Lori Feldman of St. Louis, Mo. writes:
“My client is a home and garden show that’s produced in four cities—Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Portland—from late February through early March.
“We’re launching a social media plan for this company that has done nothing but traditional advertising for the last 50 years! Last year was the first time they even attempted to collect email addresses from attendees, so we have a list of 20,000 we can use.
“As you can imagine, ad costs significantly increase each year with significantly declining ROI. So the challenge was to find alternative media to combat the ineffectiveness of old media. They also face these hurdles: Home starts and real estate are way down. Young people have not supported these live shows (but this could be due to a lack of an online presence). All marketing is local—you’re not going to jump on a plane to attend.
“Because time is short, I’d like to get as many suggestions from your readers as possible to consider every option to increase traffic. The pre-show promotions site is http://www.ImproveYourHomeAndGarden.com. We’ll be press releasing, tweeting, and social networking between now and show day. I can do a shopping spree contest winner. Thoughts?”
What about setting up a Flickr feed and encourage people (via the email list) to upload photos of their gardens from last year – or their favorite gardening photos from years past.
To encourage participation, you could give away a $25 gift certificate – randomly selected from the people who submit photos.
The Gardening Photo Contest could be mentioned in your press outreach.
That won’t necessarily drive attendance, but it would certainly a) arouse the potential audience’s interest in gardening, and b) make them receptive to additional reminder emails about the shows.
Here’s another idea. There has been so much media coverage of the impact of the economy on people’s day-to-day lives, why not pitch reporters on the idea that more people will be gardening this year – it’s relatively low-cost fun, and some of those people may very well be growing their own food. You could offer spokespeople from the show as experts on the power of gardening – to help feed people and family bonding, etc, etc.
Jeff Rutherford
There are so many online event posting directories. The one I use most commonly is FullCalendar.com It is a great resource for posting your events. It does not currently have St Louis as an option, but Portland is listed.
It posts to over 177 media outlets and all it costs you is $19.95.
I use this service for many clients and they have had great results.
Search (daily) for local news relevant to your show. Then comment on the article and link to your event.
Link to the separate page for each city, so people feel like they are valued, not being sent to a big company running a bunch of shows they aren’t interested in.
Make sure to advertise in whatever REGIONAL garden publication there is in the area for each of these shows and I bet that the Regional Garden Mag has an Enewsletter, Web Sites, etc. that you can buy ad space on as well as see if you can rent their email or mail lists.
Get a garden center to contribute the creation of a pint-size “victory” garden for 4 people as a prize. They get publicity at the show, get to put a sign at the street like painters do, and, hopefully, get word of mouth exposure as the family of four eats its way through the garden produce during the summer.
Get in touch with your local Master Gardeners, Cooperative Extension office, and any regional government groups that promote water conservation, beautification, or stormwater management through rain gardens. For examples, see http://www.hrwet.org, http://www.hrclean.org, and http://www.hrstorm.org. Additionally, check http://www.meetup.com for environmental or gardening groups in your target area. You’ll be amazed at how many resources there are for finding your target audience. And, a give-away targeting a specific “green” initiative wouldn’t hurt. Think about free rain barrels or installation of a rain garden.
These are all EXCELLENT suggestions; thank you all. Jeff, I like the “grow your own food” pitch. Especially appropriate for the Portland Show which is a sustainable living show. Christine, yes, I’ve done calendars, but had not heard of FullCalendar. Thanks for that tip! Kathy, coming up empty-handed in MO, but the other cities should have something; thx. Alice, I was focusing on blogs…but why stop there? Good suggestion. Catherine, great idea for the fall show, when the produce will be ready! Holly, great prizes and super resources. Thank you thank you!
You could try to hold some type of extreme garden/plant makeover charity event perhaps tied to
a home in foreclosure in the local city of your home garden show during the timeframe of each garden show
in each city
you could pass out a petition to be signed by
conference attendees for a bailout for home/garden businesses
You could produce a top ten list of plants that should be on the White House grounds but aren’t
You could produce list of top ten plants owned by
Democrats and another top ten lists owned by Republicans
Hounds, these ideas are fabulous! Here’s mine:
Call local newspapers in the cities where the shows will be held and ask for a copy of their editor calendar. Check to see if they have special sections like “Spring Home Improvement” being planned.
If so, that’s a perfect home for your story about the show.
Read more about how to use editorial calendars https://publicityhound.com/free_publicity/Articles/editorial_calendars.html
What happened to “Homes” in the Home and Garden Shows? Are they only about gardens? Homes are ultimately more important than their gardens.
With so many homes in foreclosure, being repossessed and then resold, there are many ways that how a home is designed and built that should be important. Believe me, many of them are far from perfect.
To get an idea see http://www.betterhousesbetterliving.com.
Our local H&G show partners with nonprofit organizations to sell tickets in advance. Advance tix are $4, the nonprofit keeps $3 of that. So there’s a big incentive for them to sell the tickets. At the door price is $6 so there’s incentive for visitors to buy early. This year’s show was packed as usual, despite economy.
So now it is September and I would love to know how the show went. Can’t wait to start reading about next years show. Good luck!!