I n a year of  unpredictable challenges and incredible growth for the garden industry, early signs are  indicating that – as we suspected – it’s going to be a holiday season like no other.  And with holiday shopping well underw ay, major changes in consumer shopping habits are playing out in real time.

Read on for the four surprising finds of the 2020 holiday season.

It is necessary for the success of any PR campaign to know the demographics of the target audience and, most importantly, to not leave any key demographics out.

In the United States, we have an extremely large Hispanic population, accounting for 18 percent of the nation’s total population. Their consumer spending power, totaling $1.4 trillion in 2016, is reason enough to adjust your company’s marketing strategy to appeal to the Hispanic demographic.

To learn more about how culture affects the marketing and PR industries, read below!

PR professionals are always looking for ways to make their clients shine the brightest. Whether that is getting their name in print, promoting and posting about them on social media, or getting an interview to air, it is their passion to see their client’s company name everywhere. Branding a garden business is one of the things we at Garden Media Group do best.

But what about when you want to develop your personal brand? Have you ever thought about that?

A personal brand shows off who you are and the person you want to be to the world. Most people know this as a reputation. When you’re in school, you can be known for being the smart kid, the stinky kid, the fast kid, or the bully. Humans are susceptible to associating people they know to things they relate with. As you grow up, these associations start to shape you.

If you want to develop a personal brand you need to think about how your decisions, actions and values shape that brand.

Continue reading to find out how more about your personal brand and how to make it shine.

Creativity and innovation go hand-in-hand at thinking outside the box. It allows the brain to be used to create something out of nothing or even to fix something when it’s not working. But what happens when you get stuck in the box?

The Kirton Adaption-Innovation (KAI) is an evaluation tool that measures your style of creativity and problem solving based on your range of adapting or innovating. If you want to do things better, you probably would score higher on the adaptive range. Want to be different? You’d be on the innovative side. Thomas Edison was probably adaptive, while Albert Einstein was probably innovative.

Richard Tait invited Garden Media to try it for ourselves at our monthly ‘Lunch with a Pro’ workshop.

Richard, who has a Ph.D. in physics, co-founded the DuPont Company’s worldwide Creativity and Innovation Center. Today he is an international consultant in innovation and new corporate and product ventures.

GMG invited Richard for a lunch and learn to help our team brainstorm bigger and better ideas for our clients.

Read on to continue learning about Richard, KAI and what Garden Media learned.

Today is National Matchmaker Day- yes there is a holiday for everything. This holiday marks a particularly important one for PR professionals, because it is a great day to learn how to make the best match for your customers.

Just being Mr. Reliable or Ms. Congeniality isn’t enough. When looking for the perfect match, you need to pull out all the stops and know every aspect of your potential partner.

Being a good matchmaker, or PR professional, is about the ability to listen and understand the habits, passions and hobbies of the pair.

Asking the right questions can be the difference between success and failure in setting up an interview, pitching a new client or even simply enjoying a meal with a prospect.

Read on to learn how matchmaking relates to PR and how you can become a better matchmaker.

Thirty seconds. It’s enough time for you to stretch, send a quick text message or plan what you’re going to make for dinner. Half a minute can seem very trivial in the scheme of your day.  

But if you’ve ever tried to write an elevator pitch, you’ll know that thirty seconds can also be a secret weapon.    

With a well-practiced elevator pitch, you convey to potential employers who you are and what you’ll bring to the table on an interview.

Quickly catching an employer’s interest on the spot can be challenging if you're not prepared, so here are a few tips for selling your skill set in half a minute or less.

Continue reading for tips on how to craft the perfect elevator pitch for an interview.

Think about the way you think. Yes, it's a strange question, but are you capable of changing the way you think?

Most people are set in their ways, which can be dangerous working in a creative environment.

Original ideas are essential to repeatedly impressing clients and customers. New ideas often stem from different ways of thinking.

Divergent thinking and inspired brainstorming sessions can be extremely beneficial in the workplace, especially when it comes to developing innovative solutions.

Read more to learn about divergent thinking.