It’s that time of year again!

You have been working hard perfecting your garden product all year round. How cool would it be to end the year with your product listed in a Holiday Gift Guide?

It's possible, but the prep time is now! Do you have all the details?

Continue reading to find out all you need to know about pitching your garden brand’s product to Holiday Gift Guides! 

Apology accepted, U2 – for now.   

According to Mashable, Bono recently apologized for automatically downloading the band’s new album into everyone’s iTunes library.

While some loved the idea, others didn’t appreciate the sentiment. (Honestly, who has enough iCloud storage space for things like this?)

Though U2’s cloud takeover garnered mixed responses from the public, it did serve as a valuable lesson for PR pros: Always make sure your pitches are timely and targeted to the correct media.

Nothing says “no response” like an irrelevant email sent to the wrong producer, editor or reporter. Errors like this can damage a relationship with a key influencer before it even starts.

Busy PR professionals spend a lot of time researching and crafting pitches – make sure this time isn’t wasted.  

Read on to learn how to deliver pitches to the appropriate target audience.

Knowing all you can about the journalists you are pitching is vital to your garden brand’s success.

It is also helpful when it comes to utilizing your time as efficiently as possible. 

Muck Rack surveyed their database of journalists to figure out what tactics are best to effectively communicate with them.

Responses from over 25,000 journalists are compiled below and detail exactly what they want to see from your garden brand, from what time to pitch to which social platforms they use most.  

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!

When your garden business chooses public relations, you expect your strategy to pay off.

And, you're right to expect a return on your investment (ROI) - hiring a PR firm is a cost-effective, efficient way to meet your business goals. 

One thing PR isn't, though, is immediate.

It takes time for a PR campaign to build momentum. Plus, the nature of PR is such that as your brand reputation grows media endorsements over time, even more outlets will want to work with you as you to become a household garden brand. 

So, the million dollar question: how can you tell if your public relations strategy is working?

Read on to learn 3 tips for measuring your garden brand's current public relations success.

Looking to build brand recognition for your garden business and attract new customers at the same time?

Tapping the first stage of the buying cycle, the awareness stage, with stellar digital content may be your solution.

By creating digital content, your gardening business can help gardeners become inspired or learn how to tackle a new DIY project. Armed with knowledge you’ve shared, customers feel confident in solving a problem, and best of all, you’ve earned their trust by sharing your expertise.

Read on to discover 4 ways to attract new garden consumers to your gardening business by enhancing your digital content.

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.

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.

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.