We’ve all seen brand new gardeners joining our ranks over the last two years, both in-store and online with eCommerce. People are passionate about learning to grow both food and flowers, but knowing where to start, what equipment to get, and what plants to buy can be confusing for people who’ve never gardened before.
Give all those beginner gardeners a little extra support this year, and they’ll quickly turn into lifelong customers.
So, how do you help turn first-time gardeners into seasoned green thumbs? You give them a foolproof and easy gardening beginner kit or simple instructions to get started.
Create themed kits around “6 Things Every Beginner Veggie Gardener Needs Now“ for customers to feel confident that they have the correct tools without being overwhelmed. You can make these beginner gardening kits available on your eCommerce store, as well as in-store.
Creating Starter Kits
We recommend creating beginner gardening bundles that include the essential items for starting a garden. It is essential to create opportunities for a variety of gardening environments, such as:
- A beginner backyard gardening kit, including a shovel, rake, seeds, and starter plants
- A beginner patio gardening kit, which could include containers, soil, trowel, watering can, and seeds or starter plants
- A beginner window-box gardening kit, which could contain a window-box with hanging hardware; small watering can, soil, trowel, and seeds or plants
Help Your Customers Learn
With each beginner kit, provide an instruction sheet relevant to the plants or seeds included, so your beginner gardener can be as successful as possible! Choose plants and seeds that are easy to grow and suited to your local climate.
Packaging these beginner gardening kits in attractive packaging makes them great gift opportunities. Be sure to take nice pictures of the kits before posting them to your eCommerce site.
Create A DIY Adventure
Near the entrance to your garden center, you consider building an enticing “choose your adventure” beginner gardening display. Include information sheets that focus on popular topics, such as inground backyard, patio containers, and window boxes. Each information sheet should list a beginner gardener’s basic needs to get started and could also include a checklist for customers to check off the items as they add them to their cart and helpful instructions and handy tips and tricks to ensure success.
To make it even easier for beginner gardeners, provide an assortment of the items listed in the info sheets alongside the display for your customers. Don’t overwhelm them with choice, though: only include 1-2 options for each item needed. Practicality is important, but don’t forget about pretty items as well. Include a display of starter plants and seed packets that are easy to care for and proven to grow well in your local climate.
You can take the ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ theme further on your website with a quiz on your blog and product landing pages for each kit in your eCommerce store. When a customer purchases from your eCommerce site, include a PDF instruction sheet that they can download or print.
Don’t forget to remind the customer that they can always ask your team for help. Give them the contact avenues available, including:
- social media accounts
- email address
- phone numbers
- hours of operation
Tie Your Kits to Digital Marketing Efforts
Whether you decide to do choose-your-own-adventure, prepackaged kits, or a creative twist with eCommerce, you’ll have the best success if you also tie it to your digital marketing campaigns. Consider writing a blog post for each kit with more in-depth information about the contents and how to use them effectively. Be sure to include the list of items needed for beginner gardeners to get started—here are the six things we suggest:
- Seeds or easy-to-grow veggie plants
- Garden soil
- Trowel
- Pot(s), ideal for patio growing
- Watering can
- Veggie fertilizer
Repurpose your content and reach your audience. You can break down each blog post into multiple campaigns:
- Post a gallery of the tools in each kit and explain them briefly.
- Post each tip and trick as a single social media post with a graphic.
- Make individual posts about each of the recommended veggie plants.
- Film short videos for stories, Instagram reels, or TikTok to show beginner gardeners how to use the tools and plant a veggie garden.
- Create a Call-to-Action to check out your blog and stop by your garden center in every post.
- Create kit-specific hashtags and invite your audience to engage and share their stories.
You can get a lot of mileage out of a campaign that targets beginner gardeners in-store, on your website, and on social media. Stay engaged with your beginner gardeners and keep building those relationships!
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The highest return on your investment is a consistent marketing campaign that delivers engaging content and directs customers to your website. From writing your blog to designing and delivering your newsletter and promoting your knowledge on social, we do it all so you can focus on running your Garden Center.
Discovery calls are free! Contact us today for information about our services.
(1) Hubspot. How Interactive Content Can Help You Increase Your Leads by 47% [Customer Story]