In 2012, customers spent $1.7 billion on Cyber Monday, and the forecast for this year predicts a whopping $2.27 billion. Next to Black Friday, it’s the biggest shopping day of the year. Many customers prefer shopping Cyber Monday deals because they get to enjoy the same bargains, but avoid the lines, the crowded parking lots, and the massive amounts of people.

Did your garden e-commerce business take a piece of that 1.7 billion dollar pie last year?

If not, it is important to get on the ball this year to make sure your marketing strategy has a Cyber Monday plan. Don’t miss this huge sales opportunity.

Here are seven tips to keep in mind for any garden e-commerce business planning their Cyber Monday strategy.

It may seem early to be talking about holiday gifts, BUT, since Thanksgiving is so late this year, we couldn't wait!

Plus, this traditional holiday shopping season (after Thanksgiving) to Christmas Eve is the shortest one in a DECADE.

To jumpstart your holiday shopping, we partnered with Hometalk to have a live, fun Google+ Hangout tomorrow, November 19th at 2 pm EST. We'll be talking about the best gifts for gardeners on any budget.

Read on to learn how to join--and get a sneak peek at the features we'll be unveiling!

The short, snappy title you type off right before you post your blog, tweet, or story is the reason for your downfall.

Even though headlines seem like the last step in publishing, they're the most important by far.

If you have a ho-hum headline, no one will click on it to discover the golden editorial waiting for them.

Instead, you need to really focus on crafting headlines that inspire and intrigue your audience enough to click through!

Below are the top 4 ways to write headlines that your readers can't help but click!

Mark your calendars for today at 2 p.m. EST to talk 2014 Garden Trends with Suzi McCoy on our e-Book Google+ Hangout.

Now is your chance to hear directly from the Trends guru herself about how your garden business can implement Garden Trends to boost sales.

Come armed with questions about the 2014 Garden Trends Report, and be ready for an online e-book club meeting all about the upcoming year's garden, home, and lifestyle trends.

R.S.V.P. here to make sure you have all the details about the e-book club hangout.

But, in case you're craving more, below there are detailed instructions about how to join our Google Hangout and a play by play of what you'll learn about the 2014 Garden Trends Report all in less than an hour.

Social media is here to stay.

It's completely transformed the landscape of personal and brand communication.

Yet, one of the biggest impacts on social media strategy thus far was just released in a new study from Econsultancy.

The reason marketers are using social media is changing--and the new findings are detrimental to your long-term success on social media.

Read on to discover the #1 way to ensure your social media strategy will fail--and how to avoid it.  Create a social media strategy that succeeds and shines.

In the gardening world, the print catalog has always been a standby.

But, they're expensive and often sent to a broad list of people, who frankly throw it in the trash. 

Instead for your garden brand to gain true, meaningful traction, you need to provide interesting content to the people who crave it.

Enter the new digital, social catalog of 2013--and beyond. Read on to discover how you can create your own innovative, green catalog.

Building brand recognition to many small companies means slapping their logo and tagline on absolutely every item that leaves their office.

While logos are certainly one of the most important aspects of creating brand recognition, what happens when people already recognize your brand?

Unbranding is the newest public relations and marketing trend in 2013. It's essentially going beyond the logo and relying exclusively on an image of your product for marketing.

For unbranding to be successful, your garden business first needs to have a winning logo.

Below are our tips for creating a stellar logo to last for the long haul--and tips to go beyond it once your brand has national awareness.

Reddit is one of the most powerful websites and social communities on the internet--though you wouldn't guess it by looking at their website design.

Last month alone, there were over 55 million unique visitors. Pretty impressive. 

Making it on the home page of Reddit is the new equalivalent of making it on the front page of The Washington Post. Plus, Redditt fame will very often translate into even more stories in traditional media sources. 

Read on to discover the power of Reddit for your garden business--and the best practices for marketing on the platform.

Facebook Hashtags are already declared dead.

The release of hashtags on Facebook was not initially well-received as millions across the country made their status update, "This isn't #Twitter Facebook."

A new study proves that users aren't searching for companies by their hashtag, nor do posts with hashtags drive engagement. 

But, we're declaring #Facebook hashtags aren't dead. Instead, marketers and companies simply have not been using the #hashtag feature to its fullest advantage... yet.

Below are our effective tips and tricks to keep the #Facebook hashtag alive and well on your garden business Facebook page.

7 out of 10 customers in the garden industry trust online reviews just as much as word of mouth recommendations.

Online reviews now need to be part of a comprehensive marketing plan.

One way to garner online reviews is by creating sampling programs and sending them to key influencers in different mediums.  

Below, the correlation between online reviews and profitability will be examined, and garden businesses will get insider tips to make their next online review stellar.