How To Make Your Newsletter More Interesting [Solve My Problem]

Holly Wilson Wilson’s Garden Center

Solve My Problem is a series where grower retailers offer advice to their peers. If you would like input for your own challenge, let us know

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How do you come up with fresh ideas for your store’s eNewsletter, so that it does not become redundant?
Holly Wilson, Wilson’s Garden Center

Advice From Chris McKeown, Bloomin Garden Centre

We give our customers a special eMail address to send garden questions. If we receive a lot of eMails on one particular subject, we’ll address that topic in the next week’s newsletter. We also communicate with the rest of the sales crew to get feedback to see what customers are asking about.

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Advice From Diane St. John, Natureworks

We talk on Monday about what issues customers have been asking us recently. We also mention the garden tasks we are all personally doing at our houses and what issues and successes we have. We have two to three main tips in each eMail so it is educational as well as light-hearted and fun to read. Included are many pretty photos of plants we have in stock. We always mention plants and products we have in stock and how to use the product if it pertains to a question we are getting or a topic we feel is important. We try hard to give relevant educational information and keep it fun to read.

Advice From Dustyn Nelson, The Garden Barn Nursery

I subscribe to many other garden center eNewsletters and look for great ideas that our customers may like. If a similar question is consistently asked, we are sure to provide a solution to that question in our newsletter, because there certainly are customers who have not come in yet with that question. The most important part is planning the eMails in masses ahead of time. This has helped me eliminate too much repetition and made it easier to come up with ideas. I am able to create a uniform experience for the customer that has something different for them each time, while reminding them of the things they often forget. We have a 21 percent open rate for 2015, but will continue to increase this. Our eMail list is currently 12,000.

Advice From Ed Knapton, America’s Best Flowers

We have a writer on staff who creates a different short story each week that involves a dog character. We also have our listing of events, our weekly coupon, our weekly jokes and a weekly recipe. If we have a few special items we want to sell, we write other short stories about how they will provide benefits to a person’s life and include them in the newsletter. If customers have particular questions, we will write an article on it and provide solutions. We have past newsletters archived on our website from the past 12 years. There is a tremendous amount of searchable information on plants and stories.

Advice From Angel Miller, Ooltewah Nursery

I like to speak with our sales staff about what sort of questions we are receiving. If there is a cluster of inquiries around a certain topic, then we will address that in our newsletter

Advice From Ben Polzin, Down To Earth Garden Center

We try not to plan too far out for our eNews in order to keep each one relevant with what is happening that week. From what is blooming in the garden center to pest or disease issues we are seeing, we want our readers to know what is going on right now. We also feature new plants that may be coming out in the coming season, landscape projects that we have installed that may be out of the box, fun facts about our area or plants that we may be trying to promote and occasionally a recipe using something from the greenhouse. We also mention what is on sale that week and upcoming events.

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