Marketing is of vital importance to any business. But with so many different aspects from market research and advertising to sales promotion, public relations and sales getting the marketing mix right for you can be tricky. The HTA Marketing Forum delivers a huge range of marketing insight and ideas in one action packed day; Tuesday 8th November 2016, Whittlebury Hall next to Silverstone in Northamptonshire.

Come along to the HTA's one-day event aimed at all those involved in marketing and PR across the garden industry. There will be masses of insight, inspiration and top tips in bite sized sessions to ensure you are maximising the potential of your marketing spend.

The Programme includes:

Keynote speaker Mark Palmer, Group Marketing Director for Pret a Manger (and formerly of Burger King and Green & Blacks) looks at the importance of brand and how, at Pret, they focus spending on mproving the instore experience rather than spending on traditional media.

• Marketing consultant Nigel Temple explores the importance of having a Marketing Strategy and the need for a Marketing Mindset.

• In conjunction with Horticulture Week, Creative Solutions, Haymarket’s in-house creative agency will provide inspiration and best practice examples demonstrating the value of digital marketing as part of an overall marketing strategy

• Sally Cornelissen from Burleydam Garden Centre and Alan Down from Cleeve Nursery show how they use innovative events and community activity to reach out to new audiences
Instore – the power of visual merchandising

• Inspiration from outside the industry from ex-Liberty visual merchandiser Maxine Groucutt and trend watcher and green stylist Romeo Sommers will talk about using storytelling to help market your products, especially plants

• Pete Doyle from Social Retail will provide the latest know how on making the most of social media

• Wildfire Agency will demonstrate the effectiveness of advertising on social media in reaching new audiences

• Richard Jackson from QVC will look at online shopping and the way in which they often sell large volumes of product at strange times!

• Matt Young, Executive Producer of Spun Gold (ITV’s Love your Garden) will look at the challenges of getting more gardening on TV

The event will also incorporate the inaugural GTN's Greatest Marketing Awards

Programme

• 8.30 Registration and refreshments
• 9.30 Conference starts
• 12.45 Lunch and networking
• opportunities
• 1.35 Afternoon session begins
• 4.30 Conference close

Book now at hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Designing the customer shopping experience in an ever evolving omni-channel retail environment has never been so important to increase brand awareness, loyalty and connect with the customer on a deeper level.

Storytelling is our oldest form of communication and the visual merchandiser must play on the senses to add value to products and brands.

Seductive merchandising facilitates the path to purchase and makes the experience memorable.

Focusing on Liberty Renaissance, Maxine Groucutt, Visual Merchandising Consultant, will examine why telling the story was so successful.


Book your place now at  www.hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Nigel Temple, marketing consultant, trainer and author and Founder of The Marketing Compass, will provide an overview of current marketing thinking and how to embrace the Marketing Mindset. 

Nigel will discuss the importance of strategic thinking, the customer and the use of technology to meet sales and marketing objectives. 

This thought-provoking session is suitable for those who are new to marketing as well as seasoned marketing professionals.


Book your place now at  www.hta.org.uk/marketingforum

If you think about the constant flood of advertisements and marketing jargon a consumer is exposed to on a daily basis, you would think it's almost impossible, as a marketer, to stand out amongst the noise.

On average, one person is exposed to more than 5,000 advertisement and brand exposures per day.

So, what more can you actually do? How can you effectively reach a targeted audience at the right moment and stand out amongst the estimated 5,000 ads a person is exposed to in just one day?

In a world where most of us retrieve news and information from search engines, blogs and social media, it is important now more than ever for brands to curate quality content that reaches their relevant audience and communicates (in the right way) who they are as a brand.

In this session, which will be introduced by Tim Lomas, Commercial Manager (Energy and Environment Division) at Haymarket Media Group, Antje Derks, Senior Content Manager & Social Media Editor, Haymarket Business Media Content Labs will look at content solutions from two sectors (Supply Management and the Third Sector) to see how they were used to raise the brand or charity’s profile through informative and educationally useful content - whether in the form of an expert report, a webinar or video content.

