Marketing Tips & Techniques—Looking Ahead

MARKETING TIPS & TECHNIQUES—

LOOKING FORWARD

By Suz Trusty

As we enter 2022, the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic lingers. Emerging variants have many questioning what steps may be required to maintain personal and public health and safety. Anxiety about the economy, rising inflation, and supply chain problems add to the stress level. Environmental issues and potentially damaging weather events brought about by changing weather patterns are continuing concerns.

Covid-19 fatigue is real. Providing green space is not the antidote, but it can be effective therapy.

Looking forward, active internet use will continue to grow worldwide. Take advantage of the significant upgrades you have made in your website to use it as an effective marketing tool to share the proven positive value of green spaces—including lawns—with your customers and potential customers.

Tap into resources, such as The Lawn Institute (TLI), www.TheLawnInstitute.org, for data you can use to incorporate into your website messages, tweaking them to make them resonate with your customers, potential customers, and throughout your marketing area.

As TLI’s website reports, “Urbanization is a not a new reality, but in recent years its pace has increased substantially. For the first time in human history, the world’s population now has more people living in urban areas than rural areas. By 2030, the United Nations projects that this will likely shift even further where up to 60 percent of the world’s population could be living in urban areas. As this trend continues, plants will continue to play an essential role in the success, comfort, health, and social well-being of millions of people.”

Tout the Environmental Impact

"The many benefits of perennial grasses in urban spaces have been well-documented with regard to producing fresh oxygen, capturing rainfall, reducing stormflow and erosion, protecting watersheds, filtering pollutants, and more."

Infographics detailing many of these benefits are available on the TLI website. Consider adding them to your website in conjunction with local or regional sites and situations where your grasses are being used to make a significant impact that relates to one or more of those benefits.

Psychological/Emotional

Go beyond data to tap into the psychological and emotional benefits of natural grass. You have the inside track here. You’ve been supplying that therapy long before the pandemic began; long before the media and consumers even knew it was therapy. Why have your customers been updating their landscapes with natural grass?

How are they using those beautiful new lawns personally as therapy to counter the anxiety, uncertainty, stress, and isolation of Covid? How are they using those beautiful new lawns as a psychological message to themselves that at least this part of their life is peaceful and serene? To calm their nerves? Boost their mood? Upgrade their attitude? Review some of your before and after photos of recent projects that may show an area created specifically as a haven for such purposes. Or maybe you have a message from a one of your customers reporting how they are benefiting psychologically from their new lawn that they would be willing to share on your website. How are they using those beautiful lawns as a family? Photos of families interacting in a game of croquet or cornhole would be great to share as examples of family activities on the lawn. So would those of family members playing catch, kicking around a soccer ball, or tossing a football. Other great family photos could be a toddler learning to walk on the soft and forgiving grass; or children interacting with their dog, cat, or bunny; or a picnic or tea party on a blanket on the lawn.

How are they using those beautiful new lawns as a means of social connection? For many people, outdoor gatherings became the main opportunity for meeting with friends and extended family during the covid-related lockdowns. Often, the ease of entertaining in a beautiful outdoor setting on the lawn was so appealing and enjoyable, they have adopted it as their favorite type of social interaction. Tap into that trend by posting photos of these types of gatherings, maybe in conjunction with suggestions for fun events such as May Day or Fourth of July celebrations. Positive marketing messages such as these can help boost sales.

Suz Trusty is co-editor of Turf News.