Digital Marketing for Garden Centers: A Strategic Approach for Increasing Traffic
As the owner of a garden center, imagine yourself in this position:
- Your website is booming, driving thousands of visitors each month.
- You convert leads daily from your website.
- You’re making sales.
- You’re able to bring back existing customers through email automation.
- You are 100% aware of your digital marketing strategies and performance.
- You are doing so well that you’re running out of inventory to sell.
Sounds amazing, right?
We’ve got good news — a high-performing digital marketing campaign for your garden center is possible. We’ll teach you how.
We’re a Marketing Agency Specializing in Garden Centers
We understand the musculature of the market. The Houston Marketing Agency knows garden centers.
We have experience creating digital marketing campaigns for your industry, and we know what works and what doesn’t.
Reach out to us for a free initial consultation with no pressure to dive in (although we think you’ll want to).
The Holistic Playbook for a High-Performing Garden Center Digital Marketing Campaign
As a top-performing Houston marketing agency, we know the processes and strategies to get our clients results.
Our agency focuses on three different components of the digital marketing agency:
Set up data analytics to track performance → Drive inbound traffic to your website → Convert that traffic into customers.
But your results have to be trackable.
If you can answer these questions, you can stop reading here:
- What’s your cost per qualified lead from Google Ads?
- What is your website’s conversion rate?
- How many organic visitors did you get from Google this past month?
- What percentage of your existing customers buy more than one product?
Are you feeling a bit like this?
Don’t worry, most people do.
While we are a digital marketing agency, we are also a “data agency,” getting clarity on what works for your garden center to help build a robust and successful campaign.
Phase 1: Build Robust Data Analytics
Trackable KPIs
Without accurate data, it’s hard to make decisions. Garden center digital marketing needs data.
By tracking these KPIs, both centered around digital marketing performance and others just as important, you can make decisions for your company with data to support it:
- Plant sales revenue
- Customer acquisition costs
- Inventory turnover rate
- Customer retention rate
- Average transaction value
- Profit margin per product
- Employee productivity rate
- Website conversion rate
- Social media engagement metrics
Data Fidelity
Many other digital marketing agencies lack data fidelity. At The Houston Marketing Agency, we’ve inherited digital marketing campaigns from other agencies and have uncovered many issues, including:
- Double counting conversion
- Tracking irrelevant conversions
- Not tracking every step of the funnel to understand conversion and drop-off rates
Phase 2: Maximize Affordable Inbound Traffic
If you have access to the internet, you’re likely using Google to search for anything you want to know.
People searching for garden centers likely head to Google and search keywords like “garden centers near me” and similar keywords.
Many people also search using city-specific keywords. There are over 10,000 searches per month for Houston-specific searches.
Why is this important?
If you’re not performing well on Google in both organic and paid, you’re missing out.
Organic
Let’s first talk about the Google Local Pack.
How do you get your business to rank here?
SEO is the answer. And while it’s complex, there’s a basic formula:
- Have an optimized and highly-reviewed Google Business Profile.
- Create localized content on your website.
Then, below the Google Local Pack are the Organic results:
How do you rank below the Google Local Pack?
- Have a content-rich and comprehensive website.
- Use accurate title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and other on-page elements.
Paid
Not all paid channels perform the same — it depends on the garden center and its location.
There are many different advertising routes you can take:
Google Ads
The SEO information shared above is relevant for Google Ads, too. People use Google to find out what you can offer today and now.
When you search a keyword, Google often shows Sponsored links throughout its results. By paying for this option, you’ll rank at the top of Google.
If done correctly, your target audience will search on Google, click on your Sponsored link, land on your website, and follow your call to action to become a client.
YouTube Ads
For garden centers, YouTube ads allow for an affordable visual that many customers believe is important — they can see what you offer before committing to taking the trip.
We can assume that people choosing a garden center want one that is:
- Clean
- Well-maintained
- Fully stocked
With a visual YouTube Ad, you can show your audience everything you offer.
Facebook and Instagram Ads
As two Meta products, Facebook and Instagram tend to work similarly.
However, the demographic for each platform differs, and it’s important to know who tends to hang out where when targeting your audience.
You should also know who is interested in shopping at garden centers.
