118 



The Florists' Review 



SKl'lKMUKlt U2, l!t:il 



NURSERY ADVERTISING. 



Something That Sells. 



i'ir.st of all, what is advertisiiif;? Ami 

 what is its purpose.' It is to soil some- 

 thing, isn't it? Ho I would say that ad- 

 vortisiny is what you do and say th:it 

 establishes a friendly relationship that 

 results in sales. Selling is not the im- 

 mediate result; it follows something 

 «dse. A relationship has to l)e estab- 

 lislied and it must be built on confidence 

 and good-will. There must be perma- 

 nency in the relationship and what 

 f>rows out of it. When you sell :i bill 

 of goods to a planter, your business with 

 that man lias just begun^ because your 

 buyers must be made into permanent 

 customers. A relationship of confidence 

 .-iiid good-will, then, is of the utmost 

 importance to you. Successful nursery 

 advertising has to ))e built on that idea. 

 It must be frank, straightforward, abso- 

 lutely truthful. It must never overstate 

 llie facts. Understatement is an actual 

 advantage; it inspires confidence. And 

 then performance must match every 

 ]iromise. 



Since advertising i-(ij)y ami catalogues 

 .-ire closely liound up together and must 

 siipj)lement each other to be efCective, 

 I want to consider them together. 



Nursery stock is one of the easiest 

 things to advertise and yet for the indi- 

 vidual nurseryman it offers the paradox 

 of being at the same time one of the 

 most diflicult. It is easy to be general; 

 it is diliicult to be si)ecific. It is easy 

 to interest people in trees and plants; it 

 is difficult to present your trees ;iiul 

 plants as tlie ones to buy. 



When I read nursery adveitisemeiits 

 ! lind that most nurserymen buy space 

 to announce that they are nurserymen, 

 that they grow trees. Now, there is 

 neither noN'elty nor news in that state- 

 ment. It is not achertising. Nobody is 

 j^oing to make the mistake of supposing 

 th.at a nurseryman is a purveyor of 

 liooks or of hats or of ice-cream freoz- 

 I'rs. I consult ;i dozen nursery cata- 

 logues and I find them a dozen books 

 about trees and ])lants, often liandsonie 

 books, differing in covers but not in 

 contents, varying in minor details but 

 not in essentials. I find that Jones and 

 Urowu distribute more or less well writ- 

 ten and handsomely illustrated books 

 iiiiitaining much the same list of vari- 

 eties described in about the same lan- 

 guage and illustrated with the same 

 pictures. Tliey are good handbooks. 

 lint as a possible buyer from one of 

 tliem, which one am I going to place 

 my order with.' How am I to know 

 whether to buv of Jones or of Brown? 

 They don't te'll me. Th(> thing th.-^t 1 

 am interested in as a buyer is the thing 

 that is conspicuously absent from nearly 

 every nursery catalogue. It is the "rea- 

 son why." And it isn't there. 



Tlie absence of that "reason why" 

 can be accounted for. Nurserymen, like 



Tlie address of Jolin Watson, of rriiiceton, 

 N. J., ex-llrcsident of the Ainericmi .\ssocialion 

 of Niireerymen, on "Nursery Advertising," de- 

 livered tiefore tlie .Southern .Nurserymen's Asso- 

 . iation. nt Cliattnnoogn, Tenn. 



ii good many other advertisers, write 

 their advertising copy and their cata- 

 logues to themselves. " liut we must ad- 

 dress ourselves to the people we want 

 to buy our goods. You are going about 

 it ttpparently believing that the impor- 

 tant thing is to sell. Hut the important 

 thing to you is that ]>eople should buy. 

 And that metiiis you 've got to get away 

 from constant thought of your business 

 ;ind become intensely interested in the 

 buyer's business. It is his order you 

 want, isn't it.' (io after it from his 

 standpoint. Tell him the reason why 

 he should buy your particular trees. 

 That is the great difliculty in advertis- 

 ing niirsi'ry stock. Everything else is 

 easy, but the most iinj)ort!int thing hap- 

 jieiis to be the most difficult thing. If 

 you think it can't be done, just take 



After likening to this address 

 at Chattanooga, the Southern 

 Nurserymen's Association, 

 through the committee on reso- 

 lutions, expressed its apprecia- 

 tion of its value in these words: 

 "Weespecially returnourthanks 

 to John Watson for his master- 

 ly, able, eloquent, scholarly and 

 in^rudtive address. We ask 

 him^to have this published, in 

 order that all nurserymen may 

 read, study and profit thereby." 



