Garden centre gets over-excited about email

The future and plants CAN live together
The future and plants CAN live together

We get sent a fair few press releases over the course of a day, but an excitable little nugget from Wyevale Garden Centres has shown how mundane things can actually be brilliant.

'E-marketing helps garden centre' may not sound like much, but couple it with some facts (Click Through Rate has risen from 1.7 percent to 8.8 percent in a few months and is now operating at above industry-average performance), and suddenly the wow factor appears like a trapdoor opened in the floor.

Apparently, Wye-V (as we've dubbed it, to get in on the e-vibe) implemented Lyris ListManager (wow) to focus on improved design, content, testing and messaging (double wow) and emails focussed on content geared towards the interests of each recipient (OMG!).

Bring in the Gard-eez

The idea is to focus on the needs of each garden centre visitor (or Gard-eez as we think they should be called) through maintaining a strong link between email content and their local store isn't a new idea, but has been made to sound like it is in this firebomb of news.

In fact, Gard-eez throughout the country could soon be heading to their local Wye-V in droves, as the campaign also features 'intelligence on gardening preferences'.

The man in the know would be the head of e-commerce at a garden centre, and thankfully Wye-V has just that man in Alex Palmer.

"Lyris ListManager and the strategic advice Lyris provides on an ongoing basis has enabled us to identify and respond to the specific interests and preferences of each of our email subscribers," he commented excitedly, possibly while internet surfing and potting some new tomato plants simultaneously.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.