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Landscape Marketing Secrets


Nov 13, 2017

On this episode of Pond Marketing Secrets, Laura chats with Jay McCormick of McCormick Landscaping about how getting your water features displayed in Garden Centers or retail stores can help boost your referral business!

Tip of the Week: Take time to be with your kids/family. You’ll be happier in business if you’re happy overall with your life.

Pond Marketing Group Action - What Laura Did This Week: Made a list of 35 names (old customers, regular customers, potential customers) to spend time reaching out to. Laura and her husband each set a goal to call 10 per week from this list to build and develop that customer relationship. 

Garden Centers 

Finding a garden center or landscaping center to build a referral partnership with for your pond business can be a great way to find new customers! With any referral partner, building this type of relationship takes time and effort, but the rewards for both businesses make it well worth the effort. Jay has many water features on display throughout garden centers and retail spaces in his area, giving him great business referrals. Listen in as Jay walks you through how he worked with these different retail spaces to get his water features displayed there.

  1. Walk through the retail space, take pictures and make notes of the dead retail space you see.  Show these garden centers that you can bring them big retail and sales value by adding a feature in those spaces for them. See where you can install a water feature that will not only help their business, but help you too.
  2. Talk to employees/supervisors. Get a feel for what their system is like in that garden center. You’ll have to build and foster a referral partner relationship with them. Look for a place that has high traffic (higher value for your business). Map out where you’d suggest the feature to go and propose it as a business plan. You have to have a plan to talk with the owners, be prepared show them how it’ll benefit them, and make it a business proposition. If you go in unprepared the management and owners will not take your proposition seriously, so do your homework.
  3. The Garden Centers Jay works with brings in about 20% of his business. He’s also worked out a good deal with the garden center because they get a cut of each sale he makes from their referral. These stores will need to know that they’re a good fit for this referral partnership too. So do your research about the company, you can’t just walk in and say you want to put a feature in and have them bend over backwards for you. You need to have a plan and show how that plan benefits them and their customers. Show them how the current space isn’t being utilized and give them a better way to make that retail space profitable for both businesses.
  4. Once installed you can’t just leave a water fixture and expect it to sell itself or take care of itself. Make an effort to stop in at these stores and check on how things are going. Offer trainings about the water features to the store employees, be available to answer questions there from customers about the features. You want the features to always look their best for your sake and for the impression of the customers and the retail store.
  5. Make it easy for interested customers to find you. Leave business cards near each feature that they can take, have a stack of business cards handy for the store’s employees to share. For Jay, each feature gets a little sign with his company's name, the name of the water feature on display right there, the components of that particular water feature, and what the ballpark pricing is. 
  6. Don’t limit yourself to just garden centers. Other high traffic stores also have space for water features, including restaurants. You don’t have to be in the same industry as a retail space for one of your water features to bring value and benefit to for you both. Jay is working with Texas Roadhouse to install his next water feature display, getting his name out there even more and offering a beautiful waiting space for the customers at Texas Roadhouse.

Find out more about Jay by visiting The McCormick Landscaping Website, finding him on Facebook or even giving him a call with more questions, at (803) 215-1672

Let Laura help your company achieve marketing goals and stay top of mind with your customers! For a full list of services offered through Pondtent, visit Pond Marketing Group today! 

Podcast Editing and Show Notes via Podcast Buddy