• The Greatest Social Media Team of the Year
• The Greatest Marketing Event of the Year
• The Greatest Marketing Innovation of the Year
• The Greatest Supplier Marketing Team of the Year
• The Greatest Garden Centre Marketing Team of the Year

The awards will be hosted by Trevor Pfeiffer, Managing Director of Garden Trade News, and Carol Paris, HTA Chief Executive

Book your place now at  www.hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Mark Mars, Managing Director, Perceptive Flow, will give an overview on how to set up effective, targeted Facebook advertising to extend reach, raise brand awareness and ultimately increase sales and website click-throughs. 

Mark will also share insights on how Facebook Advertising has helped National Garden Gift Vouchers promote their seasonal activities.

Book your place now at  www.hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Quite simply, it’s because QVC is the world’s leading multi-category video and e-commerce retailer and it can help them sell huge quantities of their products, not just on QVC but in-store too.

Richard Jackson is the Gardening Presenter, as well as the biggest garden supplier, to QVC UK. He discusses the background to this shopping phenomenon and the opportunities for the gardening industry.

Book your place now at  www.hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Programme

• 8.30 Registration and refreshments
• 9.30 Conference starts
• 12.45 Lunch and networking
• opportunities
• 1.35 Afternoon session begins
• 4.30 Conference close

Book now at hta.org.uk/marketingforum

Two weeks on from HTA Futures, GTN Xtra asked a handful of retailer delegates what they had gained from attending what was in our opinion one of the most thought provoking and inspirational garden industry conferences of recent years. 

At a time when there is more change and uncertainty on the horizon we asked:  What was the most useful thing you learned from HTA Futures?  What/who inspired you to make radical changes back at the centre in the coming months?  Have you already been able to use the content to motivate your team and get new thinking going for next year and the future?

Here are the responses we received:

Gary Carvasso, Coolings

“I totally valued the time out. The HTA team worked hard I felt to deliver and succeeded.

“As a mature, successful and profitable business we could easily be in danger of losing the art of start-up and introducing new services in particular. Leonard Diepenbrock, the German family business entrepreneur challenged our thinking and flagged up the dangerous path we could find ourselves taking as a business. The truth is we are so caught up in making things better and cheaper that we miss great opportunities.

“Dr Ross Cameron, from the University of Sheffield examined the climate predictions for the UK and looked at how this will affect gardening and garden retail, and has spawned an idea to include in our future.

“PY Gerbeau who has an impressive track record of turning around failing enterprises. The four things you need in order to survive: flexibility, adaptability, agility, and common sense. Leaders must remember that their best asset is not their product or their business strategy, but their people. We are currently working on a 10-year plan for our business and it helped me put in context the relationship between investment required for capital projects and the significant investment we need to plan for, in terms keeping AND adding the right people. It is our people who deliver the experience.

“Our management meetings will need to focus more about the future, and in fact 9 of us spent some time this morning considering this in light of the provocation from Leonard. How do we create an environment of a freedom to fail, possibly creating a start-up fund that our teams can pitch for? Paul Playdell suggested a good business is like a table with many legs and that led me to think what other services are we not offering on and off site, that make sense and offer solutions to our customers. Ideas are flowing already. He also reminded us that experience is vital when almost every product is available elsewhere:  We must make customers laugh and cry, we need to be daring and memorable.

“As ever the value of meeting new people, catching up with suppliers and others in the garden retail trade, always produces bags of stuff that is useful in shaping your thinking.”

Julie Wigglesworth, Aylett Nurseries

“My thoughts are:  To use a new measure: “smiles per square metre” to measure customer experience, and remember to tell the story rather than just put product on a shelf.  The research into plant breeding and the future use of plants in our cities, thinking of trees as air conditioning units, and climbing plants as insulators. 

“ Never do anything radical - customers do not tend to enjoy it! Continue to evolve and change, remember to keep up with ever changing technology - I had never heard of Amazon dash now I would like a button on my washing machine too!

“Continue to think about what we can do to make our customers life better.

