How to attract and market to Generation X and Y is a perpetual topic of conversation among those of us in the gardening industry. So I was intrigued to learn of Patti Moreno, a.k.a. “The Garden Girl,” a Gen Xer and urban homesteader whose mission it is to introduce gardening and sustainable living to younger generations.
Take a look at her web site and it’s obvious it wasn’t created by a 50-plus-year-old. Likewise, it’s not a traditional web site with some new technology – like podcasts and message boards – tacked on after the fact. I suspect that Patti’s target audience feels right at home on the site before they’ve read more than 10 words.
Two things in particular about The Garden Girl’s home page stand out to me:
The number of visuals. I counted 41 of them. Of those, half are photos of people in action shots, always more engaging than stills. Photos are just the beginning though. There are no less than 11 links to videos on the home page, plus a couple of invitations to subscribe to the Urban Sustainable Living video podcast.
Granted, it helps that Patti is trained as a video producer and her husband is a filmmaker. But as I’ve mentioned before, web site videos don’t have to be slick to be powerful.
The total integration of new media. In addition to watching any of 11 videos and subscribing to Patti’s podcast, the home page includes prominent invitations to:
• Ask questions on the message board
• Subscribe to an ezine
• Read the Garden Girl blog
• See a worldwide map showing the location of recent visitors to The Garden Girl web site
• Check out Patti’s profile on del.icio.us (Not familiar with del.icio.us? Here you go.)
• Recommend Garden Girl TV on Stumbleupon (Explained here.)
• Digg the Garden Girl web site (Here’s an explanation for those of you who don’t know Digg)
• Hugg the web site (Here’s a clue: Hugg’s tagline is “It’s Digg for Green”)
Everywhere you look, Patti is communicating with her audience in their language. It’s not a traditional web site with a couple things added. It’s a whole new experience.
As an aside, the Mailorder Gardening Association has invited Patti to share her advice on marketing to younger gardeners at the Winter conference in Baltimore. I’m looking forward to hearing what she has to say. I hope you’ll join us there!
