Plantsome
The ask
Plantsome is one of Canada’s first online-only plant stores that sources AAA-grade plants from local nurseries and delivers them directly to your door. They also have a custom app that sends watering and fertilization reminders based on the plant’s size and your region’s weather.
Like many companies that first start out, Plantsome approached Front Centre seeking help with brand awareness, and, (no pun intended) growth.
The problem
Adding to the challenge, which later became a silver lining: Plantsome launched during the same week a global pandemic was declared. Many businesses were finding themselves ill-equipped to pivot to an online model.
Confusion and uncertainty were by-products of the news that dominated headlines, and many small businesses ended up suffering greatly.
For a new business, this contributed to the fear of failing before properly getting started. Building brand awareness and growing as a business seemed like an impossible feat.
The insight
We started by diving into the topic of indoor plants to see what Canadians were interested in and what was impacting their purchasing decisions. We found in Facebook’s annual insights report that #plantparent was one of the most popular hashtags used organically by Canadians, indicating it to be a major trend. Sub-topics such as succulent plant (1.3x), houseplant (1.5x) and air purifier (2.5x) were also growing terms on social media.
Other trend reports and a thorough media audit revealed that millennials had turned to indoor gardens as they wanted vibrant, living things to care for as most young professionals were living in small, urban settings. They didn’t just want to have plants; they wanted to be plant parents. We found that there was a generation of #plantparents who share care tips and plant selection online, and this was a conversation we needed to join.
the solution
Our master plan was simple: make Plantsome Instagram-famous by reaching young shoppers and using media to gain credibility while creating our own engaged community. Armed with that insight, and knowing the media consumption habits of our target consumer (younger millennials and GenZers), we decided to focus heavily on digital earned tactics, supported by media relations.
The results
Our efforts have generated $150,000 in revenue and approximately 1,800 orders that have been tracked with influencer sale codes in one year’s time. That is even more significant given that we had a monthly retainer of $2,500 (on average; fluctuating based on a % of revenue). In addition, we had about $1,000 in product costs per month (average $200 per influencer) to support our work.
From our initial launch campaigns, we immediately helped Plantsome more than 2x their best revenue to date through securing key placements like CTV’s Consumer Report, Daily Hive, VITA Magazine, NUVO, the Straight and more. 100% of the coverage was positive in tone, and mostly feature-based with strong key message pull through. We can also map out a direct spike in sales on the days these stories were published. These news stories also gave a great organic boost to the brand’s SEO - reinforcing them as one of the first shops of its kind in Canada.
The resulting articles and online content resulted in a spike in social followership on Instagram, growing it to over 19,100 followers as of May 2021. Throughout the year, there are multiple examples of a significant jump in followers and engagement based on our activities, like this Daily Hive contest that was one of the most popular contests ever for the outlet.
Based on the results our work has had directly on revenue and the brand’s growth, our clients have been able to accelerate their growth and expansion plans throughout Canada.
Name Surname
Position, Company name
.svg)