Although garden centers typically sell more than plants, flowers, and gardening supplies…
“Young homeowners are credited with much of the gardening boost of 2020, and this demographic shows no signs of slowing down…”
So where do you find these people? We can assume that Facebook is the better platform for GenX while Instagram is the better platform for GenX and Millenials.
You can use both for driving new traffic and remarketing existing traffic.
With new inbound traffic:
- You can capture a different audience segment that might be interested in shopping at your garden center.
- You can use algorithmic learning to help the tools further refine the audience to get your business in front of your target audience more often.
Now, for remarketing:
- Only a small percentage of first-time visitors to your website will convert, but just because someone doesn’t convert now does not mean they never will.
- By remarketing to them, you can stay in front of them and hopefully drive a conversion later on.
TikTok Ads
TikTok is similar to Facebook and Instagram in terms of easily getting in front of your target audience.
Remember, young homeowners were moving in on becoming the target audience for garden centers in 2020.
For demographics, most people on TikTok are Millennials and Gen Z’ers, but not all of them.
Let’s look at this research regarding TikTok users:
- 170 million Americans are on TikTok.
- Nearly 20% of TikTok users are between 35-44 years old.
With quick math, you’ll determine that nearly 34 million Americans aged 35-44 are using TikTok — that’s right in your demographic.
Phase 3: Increase Conversion Rates
We’ve talked about getting people to your website, which is definitely a piece of the puzzle, but now let’s focus on getting new customers and keeping the existing ones happy.
We want website traffic to convert.
Use CRO Best Practices
Increasing conversion rates might sound difficult, but there are many things you can do to help get there:
- Add testimonials to your website.
- Use unique and high-quality imagery and video content.
- Have a mobile-friendly website that’s easy to navigate.
We understand these are only a few strategies. As our client, we’ll dig deep into conversion rate optimization, offering the many strategies we believe will work for your garden center.
Split Test Landing Pages
How can you know if website copy, design, and other on-page elements are increasing conversion rates? Run split tests.
Here’s how it works:
- Landing Page A is the control page.
- Landing Page B has one component that differs from Landing Page A.
- For example, change the wording on the call-to-action button.
By running these tests, you can make substantial progress on what is working and what isn’t, doubling your conversion rate in months.
Clear Calls-To-Action
When someone lands on your garden center website, they need to know what the next steps are. What do you want them to do?
Your CTA should be clear and simple. Confusing and complicated CTAs turn people away.
Pricing Information
When it comes to purchasing, people are price-sensitive. They want to know upfront what they can expect to spend when they visit your garden center. Having clear pricing information on your website is critical.
Optimizing the Funnel
Before converting on a website, there are typically a few steps a visitor must take:
Click a button → Arrive at a landing page where they can see different available products → Button click to a specific product → Form with first name, last name, and email → New screen with payment details → Confirmation screen
Maybe there are more or less.
But at every point in the funnel, there’s a chance for drop-off. Some areas will have low drop-offs while others have extremely high drop-offs.
You’ll need to:
- Have clarity on the drop-off points
- Optimize the drop-off points through data-driven tests
- Monitor performance
- Continue testing
Increase LTV on Autopilot
You’ve acquired customers, now you need them to stay.
We’ll recommend a handful of strategies for your garden center to help increase the lifetime value of customers.
Loyalty Programs
Customers love to feel like they’re receiving special treatment. By implementing a tiered loyalty program — discounts, exclusive plant selections, early access to sales — you’ll incentivize repeat purchases and keep those customers coming back.
Cross-Selling and Upselling
When a customer lands in your garden center and buys a plant, you might suggest other items they may need like a pot, soil, or gardening tools.
You can do this online, too, by creating a “customers also bought” section during the checkout process.
For example, a person purchasing gardening tools online might be influenced to purchase fertilizer and soil through the “customers also bought” section.
Seasonal Promotions
Garden centers tend to see an uptick during the start of each season. Maybe in the spring, people are shopping for flowers to plant. In the winter, they might be shopping for items to protect their garden during the harsh, cold months. In the fall, they’ll be shopping for mums or looking for plant clearance sales.
Run targeted promotions around these seasonal gardening needs to keep customers coming back.
Digital Marketing for Garden Centers Doesn’t Have to Be Hard
We know the industry. We know what works and what doesn’t. We have experience.
Reach out to us for a free initial consultation with no strings attached.