Tell Stories
People do business with people they like and trust. That’s why your reputation is our mission. We develop a brand narrative to forge a strong emotional bond between you and your customers.
Offer Credibility
To be successful, a brand must be credible. Credibility can’t be bought. It must be earned. We constantly drive momentum to build trust, loyalty and share of heart.
Obtain Third-Party Endorsements
The essence of good PR is having people talk about your brand. An endorsement from key influencers, content sharing and social media community building are more cost efficient and effective than paid advertising.
Use Data
Our unique insights and forward-thinking strategies are grounded in lawn and garden industry research. This proprietary data into the home and garden customer helps us position your brand for success, keep you on the minds of influencers and drive demand.
Educate Consumers
We influence consumer behavior by developing innovative campaigns, such as "O2 For You," promoting the benefits of houseplants and "SafePaws," raising awareness about the importance of organic lawn care for the health of people, pets and the planet.
Open Doors
With our connections you bypass gatekeepers and get introduced to key buyers in retail stores and e-commerce sites. We develop retail strategies to get your products on shelves and make you stand out above your competition.
Goal Driven
We produce the results you want with our goal-oriented approach that supports your vision in a consistent and organized fashion.
We create targeted strategies, write detailed action plans and hold milestone reviews to exceed your expectations.
Compelling Messages
We craft clear, concise messages to engage your audience, move them to action and make them fall in love with your brand.
Zero in
We match your brand with the interests, tastes and spending power of potential customers to target conversations most effectively.
Stay on Budget
By focusing the planning and execution of a campaign from the beginning, we ensure your money is spent effectively and efficiently.
Review and Repeat
We constantly re-evaluate our tactics to keep on track, maintain momentum and exceed expectations.
Find the Golden Nugget
Through competitive research and market strategy we define your unique selling proposition and unearth the newsworthy core of your brand.
Seed the Market
The media has received thousands of plants and products through our strategically executed sample programs. They know Garden Media only represents the best and are eager to review samples we send.
Generate Product Reviews
Key influencers and bloggers look to us for innovative new products they can be the first to sample, test and talk about. Their reviews create buzz and drive demand before your new product is launched.
Secure Stories
From crafting company stories and press releases to providing customer testimonials and beautiful images, we work with key influencers to gain national, regional and local media coverage.
Ignite Social Media
By engaging a targeted audience on social media, we get people talking and sharing information about your product and ignite buzz around its launch.
Plan Events
We host events everyone wants to attend and talk about. These gain the attention of media, key influencers and consumers to launch your new product to stardom.
Develop A-Lists
Our team maintains relationships with top home and garden editors and freelancers around the country, including key markets from New York to Los Angeles.
Leverage Relationships
Sending a press release to a mass list of journalists no longer works. It takes more than hitting send on an email. We are a recognized and trusted source the media turns to for story ideas, interviews and images.
Introduce Your Brand
Sample programs put your product directly in the hands of the influencers. The media trust that our clients are the best of the best and eagerly receive products to test and review.
Take a Tour
Face time is critical to get the media to fall in love with your company, culture and plants or products. Whether hosted at their office, your business or a mutual location, you get to the heart of public relations: personally telling your story.
Tell Stories
Content that tells a story, highlights your product or services, and establishes you as an industry expert is a powerful way to get found online, attract new business and build long-term relationships with customers.
Attract New Visitors
By providing valuable, consistent information, we help build brand awareness, grow trust and increase loyalty.
Create Lifetime Customers
Your customers become inspired and educated through our content and then become your brand ambassadors, helping to sell your product for you.
Plan Ahead
Planning and outlining the content you need to share in an editorial calendar keeps your brand fresh, postings consistent and followers engaged.
Create Content
The 60-20-20 rule drives content that educates, inspires and sells your brand with stories and images people like and share. From optimizing long-tail keywords and driving inbound marketing, to creating brand pages and telling stories, we get your brand noticed.
Engage Influencers
Our outreach to top bloggers and power pinners generates online reviews, conversations and product recommendations.
Insert You in Conversations
Social media allows you to be a part of the conversation, either as a participant or an observer. Responding to what is being said about your brand in real time with a real voice positions you as a trusted friend.
Increase Engagement
Your customers are your best brand ambassadors. When they love your brand, they'll talk about you. We grow engagement by sharing useful content, hosting contests, responding quickly and building community.
Past Speaking Engagements
Speakers
Katie Dubow has been presetting topics to audiences for nearly 10 years. From Marketing to Millennials to Garden Trends, Katie has presented a dozen topics in four different countries. And, as a guest host on QVC for Cottage Farms, Dubow has honed her speaking skills for a live audience. Book her for your event today.
Popular Topics
Jourdan Cole specializes in digital marketing for horticulture. She is a Penn State Master Gardener. Jourdan can present on topics such as “Trends”, “Marketing to Millennials”, “The Future of Retail”, and “Gardening for Parents and Kids.” Book her for additional topics about digital trends, Facebook and Instagram marketing, or millennials.
