Merchandising and Sales By //etiy 
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How to Use 
Direct Mail 
(Reading Time 7 Minutes) 
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Direct mail is an integral part of promotion that should 
not be neglected if a nursery is to round out its selling 
services. It’s just as important fo the customer to sell 
him nursery stock, as it is to hand him the actual plant 
when the sale is made. 
Ninety per cent or more of your customers don’t know 
what to purchase, what to plant, or how to continue the 
plant in healthy condition after they have it in the ground. 
It’s up to the nursery to educate customers. Direct mail 
can play an important part in doing this. 
Certainly fewer people are going to have outdoor living 
rooms, proper screening and hedging, a picture-window 
garden, a satisfactory foundation planting, rose garden 
or perennials unless you show them how to make their 
plantings successful. 
Every purchaser of a plant can be left to his own 
devices and become a discouraged gardener in many 
cases, or he can become a lover of nursery stock. It is 
up to the nursery to make him the latter, for in that way 
you build your business, your profits and your industry. 
You should organize your business to make every plant 
buyer a happy gardener. This is not easy and it requires 
constant selling and repetition, but the rewards in profits 
are worth the effort. The happy gardener talks to his 
whole neighborhood, he boosts your nursery, and you 
build a solid phalanx of customers for both good times 
and bad. Even the salesyard that relies on transient or 
occasional customers to a large extent can successfully 
practice this same way of doing business. 
A Specialized Field 
Direct mail is a specialized field. It is not the hit-or- 
miss mailing of a letter or folder but a continuous flow 
of selling material on an organized basis, appealing to 
the customer’s own interests in many and diverse ways. 
If you merely think of it as a cost item, to be taken 
or left alone at will, then your approach is the wrong one. 
If you think of it as a challenge to build your nursery 
into the most progressive and highly respected business 
in your marketing area, your approach is the right one. 
If you make the majority of potential, as well as actual, 
customers think of your firm as the most progressive and 
highly respected, you do not need to worry about business. 
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION of NURSERYMEN, INC. 
635 Southern Building 
Washington 5, D.C. 
FOR PROFIT SEPTEMBER, 1952 
And if you are the only nursery in that area you still 
can boost sales greatly by encouraging these desirables, 
as well as by educating people to nursery stock in your 
exclusive territory. 
For a nurseryman to say he does all the business in 
a given area is fine, but to realize profits on most of the 
potential business in that area is much better and a real 
challenge. The business volume is largely what you 
make it, whether you are in an exclusive territory or not. 
There are many nurseries which enjoy exclusive terri- 
tories. However, other nurseries some 20 miles away, 
do most of the business in that “exclusive” territory. 
All AAN members can recall similar cases. 
Put newcomers on your mailing list 
One of the first things you might do in building your 
business by direct mail (many already do it) is to get 
from various city or county offices the names of all pur- 
chasers of houses in your area as well 
as all people building new houses. In 
many areas there are regular services 
for this at a nominal fee. 
Put these newcomers on your mailing list for a year 
or so. If they don’t purchase by then, drop them. Your 
firm will then at least be impressed on their minds, if and 
when they decide to buy landscaping or plants. 
Concentrate on your immediate territory first and 
broaden it as the activity proves worthwhile. Of course, 
all your customers should be on the mailing list. Name 
and complete address should be obtained for this purpose 
by salesmen whenever a sale is made. Also on the list 
should be all home owners, especially in your immediate 
area, who are in an economic range conducive to pur- 
chasing nursery stock. As to what that range will be, 
you have to use your own judgment from your own 
business as it varies for different localities. 
What shall I mail? 
1. There are regular mailing services which send out 
a four-page garden promotion folder for you, in accord- 
ance with names you supply, or you can order these 
promotion pieces and mail them yourself. Most nursery- 
men have seen them, they have space on the cover for 
your firm name and a brief sales message. 
The purpose of these mailing pieces is to constantly 
remind the home owner about gardening and planting. 
They have planting tips for different months, and make 
suggestions in relation to landscaping, shade trees, ever- 
greens, fruit, etc. 
