you from a biz point of view that twitter and facebook do not give me reader response in any way comparable to other things I use (like email or even this blog) So I use web forms, email etc for “social media” but because I evaluate and am not a huge fan of Twitter etc for my readers, there is a general perception I dislike “social media” (confusing software with the concept is a familiar thing) As for individual gc’s – they’re going to find they either fill customer needs or they’ll go down – some faster than others but still – meet the need (as it changes) or pay the price. If you’re going to ignore the social media / relationship stuff – you had damn well have the most outstanding display of quality plants and selection in your area. (Ignore service – then you get to survive on “product” – ignore product – you’re going fast because you can’t compete on price and those 3 things are all you have to play with)
Although I agree with you that no online strategy will ever replace CRM and good product knowledge; but I think that social media is here as a means to better fulfill those duties. We started our Facebook Fan Page and Twitter Feed about three months ago and have experienced great success using it. I think anyone who makes a judgment call about this technology without using it for a few months and investing the time required to implement it.
One thing we first discovered was that twitter and facebook are two completely different tools. They are so often spoken in the same breath but are not comparable. We found it was hard to develop a style if you will on twitter to connect with others and it was more difficult to find out what our followers were interested in us talking to them about. We quickly discovered that in our case it is best used as a networking tool to build relationships with other businesses, professionals and some regular customers. There are no vast planes of gardeners on twitter looking for gardening info in 140 characters or less. However, there are real people out there looking to communicate and solve problems and meet other business people, so take advantage of the opportunity to meet a younger demographic.
Facebook on the other hand was a great tool for communicating directly with our everyday shoppers. We went from 1 to 700+ Fans in just under three months and are continuing to grow very quickly. These fans are all (well about 95%) from our area and are people who shop at our stores. Our Fan Page allows them to ask us questions and get invitations to store events. It allows us to let them know about in-store specials and product information that they can read when they please. They can communicate with us 24 hours a day now instead of just during business hours and can let us know if we’re doing a good (or bad) job serving them without inconvenience.
I don’t think social media is here to replace anything, however I think it’s an economical addition to your marketing strategy and can allow you to communicate directly with your customers on a permission basis. This is not just a new and flashy way for you to reach your customers, but its a new way for your customers to reach you. I want to be there to answer them.
Blaine Wilson
Green Village Home & Garden
@Blaine – glad you think it’s working for you. I stand by my article though – unless you measure the impact, all the interaction in the world doesn’t count in my books for a local garden center. (not national brands) It’s a “relative” thing – as a small biz owner, I have limited resources and I have to do the things that draw the most business with the least resources. If you think this is the best use of your company resources and you’ve measured it – more power to you.