Our relationship is like any other — we need regular and honest communication. This allows both sides to meet the pre-established goals and objectives and provides the best opportunity for the relationship to flourish.
We need for you to treat us as your in-house team and keep us in the loop on your marketing efforts and activities so we can best leverage these in our PR efforts. And we need beautiful images of your plants, products or services. Even more today, a picture tells a thousand words.
Yes. When a member of the media is scheduled to do an interview with a client, we prepare them with talking points outlining important facts about the company and map out a plan that will help build their brand for the specific media market.
We offer suggestions on what to wear and more importantly, what not to wear. And since practice makes perfect, we can even hold a mock interview to ensure our clients are prepared and successful.
We have to stay current with the evolving world of social media. Suzi, founder of Garden Media, calls social media the Wild, Wild West, as it is such an ever changing frontier. We consider “traditional” forms of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn as critical for all PR campaigns.
We also regularly tap newer mediums such as Instagram and SnapChat to reach consumers, market products and build brands. We can manage your social media reputation for you 100 percent or just help you stay ahead of the curve and supplement what you do in-house.
Either way, social media is just another trick in our playbook.
We are known for working magic, but like a garden, PR doesn’t happen overnight. Every business wants their products on the cover of a big magazine, but it usually takes at least six months to begin seeing steady results.
Because this is our niche, we can fast track your results, but because of the nature of the gardening industry, it will take roughly two to three years before you see the media big placements on your wish list.
Our goal always is to exceed your expectations by delivering a high return on your public relations and marketing investment.
The length of the contract is mutually decided on between our agency and the client. Every contract clearly states the duration of the relationship. At a minimum, our contracts are for one year, but we know PR takes time and are most successful with long-term relationships. Many of our clients have been with us for more than 10 years.
Communication is the lifeblood of a successful partnership with all of our clients. In fact, we’re in this business because we LOVE to talk.
We talk to our clients almost every day, whether through scheduled phone calls, non-scheduled calls, text messages, emails or face-to-face meetings. It’s important to keep our clients up to date on our progress of meeting their goals and needs and to uncover PR opportunities you may not recognize.
We also schedule regular client calls with agendas and follow up immediately with call reports to make sure we all are on the same page.
At Garden Media we work as a team. Every client is assigned a seasoned account manager as the lead. Senior management works directly with the client and account manager on strategy development and is always available for consultations. Depending on your budget and needs of the company, an assistant account manager or two may also be on your team to help with day-to-day projects. The team is rounded out by support staff and IT experts.
One of the most common reasons people don't retain PR services is they think it costs too much. Dollar for dollar, however, you get more bang from your marketing budget with PR than with advertising.
The Wall Street Journal reports that companies under $20 million make the most efficient use of marketing resources with public relations.
All public relations campaigns differ in price, but at Garden Media we have budgets of all ranges. The budget is customized based on the needs and desired services of each client.
Just searching "public relations firms" in Google is not going to help you find the best overall fit for your business. However, it is a start.
Be specific and ask yourself these four questions:
1) Are they experts in your industry?
2) Do they share the same cultural values?
3) Do you like what you see in their portfolio of work?
4) Can you afford them?
Interview at least three PR firms. Then, check the PR firm’s references. Ask specifically what the firm did for their business, how long it took them to gain traction with the media, and whether or not public relations helped increase sales. The answers will speak for themselves.
The first step is to start a conversation about what you want to achieve with a public relations program. After we’ve had these discovery calls, we map out a plan of action with goals, strategies, objectives and budget.
We review the proposal with you, answer questions and make any adjustments to the plan as needed. We provide you with several references from our current and even past clients so you can check us out.
Once we agree on a course of action and sign a contract, we put together an action plan with assignments and deadlines and start our PR engines to help you reach your goals and make your brand a star.
Public relations builds your reputation and captures the hearts – and minds - of your customers. Advertising maintains it.
Public relations enables your brand to go beyond advertising by shaping conversations, influencing consumer attitudes and changing opinions. Your brand gains credibility through strategic word of mouth.
Garden Media is always evaluating new programs and techniques to help tell your story, engage consumers and build relationships between your customers and your brand.
In advertising, you pay for the product to do all the talking for you and people can see it coming from a mile away. In public relations, a “trusted friend” is speaking about you, and people take more notice of what they are saying, believe them and are more likely to follow their recommendation.
This third party endorsement is priceless. The message is far more persuasive and memorable than an ad, far less costly and far more credible.
In a nutshell, a public relations firm builds your brand’s reputation so customers fall in love with your company, become loyal consumers and ask for your product by name.
We help shape, build and maintain your reputation by securing media placements, creating compelling content, setting up speaking engagements and managing social media marketing to help you break through the noise and reach your customers.
And we do it quicker and more efficiently than advertising. It is particularly important when launching a new plant or product to first introduce your brand to potential customers through a trusted source, such as a magazine or blog.