Confused about modern marketing? Try thinking like a gardener!

This was my garden. Some years ago I moved countries, from a house that despite my endless efforts, had a pretty poorly kept garden, to one that boasted one of the most immaculate gardens I had ever seen.

While I’m no green thumb, I do know the basics of growing things.

As I had learned, keeping a garden tidy is one thing, but turning it into an object of beauty like I’d witnessed that day requires a whole new mindset (and skills) entirely.

Sure, I can mow lawns, trim hedges and prune plants… but am I gifted in creating a similar masterpiece out of nothing? Not quite.

And I promise that I did try, unsuccessfully, several times.

This was the garden at my previous house.

I bought that house many years ago – a deceased estate – which had essentially just a grass patch at the back with a few trees (typical Aussie backyard) and over several years, while at times it looked “tidy” it was far from a beautiful garden.

I tried to do a vege garden in the corner, but it didn’t take because the soil had been a bed of weeds for so long and it affected the ability for seedlings to grow.

Now I had small kids at the time so it wasn’t like I had oodles of time for gardening so eventually I just gave up – as the house didn’t warrant the thousands of having a professional landscaper coming in to re-do it all from scratch.

So imagine my delight when I bought a house from a renowned landscape artist, with magazine-worthy hedges and pristine grass!

The picture below is the garden I moved into in NZ – and it was absolutely immaculate.

A part of me was thrilled… yet another part was nervous. Could I keep it this nice?

 
Lo and behold I could!

Why? Because the hard work was done. Same circumstance (working mum, small kids, little time), but with a different foundation, vastly different results.

It was a cinch to maintain because it had been set up that way. A regular mow/trim, a bit of weeding and that’s about it. And then occasionally a gardener to do pruning and the harder stuff but that was minor work, just a couple of hours every few months.

I’ve been paralleling this recently, unlocking uncanny similarities between marketing and gardening, and here is why:

The right set up is intense work, even with the best skills

A garden like this doesn’t just “happen” – it involves heavy-duty equipment, a vast array of tools, lots of manpower and a behemoth effort not to mention upfront purchases to get the right trees, retaining walls in place, draining and sprinkler systems, hedges, furniture, accessories and plants.


All so it looks immaculate year long without huge maintenance.

If you get the systems set up right at the beginning, it’s way easier to tend and maintain a garden that’s all set, rather than start a dirt patch from scratch.

From a marketing perspective, when you have your marketing infrastructure in place, a strong brand, the right tools, platforms and skills in place, you’re then in the place to be able to concentrate on getting the right messages out, to the right people at the right time.

But in many cases to do it correctly and build a good foundation you need the skill and instincts of a professional – who can set things up in a way that it is a pleasure to build on and maintain in years to come.

The weeds will always come

I’d ask, “is it a weed?”

The gardener would always cheerfully reply “it’s a weed if you don’t want it there!”

Do you have a ‘weedy’ database? Do you have too many distracting customers? Ones that overshadow the ones you ideally want to tend and nurture?

Not all of these are bad. But it’s the gardener’s job to know what they want in the garden.

The soil makes all the difference

It matters where you plant your seeds. The soil has to be primed, nourished and cultivated so the seeds can hold and sprout. The soil of my "new" vege garden had been nourished and fertilised for years and so anything I planted flourished and I had market-garden worthy produce to enjoy with comparatively little effort.

So too, you need to be sowing ideas into a ready and fertile audience for them to take effect. Is your audience the right fit for you, are they hungry for what you’re offering and are their minds and circumstances ripe to let your offerings blossom in their lives? Choose the right location both in their cities as well as in their hearts for the ideal harvest.

This makes me think back to my old house with the unremarkable garden – if you’ve been doing things the “wrong” way for a long time then sometimes you need to strip back further and go deep to remove the weeds and create a “fresh slate” that is capable of growing seeds again.

Begin with the end in mind

The garden I moved into was a beautiful modern landscaped paradise with a tropical touch.

However later on the former owner explained to me that two decades earlier the garden actually went through two evolutions – firstly as an oriental garden, and secondly as a cottage garden.

