We were at the end of my Q&A session at the Canadian Greenhouse Conference and I had asked the crowd: does anyone offer pre-ordering online?
“I do,” said someone near the front.
“Who are you with?” I asked.
“Deb’s Greenhouse.”
I looked harder at her . . . “ARE YOU DEB?!?!” I shouted.
She smiled. (I think. Or looked mildly terrified? I don’t remember.)
“Yes, I’m Deb.”
“FAMOUS DEB!!!!” I yelled.
Now, Deb and I had talked on the phone here and there for articles I was writing. I watched her Facebook and Instagram videos. You’d think I’d recognize her. For some reason I didn’t until she introduced herself.
Then I turned into a full on fangirl.
“YOU GUYS! FOLLOW DEB RIGHT NOW. DO EVERYTHING SHE SAYS. SHE IS A MARKETING GENIUS.”
Deb is a marketing genius. AND she has agreed to put on a webinar with me to share some of her marketing genius with you.
We’re going to teach you how to create automatic post-purchase emails for your customers.
For instance, if someone comes in and buys a hanging basket, you can set up a workflow to send that person a follow-up email with a thank you, some care instructions, and a reminder to buy fertilizer.
We are doing this for FREE because we feel like it.
As I told someone earlier this week, “We are unaffiliated with anyone. We are affiliated with ourselves. This webinar is brought to you by Deb’s Greenhouse and The Garden of Words.”
The webinar is happening on Tuesday, March 19 from 1pm-2pm Eastern. It will be recorded, so if you can’t come, sign up so I send you the recording!
Persons of Interest
I always like reading Amanda Thomsen’s Green Profit column, and this month it’s about parasocial relationships.
A quick way to understand this would be my enthusiasm for Harry Styles.
I think I know everything about him.
He has no idea I exist.
The internet has made it such that almost anyone can be the subject of a parasocial relationship because we’re allllllllllllll online and creating content.
I used to have that when I was one of the faces of the (RIP) paddleboard website “Distressed Mullet.” I wrote the “View from the Back” column. My first one started with, “My name is Katie and I’m a fat paddler.” We went on from there.
For many, many years people would come up to me at paddle events and say, “You are so inspiring.”
And I had no idea who they were.
“I’m so glad!” I’d say. “Where are you from? What do you love about stand up paddleboarding?”
FAMOUS DEB™ didn’t set out to be famous. She set out to sell her plants to other people who like plants.
Along the way, because she is genuine, and knowledgable, and human, and regular, even though she’s a marketing genius, she has inspired me a lot!
She makes me feel like I can do things like make videos for Instagram, even though I’m not a professional.
I’m sure she’s inspired others. (Calling all FAMOUS DEB™ FAN CLUB members: should we get buttons?)
Two Takeaways
1. We’re going to teach you how to set up automatic emails, but those emails will need your personal touch. The more things can be automated, the more we’re going to need people to be creative and put their special sparkle on them.
2. Anyone can be an inspiration to anyone else. You have no idea who you’re encouraging as you go about your day, selling your plants, teaching people how to grow plants, scouting crops, working with new hires.
Every interaction is a chance to make someone’s day a little bit brighter or make the tasks they need to complete seem a little more doable.
Everyone is a person of interest to someone.
What you’re doing matters.
Thanks for doing it.
No, but please sign up
We’ll be demonstrating how to set up emails if you have Square+MailChimp and Shopify+Klaviyo, but we’ll also go through some ideas for getting automatic flows done even if your POS and email systems are not hooked up.
DEETS:
Tuesday, March 19
1pm Eastern
Free
Share this link with your friends and colleagues. Put it in your newsletters. Share it on LinkedIn. There’s room for 500 of you.
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lNis1A4ASH2fggCFHdFhLg
Handy Links
Each newsletter always has a mix of fun and functional links. Here they are! Have a link to share? Send it to me!
Garden Center signage. Do you need a logo on all of it? I weigh in here.
Special thanks to Josh and Timothy from Garden Center Marketing for their insight.
Tech list checklist: Get it here.
Easy watercolor fun for relaxing. (Thanks for sending this to me Ellen Wells!)
GORGEOUS new edition of The Secret Garden. I got my copy yesterday.
Google’s Bard (AI tool) is now Gemini. It’s free and pretty helpful for brainstorming. Try it out.
Housekeeping
I said I’d see you later in the month, but then Deb and I decided to do the webinar.
(In Katie-land, this is considered a quickie. LOLOLOLOL.)
See you at the Webinar!
Cheers,
