Trends in the Use of New-Media Marketing in U.S. Ornamental Horticulture Industries

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.

Evaluating the Business and Owner Characteristics Influencing the Adoption of Online Advertising Strategies in the Green Industry

“…Smaller businesses may face more resource limitations in terms of capital, personnel, and expertise, which may decrease their probability to engage in online advertising. This is especially true if we consider that ornamental horticulture business owners in Peterson et al (2018) perceived that lack of time, returns, and costs of online advertising were key barriers to the use of social media marketing. Small businesses in our sample spent fewer resources on advertising in general.…”

“…Yet these companies could enhance their face-to-face communications (e.g., trade-show attendance) and build brand awareness with end users through online advertising. Regardless of size or market outlets, social media advertising can help green industry firms build an online presence and educate and build a positive community with customers (Peterson et al, 2018).…”

“…They showed florists were increasingly adopting social media advertising to engage with customers by advertising products and expressing gratitude. Peterson et al (2018) found that most business owners used Facebook (91.4%) to engage with customers, followed by websites (81.5%), e-newsletters (60.3%), Twitter (San Francisco, CA) (29.8%), and blogs (23.2%). Most businesses advertising through these online tools used them once per week.…”

“…The Internet has facilitated the growth of online advertising over the past decade, and online advertising has moved from being a peripheral to a central advertising medium because of its unique targeting capabilities (Doctorow et al, 2009). Reasonable costs and compatibility with traditional advertising have been important to increased online advertising in many industries (Peterson et al, 2018). Yet green industry firms struggle to integrate online advertising…”

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“…In general, rural users were less trusting of new sources and information they saw on social media (Gilbert et al, 2008), which may indicate reaching rural users on social media from an organizational standpoint is more difficult than reaching their urban counterparts. Rural areas can struggle to keep up with online technology, which has been noted in studies looking at the ability for small, rural agricultural businesses to effectively compete in online marketing and strategy (Baker et al, 2018;Peterson et al, 2018;Stebner et al, 2017a;Stebner et al, 2017b). While it is recommended that Extension use new and social media to communicate with stakeholders about programming, available resources, and contentious issues (King et al, 2017;Rohling et al, 2016), during times of disaster there can be power loss and other challenges for communicating via technology.…”