Follow these people (Green Marketing)

One of the best things about social media is that you can follow and make direct connections to today’s industry thought leaders. These are the people with their fingers on the pulse of the green business world.
There are so many smart and savvy folks out there, it was hard to narrow it down, but I’m going to share with you my current top three.
First is Chris Beytes, editor of both GrowerTalks and Green Profit from Ball Publishing. Chris has an e-newsletter, Acres Online, that is the complement to GrowerTalks magazine for growers, owners, and production staff. (https://www.growertalks.com/).
His e-newsletter has more than 25,000 subscribers and it is no wonder as he covers all the latest happenings and trends.
From plant disease alerts to seasonal ups and down. In a recent issue, he shared reports from garden centers across North America on how their Easter sales went. He charted how they rates versus past Easter holiday seasons and interestingly the later Easter fell had no discernable effect on overall sales.
My next recommendation is to sign up for the enewsletter from Katie Elzer-Peters at The Garden of Words (https://thegardenofwords.com/). The Garden of Words is a team Katie assembled of horticultural marketing experts, who have worked in garden centers, public gardens, wholesale nurseries, landscape design firms, and as landscape contractors. They are experts in web design for garden centers and web design for landscapers.
They’re experts in email marketing for garden centers and for ecommerce businesses.
In her monthly enewsletter, Katie dispenses invaluable tips and tidbits for green marketers, but also injects a good deal of humor and fun into them as well. She always includes a few extra links at the bottom for more reading and thought. Her topics and advice are always spot on for industry trends.
A recent piece she shared was about the Peak-End Rule. “Research shows that people remember events in snapshots, and those snapshots determine the overall impression of the experience. Due to a recency bias in memory, the end of an experience (THE LAST MILE) carries a lot of weight in someone’s impression of the experience.”
My final recommendation is to follow is Maria Zampini  of UpShoot LLC (www.upshoothort.com). UpShoot, LLC is a boutique horticulture marketing firm specializing in the sales, licensing and marketing of new plant introductions to North America, Canada, Europe, and Australia.
They also offer marketing services for gardening related products to both trade and consumer audiences.
She has a monthly e-news about what is happening in the horticulture industry, so sign up for that.
You will also want to peruse the press releases under the “News” section of her website. They are great examples of how they should be written.
A release from 2019 was about Manor View Farm and LandscapeHub partnering to offer innovative fulfillment options for green goods buyers. She hooks you in right at the start with clear, concise language, “One stop shopping for green goods buyers in the Mid-Atlantic just got easier with the addition of Maryland-based Manor View Farm as a LandscapeHub Fulfillment Partner. Now customers of both Manor View and LandscapeHub can source, pay, schedule delivery, and pick up products for entire projects from multiple suppliers using a single online ordering system and a single pickup location: Manor View Farm.”
These three examples of great green marketing people to follow will get you started. If you have favorite thought leaders in the industry you think I should share in a future column, please let me know.
I plan to share another round-up of inspiring and educational folks to follow soon.
(Editor’s note: Kathy Jentz is the editor/publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine, the publication for Mid-Atlantic home gardeners. She can be reached at KathyJentz@gmail.com.)