The house had been in their family for generations and as a seasoned landscaper, the owner derived much joy from tending to his lush oasis by the water.

The point is, there was a theme – a plan – a destination – a BRAND!

If you have a “take it as it comes” approach you will likely end up with an unorganised, disjointed mess. Really nice flowers and plants scattered around but not really working or looking well together at all.

Without a strategy you’ll end up with a senseless assortment of plants, rather than a symphonic theme that’s still a talking point decades on.

“Tending” to plants and creating an environment to help them to grow.

Realise that a seedling doesn’t become a fully-grown plant overnight. There is the nurturing and tending process that takes place.

You can’t make plants grow any faster than they want to grow.

It takes time for plants to develop deep roots, or in the case of a brand, trust.

People buy from brands they like, trust and have confidence in and this doesn’t happen overnight.

Things have to be tested and adjusted if they don’t work, until the right mix is found.

Creating the right conditions also means taking into account external influences you may not have control over. Weather, pests, sun, the economy.

However, you have control over things like fertiliser, frequency of watering, pruning - and of course your mindset and decisions at large.

Likewise your brand requires time, along with nurturing, investment, wise decisions, protection and hard work to make it a pillar of strength and beauty.

The right tools are important, but skill wins

If you have your eye on the latest and greatest fancy XYZ snazzy tree lopper, you still need to keep in mind a few things:

1. Do you actually have the hedges that require that type of prowess?
   
   
2. Can you wield it with ease, or do you need to pay a professional to use it properly?
   
   
3. Is the purchase warranted in the greater scheme of what you’re needing to achieve?

Having perfectly sculpted hedges is nice, but if the rest of your garden is a mess and there’s no order to it, you may be barking up the wrong tree (no pun intended).

So too with marketing. Prioritise your investments and don’t jump at the latest course or SEO tool if deep down, you don’t need it.

People will admire and comment when it’s nice

I had the pleasure of hearing countless gushing ohh’s and ahhs at the beautiful state of my garden – because when it’s lovely and well-tended, it’s something to behold.

Marketing is a lot like that too. When done well, you’ll get comments on your brand, your materials and your copy. But these accolades are a welcome indication that beyond the surface, you also have your strategy and planning down pat.

Getting the right gardener

DIY is ok if you know what you’re doing, but when it comes to gardening I’m not one of these people. I don’t know my air layering from my arboretum, and don’t really care to know either.

But that’s OK, as I would get someone who has mastered these subtleties come in each month and ensure things stayed in blooming order!

If you’re a DIY marketing type, then you probably enjoy consuming endless books and seminars around Customer journey mapping, long tail keywords and A/B testing.

However if you’re still trying to decipher your inbound from your social campaign, then don’t be afraid to hire a professional who breathes these concepts.

Changing the feel of the garden is like rebrand

Same foundation, same location, different expression.

When a garden changes face, say from the orient to the tropics, it communicates a different resonance both owners and visitors. In turn, it may attract enthusiasts with a penchant for different plant types and aesthetic styles to thumb through the foliage and bask under new species.

So too, a rebrand sends out a signal that you’re resonating with a new tribe. Perhaps a change of imagery, language and font to your website will now speak more to a creative versus more corporate audience.

A few years ago I rebranded my agency – to more accurately reflect the values that underpinned it.

A rebrand, like a garden has to reflect who you are and how you’re evolving, so that the people you connect with only support and amplify that.

But like overhauling an established garden is not for the fainthearted, branding and rebranding can be emotional, intense, time-consuming and above all else, risky. But it can also be a powerful tool that has repercussions far beyond what your reader or customer sees on the surface.

In conclusion

In my years living in gardens of all sorts, nurturing marketing campaigns, and tending to five delightful children, I have learned that all good ideas take time to germinate, even if they had good seeds to start with and a healthy space to grow.

For me, whenever I think about garden these parallels and more spring to mind. I’ve elaborated on my top ones here but am sure there are more and I’d love to hear about your experiences.

What other things does marketing remind you of?

 
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