With gardens and houseplants shifting from white-hot trend in 2019 to full-blown national obsession in 2020, the faces at the front of the new wave are social media influencers with legions of followers and backyards that make us—yes—green with envy.

Why should businesses in the horticulture industry pay attention to garden influencers, who range from tattooed and pierced ‘plant dads’ to proud grandmothers with enviable backyards? Because they have a direct line to the eyes, ears and wallets of millions of consumers. And the numbers tell us that these customers trust and take their buying queues from social influencers.

Smart companies are asking two questions:
• What are garden influencers doing right?
• And how can we work with them?

Read more to learn the 1-2-3’s of influencer marketing to green industry businesses.

Topics: Instagram, social media, key influencers, inbound marketing, Social

More and more, clients are asking us to increase our PR efforts digitally. The goal is to increase online visibility and enhance the brand, a tactic we've been doing since the beginning. 

The right digital placements will increase domain authority, build the brand and increase SEO. 

Since we are constantly asked how to measure PR, we decided to share how we've honed our measurement of these online sources, too. 

Fortunately, digital PR measures more precisely. When it comes to comparing digital PR and offline, there are 6 areas where digital takes the lead: domain authority, page views, traffic, back link sources, brand awareness and social engagement. 

Read on for 6 ways to measure digital PR efforts.

Topics: Digital Branding, inbound marketing

Creative director Katie Dubow recently attended Hubspot's INBOUND 2017 inbound marketing conference in Boston.

The conference was filled with lessons on the future of inbound marketing, the new features of HubSpot and better ways to reach customers with data-driven, unique content.

Energy was high. From the speakers (Michelle Obama, John Cena, Issa Rae, Billie Jean King, just to name a few) to the session topics (Courageous Creativity, The Quest for True Belonging, Content for the FOMO Generation and more) it is one of the most inspiring marketing conferences to attend.

Here are the big themes marketing professionals are talking about world-wide.

Topics: creating content, inbound marketing, video marketing

Garden businesses want clearly defined numbers when it comes to ROI.

While public relations departments and firms can collect all kinds of information, it's extremely difficult to produce a singular monetary representation of PR results. 

However, that game may be changing.

Adopting the sales metric of conversion rate can end some of the uncertainty surrounding PR measurement.

Can conversion rate change the public relations measurement game? Keep reading to learn more!

Topics: PR Measurement, PR Strategy, marketing communications, garden business, garden industry public relations, key influencers, inbound marketing

This week, I'm at Hubspot's Inbound Marketing Conference in Boston and am loving every second of it! Don't worry, I'll share more knowledge and content marketing wisdom when I return.

But, I could not wait to share Seth Godin's insights on how "we are all inbound now." As you probably guessed, seeing and hearing "America's Greatest Marketer" was absolutely amazing!

So amazing in fact that I could not wait to run back and blog about it--in typical content marketing fashion!

Read on to discover Seth Godin's tips and tricks for navigating the world of marketing that he shared at Inbound 2013!

Topics: garden marketing, creating content, marketing communications, horticultural marketing communications, content marketing, inbound marketing

Content marketing, brand journalism, inbound marketing, blogging. Call it what you will, but the concept is all the same. Creating content by your garden business about relevant topics for your target audience.

No longer are you reliant on traditional media sources to tell your garden brand's story. With content marketing, the power is in your hands.

Creating your own content is one of the best ways to connect with your audience, increase engagement, and improve SEO.

When investing your time in your content marketing plan, make sure you're doing it as best as you can. Creating killer content takes time, so be smart about your execution and promotion.

Read on to discover 5 ways to improve your content marketing in less than 10 minutes.

Topics: creating content, marketing communications, internet media, content marketing, blogging, inbound marketing

In order for your garden company to really be using digital communications to the fullest, you’ve simply got to have a garden industry blog. Your company blog is your chance to have your voice heard! Here, you have no character limit, no restrictions as to what you can talk about. Your company blog is totally in your control—and how sweet it is.

Blogging allows your garden company to establish itself as an expert in the field. At Garden Media Group, we have two areas of expertise: public relations/marketing and gardening. To have our voice heard in each niche industry, we have two blogs, which allows us to double our audience, SEO keywords, and content. Ah, the beauty of the internet.

But, what if your horticulture blog is stellar, but no one’s reading it? The whole purpose of a company blog is to reach your key audience, and if that’s not happening, your garden company has got to make a few changes.

One easy way to up your page views is using Twitter. Below are three, quick tips to tweet your way to more page views on your blog!

Topics: Public relations, Twitter, PR Strategy, Digital Branding, SEO, social media, blogging, inbound marketing

I recently read an article that made me chuckle.  It started off, "There are so many similarities between SEO and gardening..."

Of course, I had to read on. 

In the article, Bernie Borges describes the stages of gardening and how they relate to Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  It reminded me of my post last week about content marketing in which Marcus Sheridan said:

"Success in this business doesn’t happen overnight. Content marketing isn’t a chia-pet—water today, a vine jungle tomorrow."

Topics: SEO, content marketing, inbound marketing

We recently wrote a post, Does Your CEO blog? written by our fearless leader and CEO, Suzi McCoy.  In it, she mentions that "there's an untapped opportunity for an early CEO adopter with the right touch." Untapped- meaning, not enough CEO's blog. 

All too often it seems that blogs, social media and entire content marketing plans are left to the control of an intern or recent college graduate. Content marketing is too important to be left to someone who doesn't understand the brand goals and values of the company.  It is of the utmost importance to have the CEO and top level management at the company invested in the marketing plan. 

Topics: garden marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing

Topics: garden PR consultant, content marketing, inbound marketing