“I think the day should be thought of as a training day, opening eyes and ears to different ideas, that can be used in the future. Not sure I have had time to put any of it into action yet but it is all in my mind and who knows when it may be useful. It is very easy to stay in your centre, getting caught up with the mundane and forget what a broad and fantastic industry we work in! The day should be used to motivate yourself, gaining an insight into many different ideas, it can be quite lonely at the top (or bottom depending how you look at it) and after a day like that, you hear that other people have the same frustrations and concerns and you are not alone. If the leaders remain motivated the team will follow.

Simon Fraser, Ben Reid

“It is the biggest investment in my personal development a year, so crucial to the business. I felt I had a full return on investment by the first coffee break this year so good was the content!

We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction. - Bill Gates

“Never has this been more true!

“The most useful thing I learned from Wednesday HTA Futures:  Keep being the best, and make sure the team believe it too! The tale of the Boots employee sending PY to spec savers is such an important lesson for all retailers.

“Ibrahim Ibrahim and the future foundation guys inspired me to make radical changes back at the centre in the coming months: Understanding the many routes-journeys to buying and how we can engage with the consumer going forward.

“I’ve been on holiday this week but when I get back we will discuss how we can continue to add fun and knowledge into our product mix. I came home and signed up to Garden Connects personal email scheme!”

Tim Godwin, Fosseway

“The one who did it for me was Lenard Diepenbrock who has transformed his business by looking outside the box and being honest about the business to see that the was little opportunity to revolutionise what he was successfully doing already.

“I thought there was some good content from Ibrahim. I loved the measuring “smiles per square metre” as something a progressive garden centre should be measuring. With some very interesting stuff from the future foundation especially Joshua and his view of what might happen through this uncertain time. The digital age is upon us but good staff are a very strong key to the door.

“I have put a team together with a budget to look at what we could be doing and should be doing to develop the business over the next 10 years and have some answers by the end of January 2017. I feel doing this over the busy period will concentrate the mind further.” 

Adam Wigglesworth, Aylett Nurseries and HTA President

“Remember the value of the front facing team - they actually deliver the service.

“These conferences are vital so you can get out and get ideas, it’s really difficult to be thinking strategically and managing the risks to your business when you are embroiled in the everyday hub-bub like most of us.

“It’s one day and a dinner - you and your businesses deserve it!

“Quite often you have a kernel of an idea and someone at these days will help you distil it.

“If you think what professional advice costs these days are really good value.

“We have an amazing industry and people share so much if you are not there you do not hear it!” 

GTN Xtra comment:

In a market sector where independent retailers still hold the majority of outlets we wonder why more of the small to medium sized businesses do not take advantage of conferences such as these?

The HTA are doing great things to help everyone involved in our industry and the biggest potential benefactors are retailers.   Our industry needs, and does have, a vibrant and helpful trade association but why are more members not attending events such as HTA Futures and making the most of their membership?

If you’d like to share your thoughts with us, please use the comments button below or e-mail: trevor.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk

Read Mike Wyatt’s reports from HTA Futures in the November issue of GTN that will be arriving in your post next week.

• Garden Products - down 7%
• Growing Media - up 5%
• Christmas Products - up 35%
• All Items Index - up 7%

The Company:

Apta is the leading supplier of quality flower pots and accessories to the UK garden trade, under its own brand and iconic UK brands, The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and Laura Ashley.

The company has achieved very considerable growth and now wishes to strengthen its sales team with the recruitment of two motivated and ambitious sales professionals.

Job titles: Area Sales Manager

Territory 1: Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire.

Territory 2:  Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northants.   

Salary: Very attractive salary, bonus, company car and benefits.

Progression: There will be opportunities to progress to senior sales positions.

