Abstract
Ornamental horticulture businesses in the United States (U.S.) face challenges to stay economically viable, particularly in rural areas. Marketing with new-media tools (e.g., websites, HTML newsletters, social media, and blogs) has the potential to increase sales over traditional methods of advertising. A survey was conducted to gauge the extent of the use of new-media marketing by ornamental horticulture businesses across the U.S. Responses from 161 businesses showed that marketing practices varied widely across business size in terms of expenses and the labor hours allocated. A majority of the sample (89%) were involved in new-media marketing, and all new-media users made use of at least one new-media tool. Facebook was used by more than 90% of new-media users, followed by the business’ own website, which was used by 82% of respondents. Respondents’ perception of how various new-media marketing tools affected sales followed the extent of use, in general.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 32 |
Journal | Horticulturae |
Volume | 4 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 2018 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: This research was supported by the United States Department of Agriculture—Agricultural Marketing Service—Federal State Marketing Improvement Program (number 11402984), James L. Whitten Building 1400 Independence Ave., S.W. Washington, DC 20250. Contribution no. 16-338-J from the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors.
Keywords
- Garden centers
- Landscape businesses
- Marketing costs
- Nurseries
- Ornamental horticulture businesses
- Social media