After six years of writing more than 60 articles for Today’s Garden Center, there is always the chance of repeating a message. In researching this month’s article, I went back to the archive to reference an older piece and sure enough, there was an introduction that should sound familiar.

It went something like this: “This year’s sales figures got you down in the dumps? Wonder what happened to that jackrabbit start this spring? Wouldn’t it be great if all the months were May and everyday was a weekend? I know, it’s tough to keep the momentum going all year round. As a small business owner you face a wide variety of challenges. If it isn’t the weather then it’s probably that box store that just opened up in town.”

Well, after the past couple years you might as well throw in “the economy.”
If that isn’t bad enough, many retailers are struggling with their marketing message. With the advent of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, I have witnessed a trend that concerns me, and that is business owners often confuse the means with the end. Facebook is not a strategy, but rather a means toward affecting a strategy of better customer relations.

In the end it will always come back to improving customer relationships, and that means effective communication. At the risk of repeating myself, marketing is just the process of telling your story. However, these days I might clarify to suggest it is about sharing your story.

Back To Basics

It all begins and ends with your customer base, so the most important thing a business can do is to build an up-to-date customer list. This should include a mailing address, e-mail address, shopping interest and birthday.

Connect with your customers. Your communication should be as direct as possible. A face-to-face conversation is best, but realistically it can be accomplished with personal correspondence, e-mail and direct mail marketing.

Your communications should inform, inspire and provide a meaningful incentive to shop your business. Information positions you as the authority, inspiration builds a more personal relationship and incentives are the necessary “call to action” for any marketing strategy.

Connect your marketing with your merchandising. Let’s see if you remember these oldies but goodies:

Rule No. 1: WIFS. What’s In Flower Sells. That is what you should promote and how long you should promote it.

Rule No. 2: People buy what they see. Consumers buy with their eyes. There is a reason why we continue to sell a boat-load of Stella D’Oro daylily and Knock-Out Roses. People see them, they buy them, more people see them, and then more people buy them.

Rule No. 3: With that said, people (you and your staff) sell what they like. Make sure rules 2 and 3 are not in conflict. If your staff is not behind a focused message, it could become confusing to the customer.

Once the sale is made it is important to convert that shopper into a customer, and a customer into a loyal customer, and a loyal customer into a ‘fan’ of your business. The only way to do this consistently is to use a customer loyalty program.

Which brings us back to the start of this process: create a customer list.

While these basics are timeless, let’s supplement them with some other fundamentals that will help create a solid foundation for marketing your business:

Create events, not sales. If you are pushing out sales, then you are in the commodity business. If you offer incentives, then you have shifted sales into benefits. These days, a business owner needs to realize building relationships with their customers (statistically more than 75 percent of whom are women) is a critical part of customer retention; and you can’t grow if you don’t keep your customers.

Price competitively. In the wake of such a shattering recession consumers are more value conscious than ever. They are more inclined to research a purchase prior to shopping than they are to respond to the typical advertisement. While it should always be part of your marketing strategy, you should complete a competitive analysis annually. It is important to know who your competition is and what they are doing. If you want a refresher on how to create a competitive analysis study then look up my November 2006 article “Finding Yourself Boxed In?”

Stop advertising and start connecting. No, we don’t mean stop your marketing efforts, but rather connecting on a more direct and personal basis. These days it just isn’t enough to continue to push information down the hill. You need to create opportunities to communicate as directly as possible with your customers. Keep in mind the best type of communication involves a conversation in which you can listen, learn and build a relationship made stronger based on trust. Sounds fuzzy, but it is fundamental.

Keep up with the times. This is where tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging can enhance your communication. But first you need to shift your mindset to understand that these forms of social media are a means towards the end of creating a community. If you breach a trust by reverting back to advertising then you stand a good chance of losing any and all goodwill you may have built up. Consider promotions like Ladies Night Out or Facebook Fridays. Keep it fun, keep it creative and unique, and keep it personal.

Now, if I could do something about the weather we would all have this thing licked! While we can’t change the weather, we can change with the times while we maintain the basics of garden center retail. The successful business will survive economic downturns with patience, persistence and a concentrated focus on their customers.