Welcoming Potential Customers
Attracting new customers. It’s an on-going problem for any retailer, lawn and garden retailers included. Especially if you’ve been in an area a long time, it’s easy to get into the mindset that everyone knows about you and the only thing you can do to attract new customers is lower prices. Twenty-eight-year-old Pasquesi Home and Gardens, Barrington and Lake Forest, Ill., has a different approach.
Situated in two high-income neighborhoods, one of which has substantial new construction, Pasquesi has seen little benefit from price-oriented promotions. Instead, its marketing is aimed at reinforcing its image as an upscale destination center and at educating potential customers about its product mix. To this end, Pasquesi has created a welcome package that is sent to new area homeowners.
The four-color, heavy-stock tri-fold includes a description of Pasquesi’s main features year-round product offering, quality products, knowledgeable garden staff, home and garden accents, specialty pet department and children’s clothing along with a discount card, a package of seeds and directions to both locations.
In-house tracking shows a high success rate on these mailings, with 15-19 percent of discount cards used over a period of 2-3 years. And while the quantity of return is impressive, even more so is anecdotal evidence about the quality of return. People receiving the welcome package report feeling an immediate identification with Pasquesi because both the quality of the mailer and the message it conveyed indicated the kind of up-scale location where they wanted to shop.
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