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Read CREE’s blog posts.
The E-Commerce Landscape: An Environmental Scan of Online Greenhouse Retailing
Authors: Dandi Thomas, Charlsie Craig, Samantha Coupon, Lauri M. Baker, Audrey E.H. King, Cheryl R. Boyer, & Hikaru Peterson. Study Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine how many garden centers were involved in online retailing of plant products. The objectives of this study were...
How to Use Facebook to Increase Your Email Marketing List
Collect Targeted Email Addresses Through Facebook In an earlier post I wrote about how to use your existing email marketing list to create highly-targeted and relevant ads to users on Facebook. In this post I will show you how to collect email addresses through Facebook. In a nutshell, we’re going...
Creating a Custom Facebook Audience With Your Email List
Email Subscribers are Valuable Many marketers consider email subscribers to be the most profitable and loyal customers. This is most likely because email subscribers have asked to enter a relationship with your company provided you continue to send them valuable information. They want to be...
Choose Your Next Social Media Wisely
Choose, but choose wisely. Most of us have probably seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at least once or twice. While the movie was packed full of great moments, perhaps the most quotable scene from the blockbuster was, “Choose, but choose wisely.” The phrase was so...
Building Excitement for Spring 2016
Garden centers around the country are gearing up for their spring opening celebrations, some of them as early as this weekend (!). In our neck of the woods it will probably be another month so I thought I'd do a roundup of what other folks are doing to build up customer excitement for the Spring...
How to Measure Facebook Engagement Rate With The New Reactions
Changes in Facebook Engagement Over the past few months we have produced videos and articles showing how to measure Facebook engagement to determine how valuable your content is to your fans (customers). However, to no one’s surprise, Facebook changed things again with “reactions”. Users (again,...
Social Media – One Chord at a Time
It's like learning to play guitar Music has been a large part of my life for decades now. I still remember sitting on the living room floor as my father showed me how to play a “G Chord” on his nylon-stringed Spanish guitar. I’d contort my hands, concentrate, and strum. It wasn’t pretty. You can’t...
Social Media Marketing? Don’t Go Channel Surfing
When Should You Add Another Social Media Channel? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr_EtMhM3fg Have you been Woo Woo’d? By that, I mean jumping into a social media platform that looks like the best thing since Facebook only to realize months later that your labor costs have amounted to nothing more...
9 Tools to Make Sweet Visual Content
In our highly visual industry, posting photos or videos isn’t the way to stand out anymore. Everyone does that. What stands out is posting exceptional and unique images or videos that cause someone to pause and engage as they hastily scroll through their news feed. Chances are you’re not a...
Marketing Your Garden Center Online: Who Has Time for it All?
By Dr. Cheryl Boyer Talk about “overwhelm.” The world of websites, online marketing, digital “that” and social media “this” is a lot to take in for the average nursery or garden center operator. How do they cope? The truth is, most of them don’t. Many don’t have a website; others don’t keep theirs...
What Your Garden Center Needs to Know About Facebook Professional Services
If it’s not in here, it probably doesn’t exist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pm1DPoF-oc The iconic yellow book There were several iconic items from my youth, but the Yellow Pages is definitely one of the most memorable. Of course, I didn’t always use it for its intended use. “The Book” was...
6 Ways to Create Better Email Lists That Will Have Your Customers Wanting More
Are you getting the best return from your email list possible? Have you ever really thought past the idea of getting more and more subscribers to your "I'm interested in your garden center" list? In this post we're sharing 6 ways to curate your subscriber list to get greater engagement from your...