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Social media is not everything

In times of a pandemic and changing rules of customer service at points of sale, it is worth ensuring effective communication with buyers. Life and business are moving to the Web. The importance of websites, social media, and electronic newsletters, is growing. The newsletter that we send to interested people is one of the cheapest and most effective forms of contact with customers. This is our magazine, where we write about news from the nursery, inform about the offer or about new plants that we introduce into production.

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Your account does not belong to you

It is worth building your own contact database (mailing list) to become independent of the algorithms that govern social media. Algorithms decide the reach of our posts on Facebook or Instagram. And usually, they cut them down. Why? Because the goal of Facebook and Instagram is to get us to use paid advertising. Social media accounts do not belong to us. Our profile may be blocked or hijacked and we will lose access to our fans. A more attractive medium may be created for our observers to move to. And all the effort we put into developing the profile will be wasted.

Our own mailing list and an efficient system for sending messages are key to being independent. Our contact list is ours and we are free to use it. And the people who shared their email addresses with us are really interested in what we have to say.

Our task is to prepare content that will satisfy their curiosity and transform it into sales.

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Is it worth using special programs for sending newsletters?

Yes, because they allow you to create an aesthetic template, but most of all they allow you to track the behavior of recipients. Based on the obtained data, we can take further action. For example, provide a special offer or an invitation to a personal contact. Thanks to the customer grouping option, we can send better-tailored messages.

For example, the group "garden centers" provides information on interesting plants, more attractive packaging, or delivery conditions. We send messages to the group of "retail customers" with tips or descriptions of new plants. Thanks to this, we provide customers with what really interests them.

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Professional newsletters only for large nurserymen?

Definitely not. The customers of each company deserve good service and reliable information that will help them function better in the market (or create a more beautiful environment).

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In the next article, we will focus on building a customer base in accordance with the GDPR.

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Text published in Szkółkarstwo 2/2021