The Role of Sales Representative:

Our new Sales Representatives will have responsibility for:

• Ensuring that every sales appointment has an objective
• Driving sales growth and tracking performance
• Building upon strong partnerships with existing customers
• Developing new customers and securing sales orders
• Working with head office and a team of merchandisers to ensure that customer experience is always exceptional
• Planning and working to an effective journey plan, maximising customer contact

The person for this Sales Representative opportunity:

We are looking for high calibre, ambitious and self motivated Sales Professionals with excellent communication skills. Specific qualities will include:

• Proven experience of working as a successful Sales Representative or Area Manager
• Experience closing sales with a decision maker
• Proven business development skills
• Skilled at fact finding, questioning and verbal clarity
• Strong negotiation and objection handling skills
• Empathy and the ability to build strong working relationships

• You will have overall decision-making authority on Crop Protection matters.
• You will benefit from attending events, training days and conferences and working within a team including growing departments across the nurseries (Propagation, Plant Breeding, Trials and Crop Growing).
• Liaise with external consultants who provide regular crop walks and advice.
• Also be part of group committees and working groups including external organisations such as the AHDB, APHA and the HTA.

To apply for this role click here

• Driving sales and maximising profit in order to consistently meet your KPIs .
• You will deliver exceptional standards of customer service.
• You will identify trends in sales and profit opportunities and you will translate these into sound retail action points.
• You will be at the helm leading, developing and motivating your team with a clear focus on driving exceptional performance and managing all controllable costs.
• You will ensure high standards of stock management and control are constantly maintained.
• And you will carry out daily floor walks of every department.
• You will understand and be able to easily connect with their AB1 customer demographic with an ability to ensure that retail standards and service levels constantly exceed their expectations.

• Strong commercial growing background preferably from within the Hardy Nursery Stock sector.
• Experience of planning and coordinating nursery production.
• Experience of managing and supervising staff.
• Hands-on, can-do attitude
• Strong communication skills
• A commitment to quality.
• The ability to prioritise tasks.
• A strong level of plant knowledge.
• Good IT skills
• Pesticide qualifications (PA1 & PA6)
• The ability to show initiative.
• A desire to develop within an innovative and growing business.
• Knowledge of irrigation systems
• A driven and positive leader who can inspire and manage a dedicated team.

• Matthiola – stocks moved 22 places up the chart to No 27.
• The biggest percentage increase went to Santolina to enter the chart at No 26.
• Ornamental Brassicas increased sales by 57% to enter the Top 10 for the first time.

• Kaemingk Christmas Porcelain Mug with Spoon and Chocolate Grater was the highest new entry.
• Culpitt 10 inch Round Christmas Cake Board was the highest re-entry.
• JVL Christmas Machine Washable Doormat is at No 4.

• Growth Technology Orchid Pot Clear 15cm was the highest re-entry at No 11.
• Creative Products Clean Sweep Rubber Broom, jumping 31 places to No 10.
• Gardman Solar Filigree Table Light LED Colour Changing and Gardman Gard ‘n’ Fleece Bags (Assorted Sizes) Green returned to the Top 50.
• Fito Drip Feeder For Orchids 32ml retained the top spot.

• Kelkay RHS Horticultural Potting Grit was the highest re-entry at No 34.
• Westland John Innes No3 Mature Plants (35 litres) was the highest climber, jumping 18 places to No 24.
• Scotts Levington Multipurpose + John Innes (56 litres) retained the top spot.

Every week GTN receives and analyses epos data from a number of UK garden centres to produce the GTN Bestsellers charts and weekly bestsellers sales tips.

The full charts which provide useful insight into product sales peaks, new trends and new link sales opportunities are published in the weekly GTN Xtra printed newsletter.

As the year goes on we give sales volume comparisons with 2014 as well as 2015 to allow your teams to see variations over a three year period.

Access is by subscription only.  For £195.00 per year you and your team can have access to the most up-to-date gardening sales analysis that has already helped many UK garden centres increase their sales.  To subscribe call 01733 775700, e-mail karen.pfeiffer@tgcmc.co.uk or buy on-line using this link.

Highlights of the GTN Garden Products Bestsellers chart for this week are here

Highlights of the GTN Garden Plants Bestsellers chart for this week are here

Highlights of the GTN Christmas Products Bestsellers chart for this week are here

Highlights of the GTN Growing Media Bestsellers chart for this week are here

WARNING the GTN Bestsellers Charts seriously improve the business of our subscribers.  Invest 15 minutes each week in improving your sales using the GTN Bestsellers charts and your turnover and customer satisfaction will improve too.