Melissa and Simon Smith are the lucky owners of Go Green Rainforest Nursery in Glenview, Queensland which won the Josh Byrne promotion. As a result, they had garden media personality Josh Byrne in their nursery for the day.
Simon says the event was extremely successful. “It exposed our nursery to many different garden groups and customers who hadn’t previously been in-store. Many of the people who attended the event are now regular customers.”
He believes that several hundred people went through the store that day and about 200 listened to Josh’s presentation. “As expected, sales went through the roof on the day of the event, but ongoing sales have also occurred due to the new customers we gained.”
The Go Green team created a festival feel for the event and set up stalls and marquees. They sold raffle tickets which put people in the draw for prizes donated by suppliers. All proceeds of the raffle went to WILVOS (Wildlife Volunteers Association Inc.) Josh did a presentation on sustainable gardening ideas for those present and held a Q&A session. He then walked around the store answering questions for customers and posing for photographs.
The garden centre promoted Josh’s visit through the local newspapers, advertising on the message board outside the nursery and with flyers and posters at the point of sale. Colin Campbell also gave the garden centre positive reviews on his radio show that weekend.
Simon says the nursery would definitely take part in a similar promotion if the opportunity arose. “This was a great initiative by NGIA that was cheap to participate in and generated conversation between our nursery staff and customers. We were very fortunate to win and would urge all retail nurseries to get on board any upcoming promotions. This has been awesome for a young nursery like ours to get our name out there.”
Melissa and Simon Smith of Go Green Rainforest Nursery, QLD with Josh Byrne.