During the 2015 Super Bowl, Budweiser released #BestBuds, an emotional commercial about a friendship between their beloved Clydesdale horses and a puppy, which probably made you tear up more than the Seahawks fans at the end of the game.

While you will inevitably sob into your chips, dips and beers during the 2016 Super Bowl, you can at least learn some skills about marketing your brand along the way.

If anything, the Super Bowl commercials teach us about how to effectively market your brand, particularly on social media.

Continue reading to learn how Super Bowl commercials can help improve your brand.

Topics: PR Campaign, PR Strategy, marketing communications, advertising, marketing

When it comes to dating on reality TV, preserving your reputation and picking the right person are essential to your success on the show.

When it comes to PR, picking the right clients and performing well helps build your company’s strong reputation.

Coincidence? We think not. 

Continue reading to learn how to interact with potential clients and build your public relations client list.

Topics: Public relations, PR Strategy, marketing communications, garden business, Garden Media

Volkswagen is facing a storm of bad publicity surrounding the recent emissions test scandal.

Chipotle has temporarily closed a number of its western stores due to E. coli outbreaks.

Crises like these happen all too often these days and it is crucial to know how to react in these situations.

A publicity crisis has the potential to destroy a brand. If dealt with in a positive manner, companies can, and often do, rebuild themselves by responding quickly and honestly.

Read more to learn about the best ways brands can respond to a publicity crisis.

Topics: Public relations, audience, branding, marketing communications, Garden Media, crisis

Many business people are taught how to manage a company though years of classes and seminars. But do they ever really learn how to lead?  

Whether it’s a large corporation or a small business, learning to be a leader and one who others will follow is the key to success.

Leaders and managers differ in their decision making approaches, visions and values. Those who understand these differences and why they are important will build stronger teams in the long run.

Read more about the important differences between managing and leading.

Topics: Public relations, marketing communications, Garden Trends, Garden Media, leading

For our second Spring Speaker Series, we sat down with Garden Media Group’s newest employee, Sammie Arcieri.

New to the lawn and garden industry, Sammie has experienced a crash course in all things green living. She’s even grown a few things of her own.

As an Assistant Account Manager, Sammie manages the company’s blog, oversees the intern program and continues to nurture relevant media contacts.

Continue reading to learn more about Sammie and her experiences in the public relations and marketing industry. 

Topics: marketing communications, Garden Media Group, blogging, key influencers, Speaker Series

Social media has the ability to bring people all over the world together to talk about specific events. Sunday’s #Oscars proved once again that outlets like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have a huge impact on the way consumers receive news.

What better time than awards season for garden brands to plant the seeds for a future of retweets, likes, favorites and re-pins?

Continue reading for more information on how brands can promote themselves and build a personality through social media.

Topics: branding, marketing communications, Digital Branding, Garden Media Group, social media

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

Public relations pros are always looking for ways to prove the effectiveness of their strategies.

There are a number of ways to do this, but because businesses are chiefly concerned with the bottom line, finding ways to measure the monetary impact of gardening PR efforts is typically most effective.

However, assigning dollar values with measurement metrics can be complicated.

Communicating positive results is great, but the way those numbers are calculated is just as important!        

Keep reading to learn how to take the complex issue of measuring gardening communication success and make it a bit simpler.

Topics: Public relations, PR Campaign, PR Measurement, marketing communications, garden PR consultant

The longer social media thrives, the bigger the role it will play in companies.

Today, 81% of businesses both small and large are using social media. Out of those, 94% use it to communicate marketing messages.

But, this year, social media should be more than just an outlet for your gardening business' marketing messages.

Read on to learn 3 new ways your garden business can use social media in new ways.

Topics: PR Strategy, marketing communications, advertising vs public relations, Public Relations Trends, garden industry public relations, social media

For the garden industry, this is a busy, busy time of year! From new plants emerging in garden centers to gardening makeovers, there's a lot of garden-centric competition this time of year.

So how do you make your gardening brand stand out from the crowd?

Well, it all starts with an air-tight brand personality--and stellar products, of course.

From there, part of the fun is piggybacking on eco-events (like Earth Day, Arbor Day, and International Composting) and making your own company-specific events, too.

Below, we're detailing tips for eco-events based on successful Earth Day campaigns--and dishing on how to use these tricks to your company's advantage.

Topics: garden marketing, creating content, PR Strategy, marketing communications, Digital Branding, garden industry public relations, content marketing