Calloway’s receives extensive coverage from its local media outlets in Texas. How do they do it? We asked Marketing Manager Melyssa Prince, who provides marketing and public relations support for the company’s 18 Calloway’s and two Cornelius Nursery stores.

Q: You guys do a great job with public relations in your area. How did you get started building those relationships with the local media?

Prince: Calloway’s started reaching out to the media several years ago with media kits that provide details about free gardening clinics and family events. Since then, we routinely send press releases and we’ve added an area for the media on our garden community site at www.mytexasgarden.com.

Q: How do you stay on top of keeping the garden center name in the local media?

Prince: Our public relations plan is part of our overall marketing mix. We integrate our media plan with our in-store themes, clinics and events; Garden Club newsletter editorial plan and advertising messages.

Q: Do you plan the stories you pitch ahead of time, or pitch them as they come up?

Prince: We do a yearly public relations plan. We share information with the media but primarily we’re letting them know we’re available should they need a garden expert as a source.
We want them to know we’ve got a bank of content knowledge experts and are ready to serve as a source for a variety of topics. Often times, we pitch stories as they come up in addition to those that are planned. These include weather-related pitches around topics such as late or early frosts, storm damage from wind, floods or hail to plants and breaking seasonal story ideas.

Q: What kind of benefits do you get from having this kind of local exposure?

Prince: The benefit to Calloway’s is primarily that we keep gardening in general top of mind with the public. We’re able to help the local media share accurate and timely information about how to care for their plants and gardens. And we build our brand by positioning Calloway’s as the place to find garden experts.

Q: Can you describe the partnership with the local television station you developed last year to build a veggie garden, and its result?

Prince: An intern at a local news station contacted me about helping them grow a vegetable garden on-site so they could report on the progress from start to harvest. The story was part of a series: “Survive in ’09,” which was aimed at money-saving ideas for viewers.

Calloway’s identified a key spokesperson: Ty Poynter, the Flower Mound Store Manager. He had experience doing public speaking and on-air interviews and stepped forward to lead the project. The intern at the station and other employees rented a tiller and prepared an area for the garden.

Ty worked with the station to amend the soil, choose and install the plants and maintain the garden. All along the way the station conducted regular tapings of the progress from soil prep and planting to dealing with rabbits and feeding and ultimately harvesting and replanting. Ty was front and center reporting from their garden.

He went to the station twice weekly to check on the garden and weed. He personally delivered more than 1,000 pounds (1,471 pounds exactly) of organically grown vegetables to a local homeless shelter. The garden segments aired one to two times per week from early spring into the fall season.