Swanson Russell

Most of the 30+ years I’ve worked in advertising—as a copywriter, creative director, public relations director and account supervisor—have involved serving companies that market products and services to the turf care, lawn and garden, and horticultural markets. (I like to tell people I was an advertising prodigy who started my career while still in junior high; truth is—I’m just old.) As I’ve worked with clients in these markets over the years, I’m amazed at what has changed—and equally so at what has not changed.

From a communications standpoint, the most obvious and dramatic change has been in how we can communicate. The Internet and digital technology continue creating incredible, new opportunities to not just localize marketing but to also personalize it in truly meaningful ways. From social media to rich media, the ability to reach out and engage individuals has never been greater.

But, those exciting new capabilities have to be analyzed and applied in context with a market reality that remains fundamentally unchanged; Distribution.

I’m not suggesting distributors themselves haven’t changed over the years. From buyouts to buying groups, the distribution landscape has changed plenty; however, the age-old questions still remain. Who “owns” the customer?  And assuming anyone can indeed “own” the customer, just how do you go about doing it? If you’re a manufacturer, like most of our clients, you will rightfully say the distributor is your customer. But, the end user of your product is the one that’s usually up for grabs. It seems like it’s been that way ever since I started working in this business.

So, while manufacturers today have unprecedented ability to reach out and establish a dialogue directly with the end-users of their product, they still have to carefully consider the people who are actually selling those products.

My next two blog posts will offer some ideas of how you can make distributors an integrated component in communications that address varied target audiences based on their geographic, climatic and agronomic individuality. The first will focus on distributor-centric strategies to localize your marketing communications. The second will look at specific tactics that can be employed using all of the wonderful new tools at our disposal.

I made this a two-part series, because otherwise, it would have been one big-_ _s post.

So please come back. If this is of interest to you, let me know what you think of the premise. Or give me a challenge you’ve faced communicating with and/or through distributors and I’ll try to get it addressed in the coming posts.