November 2007
Publicizing In-Store Events By Lisa Anderson Mann

In-store events are far more than just a service for your customers. Events can attract new customers to your store and provide existing customers with fresh ideas or regular maintenance reminders. And they reinforce your garden center’s reputation as a place to go for expert advice.

But in-store events are also a lot of work. And there is nothing quite as demoralizing as planning a dynamite in-store event that only a handful of people attend.

A little advance planning and effort in getting the word out can make all the difference — not only increasing attendance for the event itself, but in publicizing your garden center to those who can’t attend that particular event.

Crafting an Event that Attracts Customers — and Publicity Ensure success by organizing a useful garden center event. You should be able to convey the event’s benefit to the customer in one sentence: For example, “Attendees will come away from the workshop with a list of heritage vegetable varieties that will do well in their garden.”

But once the usefulness measure has been taken, creativity counts. Make your event timely with recent news, or involve local community organizations. Events that benefit a local charity, for example, may pull in the organization’s supporters who have not yet visited your store, and the local press will be more likely to cover them. In addition, the organization that benefits has a vested interest in the success of your event and may help spread the word. A class that helps local Girl Scouts earn one of their badges will attract not only scouts and their leaders, but a fair number of parents as well.

Tagawa Gardens near Denver, Colo., organized a pet adoption and animal rescue event that served a birthday cake in honor of the store cat, Grey Kitty, and featured a petting zoo and 20 pet and wildlife rescue groups. Many of the rescue groups used their own databases to let supporters know of the event, and more than 1,500 people attended.

Getting the Word Out

Planning the event with plenty of advance notice is important. Make sure all your employees know the specifics — and suggest they mention it to any customer who may be interested. For a rose-pruning demo, for example, any customer purchasing roses or related items should be told of the upcoming event and, ideally, handed a flyer or invitation.

In-store signage is useful, and signage in the appropriate department is even better. Post the rose-pruning demo near the checkout stand, but also post it among the roses or near the pruning shears.

If you have addresses for your loyal customers — and you should — use them in preparation for the event. Retailers sometimes hesitate to do a mailing for events that are free or low-cost, but the mailing has a dual purpose: to draw customers into the store for that event and remind them of your store in general.

Dasher Lowe, senior vice president and group account director at Draftfcb Chicago, a communications agency, suggests, “If you have a physical and e-mail address, send both a postcard and an e-mail; the additional touch point will improve attendance. But make sure that the communications are personalized as if they were coming from the store manager.” In fact, he says, if you have phone numbers and enough staff members to make the calls, an additional phone reminder will create yet another touch point. If you have a database detailed enough to provide a list of customers who have attended previous events or purchased items related to the topic, you may be able to make a small number of targeted phone reminders for maximum effect.

Tagawa Gardens manager Beth Zwinak credits the success of their events, which have brought in as many as 15,000 people over three days, to the amazing organizational skills of Tagawa’s class and events coordinator, Kent Kregar. Their efforts at getting the word out include signage and media contacts, but she says the main vehicle is their newsletter database (about 20,000 postal and 4,000 e-mail addresses). As Lowe recommends, they use both, sending an e-mail blast about a week prior to the event.

Appealing to New Customers

The best event publicity is a mention or article in a local newspaper or shelter magazine. It’s a long shot, but you can increase your odds by thinking like an editor.

The most important thing to remember is that the event date itself is not news. But the subject matter or speaker can be newsworthy. Find the story in the event, and you may find your event in a story.

“Our readers care about the concrete, how-to and hands-on, about enriching their lives or solving their problems,” explains Beth Botts, staff garden writer for the Chicago Tribune. “We care about giving them what they want and need. So on the rare occasions when we do a story about a coming event, we look for an approach that gives something useful or interesting to the vast majority of readers.”

When artist Patrick Dougherty built a sculpture of twigs at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Ill., it inspired Botts to do a related story on willow wattle fencing, and the Dougherty event ran as a sidebar.

The Chicago Tribune story was just one of more than 12 print and two television news stories that ran about the event. Gina Tedesco, the public relations manager for the Morton Arboretum, provided a photo of one of the artist’s previous works and a clear and interesting quote in the press release. She also invited reporters to work alongside the artist for a couple hours to get a sense of his technique.

MaryBeth Breckenridge, a home and garden columnist for the Akron Beacon Journal, agrees that the events that catch her attention are “programs on topics I haven’t heard elsewhere, or those that are inherently newsworthy.” Sometimes an event will be a jumping-off point for a story, she says.

“I once did a story on an animal-control guy who bills himself as ‘The Friendly _ Trapper’ who was speaking at Graf Growers in Akron. He was a real character and was also able to provide all sorts of useful, nonlethal suggestions for keeping pests out,” Breckenridge says.

“I write different versions of the same press release depending on who will read it,” says Patty Howe of Al’s Garden Centers in Oregon. “For our 2008 Trials Garden event this August, garden writers received a press release worded differently than the business writers. We also try to attract television shows… Morning talk shows or news programs are a great place for the feature reporter to showcase an upcoming event.”

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Al’s Garden Centers kicked off the opening of their gourmet dog bone bar with a photo contest. “Customers could enter a photo of their dog or cat. The winner won a selection from our pet products, including the gourmet dog bones,” Howe says. “We sent out a press release with a couple of photos included, and one of the local garden writers wrote about the contest in her blog.”

Tedesco says that photos were an important factor in the media’s coverage of the Dougherty twig sculpture. “This was a very visual story. When you have the promise of interesting, pretty pictures, editors will be interested,” she says. “Because of the Internet’s competition, more and more editors are seeking ways to provide that ‘wow’ factor in pictures.”

Leave No Stone Unturned

A little sleuthing can go a long way in getting the word out about your events. Send notices to garden clubs in your vicinity (the Internet can be a great resource). Don’t just look for gardening clubs but specialized groups as well — if your event concerns flowers, notify local floral arranging clubs. Keep an eye out for blogs or websites that cover your area or gardening, as well as regional publications or weekly papers that people turn to for entertainment news.

Each successful event makes publicizing the next one that much easier. “One of the biggest guarantees of a successful turnout at an event is to make sure that customers have a wonderful experience every time they enter your store, and that they feel the event,” says Howe. “It’s all about creating an experience they’ll want to repeat.”

SIDEBAR

How to send a press release

  • Compile a list of local home and garden editors, columnists, blogs, local television and radio stations, and keep them in the loop about what you’re doing through your mailing list.
  • Send releases to writers and the calendar section. It’s usually handled by a different staffer.
  • Work in advance: Magazines often work on December issues in June, and newspapers prefer some notice.
  • Don’t call. Most reporters hate phone calls — they have multiple deadlines and articles, and it’s usually an interruption
  • Return calls promptly. Sometimes a reporter may have only an hour or two to write a story — return their call a day or two later, and you’ve missed your opportunity.
  • Include the date, time, place and cost, but write it like a news story, not an ad.
  • Use quotes. Quote the manager on why this topic is especially important now, the celebrity or expert presenter on the topic itself, or a community organization on how the event will help them.
  • Send the release in the e-mail’s body. Attach only photos
  • Photos should be high-resolution JPEGs with captions. View the photo in black and white before sending — color shots can seem cluttered in black and white. Add a descriptive filename.
  • If you have a selection of photos, send the best but mention that you have more you can send on request.
  • Offer interviews with yourself or the event presenter well in advance of the event, which would allow reporters to write about it and take photos prior to the event. They may attend the event itself, but any resulting article would appear after the event.

Lisa Anderson Mann

Lisa Anderson Mann is a freelance writer based in Petaluma, Calif. She can be reached at [email protected].