We are officially signing off until the New Year! The Garden Media Team is SO incredibly grateful for your support all year-round.

We genuinely wish you, your family, and dearest friends the happiest holidays to date!

Drink lots of eggnog, laugh, and of course, enjoy and exude the generosity and kindness of the holiday season.

Until the New Year, happy holidays to all! And to all, a good garden!

This year-end checklist offers several suggestions to enable you to take control of your garden marketing and PR before 2014. 

Here are 6 actions to consider to jump-start your marketing in 2014.

We've talked to countless small garden businesses and start-ups looking to attract new customers and get the word out about their product. Most are inventors, creative and driven, but marketing is not their background. They feel overwhelmed trying to promote a new product or service.  

We offer free 30 minute consultations to such companies and try to keep marketing simple and straightforward for them. We listen to their goals and challenges and break down a few key things they can do to jump start a start-up.

Today, we wanted to share those tips with you, in the hopes that you, too, will feel a little less overwhelmed and have success launching your new product.

We have a Thanksgiving tradition at Garden Media. Each Thanksgiving, we stop, think, and share our gratitude with each other and our clients.  

So before Black Friday madness kicks off, we'd like to spend a few minutes reflecting and being thankful for what we have. I asked my co-workers to share what they're thankful for this Thanksgiving.

From friends and family to the little things, discover what the Garden Media team is thankful for this year.

Last week, Garden Media's Suzi McCoy hosted a Google+ Hangout to discuss how to connect, inspire and wow the media.

The G+ Hangount expanded on key aspects from Garden Media's media relations' e-Book, How to Win the Media's Heart.

Katie Ketelsen of Better Homes and Gardens.com, Michelle Slatalla of Gardenista, and David Ellis of American Gardener joined Suzi to dish on the best tricks and treats for getting your garden business in leading industry publications like these.

Below are the top tips for getting media placements by forming relations with key media influencers.

Holiday-themed campaigns and real-time marketing are a big trend right now.

And, this year, spooky flowers and garden accessories are hot, too. They're popping up everywhere, from Urban Gardens to Sunset magazine.

It's a natural fit though. Halloween is about things that go bump in the night, and what better decorations than those that are ALIVE! 

Below are 9 garden plants and products that will add something unexpected to your Halloween décor this year for a unique, spooky twist on the typical.  Because we know- you’re anything but typical.

One of the most important tenets of media relations, and the one that gets talked about the least, are media tours.

20 years ago, media tours and press conferences were still hot stuff, but now, technology and video chats have made in-person media tours less popular.

But, when done right, media tours can wow the media, especially since they aren't as popular a tactic as they once were.

There's a media tour made for every budget, so no matter how much money you have to spend, you can still invest in a media tour this year.

Below are the different types of media tours that can work for your garden business.

Marketers are creeping and crawling into the night with Halloween just a few short days away.

From the big holidays to the small ones, marketers love putting a twist on their product and content to make it more relevant for the time of year.

And Halloween is one of the most fun times of the year to do just that. The spooky styles, the dark colors, and of course, the costumes!

This Halloween season take your marketing to the next level to connect, engage, and form meaningful relationships with your customers.

Below are 4 marketing ideas tailor-made for your garden business that will boost engagement and get your audience's attention--plus, you don't even have to say BOO, unless you want to!

Automated, generalized messages don't have the impact they used to.

People change channels when commercials appear, no one answers a call from a telemarketer, and automated emails don't get opened.

The old way of marketing is out, and personalized, compelling content in context is in, in a big way. 

Over the next year, this marketing trend is going to continue to grow.

Here are the top 4 content marketing trends that will emerge and thrive in 2014.

Like a first impression, introducing your garden brand to the media is an opportunity you only get once.

And, as you may have guessed, your introduction can either define your brand or cause infamy.

In the gardening world, there's one surefire way to make a stellar impression with the media's key influencers.

With this one move, you'll be well on your way to having impeccable media relations.

Discover Garden Media's proven method for the best way to introduce your garden brand below.