Up and at ‘em bright and early. That’s how it’s done in this business, and just because I spend more of my days behind a computer than behind a tractor doesn’t mean that I’ve lost that mentality. Alright so this morning I want to go over another great way to provide content online to your customers/consumers. That way being: blogs! Yep I’m talking about creating something exactly like what you’re reading just now – well but with different content of course. Blogs let you expand on things. They let you tell a story. In a way, think of a blog as a way to get a lot of content to your target audience. Facebook and Twitter are great ways to get snippets of information to your followers, but on these sites nobody wants to read a page worth of text. However, there are a lot of times in this industry where things can’t be explained in a simple paragraph. That’s why you should start and build a base for a blog(s).
The first thing that you might be thinking is “But I don’t have any content that could fill up a blog”, but I say, sure you do! The one thing I’ve found at every level of the industry is that no matter what the company, there is always some sort of information that a business is trying to relay to a customer, but they just aren’t getting it. Because there is “no recommended length” for a blog post you can take as long as you want to explain what you are trying to show your audience.
I have no idea what your individual businesses are but here are just a few of the ideas I have for blogs for numerous levels within the industry. For instance as a local garden center, why not set up a blog with the story of your business. Show your customers how you started. Tell them how long you have been in the area, and how your business has changed with time. Post old newspaper clippings and say what your business was like at that time. For garden centers with less of a history, why not use a blog to detail the building process of your business (which you are currently experiencing), or show the hard work it takes to get started in this industry. Personal stories like this are great for blogs and help attract customers to garden centers because people feel like they know the business better and prefer to shop there.
If you are a breeding company, why not set up a blog and discuss a different variety in each post? You could show how the variety came about. It might be a great way to showcase someone’s hard work. Often the breeder himself gets very little credit in the scheme of things but this way you could show your appreciation. Along with that you could show what the process is for breeding new varieties (obviously without showing your secrets)! Growers and consumers are always interested in “where something comes from” so why don’t you show them. It might even help generate interest in new plant varieties if customers see how cool the breeding history is.
Landscapers, a blog could do great things for you as well. Why do a post for each job that you have and show before and after pictures of the site. Along with the pictures tell everyone how your crew was able to get from the previous to the latter. Emphasize the labor and hard work you put in! This way, customers can see that you do great work and that you really get the job done.
No matter what the case, I’m sure your horticultural business could find use for a blog. To get started it’s probably easiest to use something like Blogger or Wordpress, but if you know of another site that hosts blogs feel free to use that. Then post links to your blog in your other Social Media pages and websites. Tell your customers about it.
Don’t worry about time either. I know that in this industry people are always stretched for time. You may think that it isn’t worth having a blog because you won’t be able to post on a regular schedule, but people who read your blog will only be used to the way you post. So if you post at irregular intervals then they will be used to you posting at irregular intervals. Besides, content on blogs doesn’t go away. It isn’t like Facebook or Twitter where things you said an hour ago get washed away by the millions of posts people are creating. Things you post on a blog stay there and people can easily search for the content and come back as often as they want to reread old posts.
Blogs are a slower paced way to really tell your story online. It puts you more on your audience’s level. They are one of the only low-stress endeavors in today’s marketing infrastructure.
I hope you found today’s post interesting as always. I’d be interested to hear from you if you start/have a blog. I’d love to check it out. For this and all other questions or comments: Email mday55@gmail.com , Twitter @mday55 , or find me here on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mason-day/20/9aa/233
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