Marketing

Building a solid brand pays big dividends

By Jon Bell — Posted June 25, 2025

A good logo and name can go far in helping a nursery carve out a name for itself. But there’s more to a solid brand than that.

Retail nurseries work to expand their reach

By Erica Browne Grivas — Posted January 7, 2025

Diverse customers means that a multi-pronged approach in marketing is required

Search engine optimization: Helping customers find you

By Shelly Weasel — Posted July 1, 2020

Previously, I offered some tips on putting your website to work for you. This month, I’m back to help make sure your website can be discovered by search engines, such as Google, which is vital to helping both customers and other businesses find you on the internet. The primary goal of search engine optimization (SEO) […]

Up and running — online

By Jon Bell — Posted April 24, 2020

For retailers, an unfortunate pandemic accelerates the trend towards online ordering It’s May, the month of Mother’s Day and, typically, the peak season for garden centers and nurseries in Oregon and around the Northwest. It’s the month when Americans usually spend close to $1.9 billion on flowers to honor their moms and when pastime gardeners […]

The first employee people see

By Shelly Weasel — Posted April 24, 2020

Imagine you hired an employee who, when asked about your inventory, could only tell people what you used to sell. Or when asked where an item could be found, could only inexplicably point to empty space or not answer at all. Simply put, a single interaction with this employee might lead your customers to assume […]

March 2020

By Bill Goloski — Posted March 3, 2020

Take a look at the next wave of annual, perennial, and woody favorites breeders and growers are introducing to the marketplace, and copy down some notes from our valuable column on plant patent and copyright protections. Growers will also benefit from tips for detecting boxwood blight symptoms in the field. In this issue: The next […]

Knowing customer needs before they do

By Andy Peterson — Posted February 26, 2020

You’ve got a great location. You’ve got massive inventory lined up on nursery benches. Perhaps, you even have indoor lines of merchandise, such as home décor and clothing. As far as you can tell, you’ve got everything a good nursery or garden center should have. So, why aren’t people buying anything? Accurately anticipating your customers’ […]

Spending your first digital dollars

By Ian Doescher — Posted January 1, 2020

Beyond the ads you see on Facebook, Instagram, and Google, digital advertising may be something of a mystery to you. Many small- and medium-sized businesses aren’t sure where to start when it comes to digital marketing, because it is still fairly new and its landscape is ever-changing. Given the challenges, you may be curious about […]

Knowing your customers

By Mike Darcy — Posted November 22, 2019

“Location, location, location.” I have often heard that those three words are paramount for any brick-and-mortar retail business. I do not dispute their importance. Location matters for garden centers, too, but I think that three other words have greater importance: “Know your customers.” Knowing your customers — where they are coming from and what kinds of […]

Shades of meaning

By Ian Doescher — Posted October 23, 2019

It’s my privilege to work with a team of talented designers. One of them — Rachel Getsinger, Pivot’s senior design lead — takes the lead on many of our logo and branding projects. Recently, she has introduced Color Theory 101 to our clients when we present logo color options. In this month’s article, I’m passing […]