If your gardening business wants to get more customers and build your brand, should you invest in public relations or advertising?
We get asked this question a lot at Garden Media Group since our clients come to us when they want to get people talking and asking for their product or service by name.
Read on to discover which will win in the battle of public relations vs. advertising for garden industry businesses.
Garden Business Advertising
When investing in advertising for your green business, you know the word will get out, in fact its guaranteed. You pay for a specific slot on tv, in a magazine, or in a newspaper.
Advertising allows you to make sure everything from the font to your garden brand's message is exactly how you like. You're in charge when you choose to advertise your brand, meaning you always get to decide where you'd like to see your message. That means if you want Better Homes and Garden readers to know about your garden product in the upcoming May issue, you can pay enough to make it happen.
In essence, when you advertise your green, garden business, you get to be totally in control.
The main problem with the control inherent in advertising?
There's a good chance the readers of that issue of Better Homes and Gardens will skip right over it. The average person can see up to 5,000 ads a day, so it's really easy to tune them out. Your gardening advertisement could get lost in the noise.
Another major problem with advertising your garden business is that consumers know you were in total control of the message. Readers know that you get to say whatever you want in your advertisement, so they're wary to trust it.
76% of respondents in a recent study shared on Forbes found that advertisements in general were either “very exaggerated” or “somewhat exaggerated."
While people may see the name of your garden business in an ad, statistics show they aren't going to trust what you have to say.
Public Relations for Lawn and Garden Business
Public relations, on the other hand, is a bit riskier since it relies exclusively on third party media endorsements.
Your garden business is not in control of the message here; instead, you provide the facts and story about your garden product, and key media influencers in the garden industry say what they truly think about your business.
When you invest in public relations, your garden business will focus on getting mentioned in editorial content, which most readers trust. In fact, 67% of readers and viewers trust editorial content like newspaper articles, magazine features, and television segments.
One problem with public relations is that since it focuses on media endorsements, the story published may not deliver the message you had hoped. You aren't in charge of what the reporter will say about your garden business, so anything could be published.
Either way, the choice is in your hands.
Download our e-Book on How Public Relations Can Grow Your Garden Business to Learn More about Green Public Relations!
