Back to my Roots: Sharing my insights on Digital Marketing at InvigorateU
Last week I had the opportunity to return to “my roots” and present two breakout session at a green industry conference in Illinois. As many of you know, I grew up in a family business, which I returned to after about 10 years in a corporate setting. As a third generation operator of a large horticulture operation, I was responsible for marketing, operations, and like many business owners, a little bit of everything!
After my family sold off a portion of their business, I shifted to full-time marketing, through my “side hustle” GreenID, and helping other business owners market and grow their businesses is now my full time career.
I was thrilled to be invited back to the horticulture industry, however, and enjoyed presenting two break out sessions, “Marketing Mistakes Your Don’t Know You are Making (& How to Fix Them!) and “Social Media Today”.
Having worked in the horticulture industry for almost 16 years, and growing up within it, I feel a deep connection and camaraderie with the industry, and can relate to the unique challenges and pressures they face. With this in mind, each presentation was tailored specifically to this audience.
After listening to feedback, questions and round table discussions, it became clear these business owners had universal challenges, shared across every industry I work with.
The feedback I heard in regards to the business and marketing challenges they are facing in 2023 include the following:
Challenges Facing Business Owners in 2023
Economic Concerns
For many gardening is a hobby, landscaping is an investment. These types of spending tend to dry up first in an economic downturn. As the gardening season approaches in most of the United States, the horticulture industry might be the first to feel the impact of lowered discretionary spending. On the wholesale side, growers may have already been impacted, with reduced orders arriving in Fall of 2022 for a spring 2023 season.
Finding, Building, & Maintaining a Great Team
Human Resources and staffing was the topic of much discussion, including a conference wide round table. As an industry, members are asking: How can we attract a younger generation to our industry? What can we do to shift the perception of Horticulture to views as a sustainable and profitable industry to join? On a local, business level, brands are struggling to find and keep valuable team members. Marketing your company as a vibrant and growing community, combined with incentives, training and recognition seem to work but are often expensive to roll out and maintain.
Building a Digital Presence
As the mainstream economy and population continues to shift to a digital world, horticulture companies are recognizing the need to move along with the current. From e-commerce to social media, this very traditional industry understands the need to catch up to their audience and meet them in the channels they are participating in. This cuts across every aspect of the business, from inventory management to sales and marketing.
Staying Ahead of New Trends
There are good trends and bad trends. A good trend that many retail garden centers were able to capitalize on was the growing interested in edible gardens and house plants. Staying abreast of customer centric trends can be easier for these smaller companies than it is for large box store operations, due to the ability to discover and order from smaller, nice vendors. The struggle is to find them. Conferences like iLandscape and IGIA allow the industry to share trends, vendors and ideas that they can all benefit from.
On the other hand, “bad trends”’ can include the ever growing list of disease and pest issues that seem to roll out every couple years, wiping out best selling plants and varieties growers had previously come to depend on.
Attracting the Right Clientele
Not everyone is your client. On the retail side, garden centers are focused on fully understand and marketing to, their ideal clients. By focusing on the niche audience that is most likely to shop and become loyal clients, they are able to reach the right people more easily, increase their profits and improve the marketing ROI. At least three of the marketing breakout sessions I attended and one I led, touched on this very important marketing strategy.
In the end, the issues, strategies and tactics that were discussed are shared across multiple industries. Being able to discuss and generate ideas, gather feedback and listen to business owners discuss their challenges, strengths and plans for 2023 was a worthwhile experience, that I will be able to apply to my own marketing in 2023.