Pre-RHS Chelsea marketing checklist for garden brands

All images on this page courtesy of the talented Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Simple marketing checklist for garden brands at RHS Chelsea: We’re now in the final countdown to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, but there’s still time to double-check you’ve covered all the important things with a pre-launch checklist. Make sure that you’re doing all you can to lever your website, social media and marketing, whether you’re a garden designer, landscape gardener, landscape architect or horticulture business.

There’s still time to harness the huge surge in interest that RHS Chelsea generates in gardening and to help you do your last minute checks, we’ve listed all the top tips from our series on ‘How to market your garden brand at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show’, and you can also download it as a printable checklist!

In this series, we’ve been helping garden brands take advantage of the interest that the Chelsea Flower Show generates: whether you’re exhibiting, helping to create one of the incredible show gardens, supplying the many garden designers or just visiting the Chelsea Flower Show for inspiration.

If you’re catching up, last time we had a guest contribution from Kirsty Raper from Rebuildagram, an Instagram expert. She shared her top tips on upping your game on your Instagram and then we matched hers with our corresponding website tips.

Here are the top last minute marketing jobs we cover this time as we enter the Chelsea countdown:

1. Things to do on your website

2. Things to do for your maillist

3. Write blog content for your audience

4. Create a media kit to filter your best leads

5. Prep your Instagram account & double-check your website

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Wildings is a website design agency in Devon. Based in Torquay in South Devon we design standout websites for small businesses like garden designers, interior designers, florists and architects (garden, interiors and lifestyle brands). In this series, we’re looking at how to market your small garden business or brand off the back of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show or the Spring rush: catch up on the previous article, ‘How to use Instagram to market your business at RHS Chelsea’ or explore the rest of our series on how to market your garden brand at the Chelsea Garden Show →

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1. Make sure your garden website is ready for visitors

The purpose of this marketing checklist for your website in the final countdown to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show is two-fold:

1. Ensure that you attract and engage with the right type of potential customers

2. Make it easy for prospective clients to take next steps with you as a garden designer, landscaper or garden brand

Don’t worry if you’ve not got time for some of the more meaty ones, you can work on these throughout the year. At the very least, ensure new clients can get hold of you quickly and easily via your website.

Your contact details should be totally obvious and your enquiry form fully functional to stand any chance of capturing new work off the back of the Chelsea Flower Show. You’ll be surprised at the number of garden websites we see that are either broken or make it really hard to get in touch with the business owner!

1. Check that your garden website enquiry form is working

2. Update your garden or landscape design portfolio with your best, current work

3. List the benefits & impact of what you offer on your garden services page (not just features)

4. Include Calls to Action on key pages across your website

5. Summarise what you do & for whom as a garden brand on your homepage

Read more on these tips: Tips to improve your garden design website for RHS Chelsea →

2. Get your garden brand maillist in place

As we’ve said through out this series, you need to make the most of your new audience from RHS Chelsea, otherwise it’s a wasted opportunity - ensure to engage with new followers afterwards!

This marketing checklist is all to do with your newsletter maillist, setting it up and creating the initial steps to engage with new people who are interested in your garden design or horticultural business.

If you’re pushed for time, we’d suggest making it the top priority to setup a maillist and subsribe button on your website - that will then give you time to put the other things in place afterwards and some time to work on newsletter content.

1. Create a newsletter maillist to capture client e-mails who are interested in following your garden brand after RHS Chelsea

2. Add your newsletter sign-up form to high-visibility and high-traffic areas on your garden website

3. Set up an e-mail marketing system (e.g., Mailchimp) to engage with your new audience

4. Add a welcome message for new subscribers to your newsletter

5. Offer a freebie or incentive to encourage signups in and around the RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Read more on these tips: How to turn garden design website visitors into followers →

3. Have helpful blogs ready for your new garden audience

This section builds on the previous one about your newsletter maillist. When people start visiting your garden website in and around RHS Chelsea it’s vital to demonstrate expertise and show that you’re someone who can help them with their problems.

Your website blog is a great place to show all the value you bring, how you can solve issues that they are facing or answer questions they may have to do with the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. If you write timely, helpful content, especially ahead of the show, you can put yourself at the top of Google searches, maximising new traffic to your website.

Linked to this, if you are producing content on your website that helps answer the questions people put in Google, Google will start to promote you in its organic search results, putting you in the best position possible going into RHS Chelsea.

1. Check who your ideal clients or customers are before writing blog content

2. Research what people are searching for on Google to do with RHS Chelsea or garden design

3. Add high-quality images to your blogs and ensure to optimise them (especially for size!)

4. Add a Call To Action at the end of each blog to keep people engaged

5. Repurpose your garden website blog content for social media or as incentives

Read more on these tips: How to boost your garden design website SEO for RHS Chelsea →

4. Create a media kit to help convert garden enquiries

A media kit it s vital marketing tool, considering you’re likely to be deluged with enquiries or interest off the back of RHS Chelsea. If you anticipate your garden design or horticultural website is likely to be swamped after the flower show (or each Spring), a media kit is a really helpful way to weed out potential clients who are not a good fit for your garden brand.

In our summary list below we’ve listed a mixture of benefits of a media kit as well as things to include in it, and you can find a link to the full blog on it below that. Overall, it’s well worth considering if you want to stop answering the same questions from your garden design website enquiries; justify your prices; plus spend less time on discovery calls that go nowhere.

1. Put the focus on value first before pricing

2. Show your best work to attract your ideal clients

3. Unpack your prices on your terms

4. Sift for your best clients to reduce discovery calls

5. Safeguard your health, reputation & confidence

6. Focus on what you love & is important to you

7. Stoke desire without being salesy

Read more on these tips: How to convert website enquiries into sales with a media kit →

5. Prep your Instagram account & double-check your website

With the huge crowds that RHS Chelsea attracts, Instagram is a key part of marketing your garden brand, as it not only engages those present at the Chelsea flower show, but all those looking on digitally from home. Instagram also gives you a wider window before and after a garden show to be getting your garden brand out there and engaging with potential customers.

In short, social media - particularly the photo-sharing app, Instagram - needs to be part of your marketing approach when it comes to RHS Chelsea. Make sure it’s not an after-thought and ensure it’s all linked up with the preparations you’ve made on your website.

Finally, if you’ve not yet checked your website, make sure to do it alongside Instagram, otherwise all those people who check you out from your Instagram profile are going to be disappointed and a chunk of potential clients may fall away.

1. Update your Instagram bio & make it relevant for RHS Chelsea

2. Plan your Instagram content & start talking about RHS Chelsea with your followers (now!)

3. Create Instagram Reels and short form video (not just photographs)

After you’ve sorted out your Instagram profile, this is your last chance to get your website fir for purpose:

1. Check your website homepage is clear, concise & engaging

2. Start talking about Chelsea everywhere on your website

3. Start writing blog content for garden lovers & brands to consume in and around RHS Chelsea

Read more on these tips: How to use Instagram to market your business at RHS Chelsea →

Anything else I need to know about marketing my garden brand before RHS Chelsea?

That’s all for this time on last minute marketing checks ahead of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show if you are a garden designer, landscaper or horticultural brand - whether you’re at the Show or want to make the most of the buzz. It’s part 6 in our ‘How to market your garden brand at RHS Chelsea Flower Show‘ series, helping your business make the most of the Spring surge, if you’re a garden brand or preparing for RHS Chelsea or a big industry event. If you’d like to get more helpful tips from us or visual inspiration, follow @wildings.studio on Instagram; or read more of our garden designer-focussed blogs on website design below.

More RHS Chelsea-related website tips for garden brands & designers

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