.■I wi-ek off and travel with one of your 

 [.late-book canvassers. He can tell you 

 selling points about your business that 

 yon never knew before. 



Talking Points. 



Most advertisers of nursery stock 

 recognize that difficulty ami try to over- 

 i-onie it in various ways. The fact of 

 ;ige in a business is worth advertising, 

 because age is some assurance of ([ual- 

 ity or service, without which the busi- 

 ness might not have lived so long. But 

 some of the best nurseries are new nurs- 

 eries. The fact of size also warrants 

 the assum]ition of a certain value in 

 jiroducts, without which the business 

 might not have grown big. And yet 

 some of the small nurseries grow excel- 

 lent stock and they answer your argu- 

 ment ^s•ith theirs — the advantage of 

 small acreage and 2)ersonal attention to 

 every detail. Some advertisers feature 

 specialties, and it is of great value to 

 be able to offer something worth-while 

 that others cannot sujiply. And yet the 

 juiblic has noticed that not ten ]per cent 

 of the novelties introduced with a great 

 tiourish of trumpets ever metisure up 



to the old, tested varieties. And so the 

 public has become doubtful about that 

 sort of advertising. And then there i> 

 the too common appeal of cheap prices, 

 an argument that defeats itself at once 

 — or should — because prices below tlu 

 average of those of good firms invite 

 the conclusion that they mean one of 

 two things: Either that the trees are 

 not worth more than a cheap price, oi 

 tliat the nurseryman admits his in- 

 capacity as a salesman. I can say out 

 of experience— and I think all of you 

 can, too — that buyers are not attracted 

 by cheap trees, although they may be 

 attracted by cheap prices. AH of you 

 have received letters telling you- that 

 your prices were higher than somebody 

 else's, but that if you would meet so- 

 aiid-so's ])rices, the order would be 

 jilaced with you. Those correspondents 

 want the cheap man's price, but they 

 pr(>fer your trees. 



It is necessary for every nurseryman 

 to have some good reason why buyers 

 should give him their orders. That rea- 

 son may be found in various things: 

 The care with which varieties are propa- 

 gated, the workmen's skill, the thor- 

 oughness of the cultivation, suitable 

 land, e(|uipment for ])roper handling at 

 shipping time, shipjiing facilities, the 

 service that follows delivery. All these 

 are tilings that the buyer is interested 

 in. Of overshadowing importance to 

 the buyer is the matter of getting fruit 

 trees true to name. 



When to Advertise. 



When should nurserymen advertise/ 

 Or, to jiut it differently, wlien do folks 

 buy trees and plants.' Catalogue nurs 

 erymen advertise only in the fall and 

 spring. 1 never knew exactly why; so 1 

 asked a good many and it interested 

 me to find that I got the same answer 

 in every instance: "It doesn't pay to 

 advertise at other seasons. We receive 

 orders only in the fall and spring." The 

 last part of that statement, we all know- 

 to be jierfectly true. Fall and spring 

 are the jilanting seasons. Folks senci 

 for nursery stock when they are ready 

 to plant it. But we are not talking 

 about planting; we are talking about 

 liuying. I feel sure that folks buy trees 

 .ind jilants every day in the year; that 

 is, they make u]i their minds to buy 

 just as you and I do about the things 

 we buy. 



For example, when does a woman buy 

 rose bushes,' Of course, she makes out 

 her order and sends it off in the spring, 

 because that is the time to plant roses. 

 l>ut we are not talking about delivering 

 and planting: we w.ant to know when 

 she buys roses. Isn't it in June, when 

 roses .ire in bloom in her garden or in 

 the neighbors' gardens.' And why isn't 

 that the best time to .advertise roses.' 

 When does a man decide that it might 

 be a mighty fine idea to have half a 

 dozen jieach trees in the back garden? 

 Isn't it likely to be at about the time 

 when friend wife is feeding him peaches 

 and cream for breakfast and peach cob- 

 l>ler for Sund.ay dinner? Doesn't he 

 realize then that the grocer's price for 



