Propagating Knowledge at Petitti Garden Centers

When Angelo Petitti first shared a weekly gardening tip on radio in the mid-1980s, the term “content marketing” didn’t exist. More than a decade would pass before the term was coined—and several decades before it came into widespread use. But that didn’t change the impact of what Angelo did and why it’s still successful today. He was talking to his friends, sharing great gardening advice, and planting seeds for the loyal Petitti following that continues today.

During the intervening 40 years, Angelo’s weekly radio tip grew into a live hour-long weekly show, with the programming controlled entirely by Angelo. For the last 20 years, he and AJ Petitti, his son and President of Petitti Garden Centers, have each done separate weekly TV segments. Petitti’s content marketing spans print magazines, email newsletters, educational videos, web-based gardening guides, blog posts, and much more. At its core is a top-to-bottom philosophy of helping others succeed at something you both enjoy.

AJ points out that Petitti’s “content marketing” had a very simple start: “It was just educating our customers, building trust, building relationships, and making sure they know that when they buy from us—or whether you buy from us or not—we’re the experts. We’ve got their back in terms of what to do and to make sure they’re doing it with the best chance of success. That really strong relationship with our customers was what drove us and still drives what we’re doing.”

Evolving as the Business Grew

Annie Dorsey, Petitti’s Director of Marketing, joined the company in 2018. Before her arrival, she says, Petitti’s passion for sharing information via what’s now called content marketing broadened as new avenues opened and the business itself grew. Today, Petitti Garden Centers has nine retail locations with a tenth set to open in 2025—and the company grows the vast majority of all the plants it sells.

In the 2000s, Petitti’s team of horticulturists began creating one- to two-page gardening guides, available in-store and as PDFs on the company’s website. The site also had an “Ask Angelo” segment, where customers could email questions and see Angelo’s answers published there. A mailed newsletter (no longer in production) was part of the content outreach.

Around 2009—roughly the same time that buzz about content marketing began to grow—Petitti’s launched a 20-page catalog or “coupon book” to showcase products and share gardening content. “That’s the first example of our marketing that was 100% owned information, owned content, that was sent out to a list of subscribers,” Dorsey shares.

As ways for sharing knowledge blossomed, content marketing efforts always centered on Angelo’s philosophy of sharing what he had learned since he founded Petitti’s in 1971. “He’s the first one to say he had a lot of help early on. … I think because he did have a lot of help, he likes to pay that forward over the years,” Dorsey says.

AJ shares that the expansion of Petitti content on all its varied platforms has been a natural progression. As the business and its customer base in Northeast Ohio grew, marketing both fueled and fed off that growth. “Staying consistent with what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, it just builds up over time,” he says. “It gets a bigger audience and a bigger reach and becomes more effective. It’s no different than everything else. Just do the right thing and it just keeps building and building.”  

Building on a Rich Content Foundation 

When Dorsey arrived, a solid foundation for expanding Petitti’s content marketing was in place. Along with a legacy of propagating knowledge, she found an interested and tuned-in management team, an amazing team of subject matter experts, and—as a gardener herself—a place where her marketing and gardening worlds could coalesce.

Recognizing a unique opportunity, she looked at Angelo’s radio show as Petitti’s oldest content marketing. It became the rock content on which the rest of the company’s content marketing is built. She and her team amplified the show’s impact and created a content strategy around it, building on existing programs and adding new content programs to the mix. That strategy and connection filter down through every piece of content they produce.

As an example, after Angelo’s Saturday morning radio show airs live every week, it’s uploaded to the iHeart podcast network the same day. It’s also embedded on Petitti’s website page devoted to the show.  Mondays, an e-blast goes out to Petitti’s database recapping highlights of the Saturday show, with a link to Petitti’s website where people can listen on demand. A Monday Facebook post amplifies the show’s reach even more.

A similar process happens with YouTube content. First launched about a decade ago, the YouTube channel is now one of Petitti’s crowning content successes. But that wasn’t always the case. A turning point for the video content came about five years ago, when the team buckled down, created a consistent strategy, and put the plan into play.

At this point, Petitti’s YouTube channel has almost 350 videos and 17,000 subscribers. When a video posts, it typically draws thousands of views within 24 hours. One notable example is a recent perennial groundcover video that got 45,000 views in its first week. Not every video gets that kind of traffic, but Dorsey says 5,000 views in a weekend isn’t surprising.

Optimizing Content Around the Rock

Petitti’s content marketing evolution in the last five to 10 years is tied to five primary platforms: YouTube, email programming, a semi-annual Gardening with Angelo magazine, the website, and social media. A devoted four-person, in-house marketing team makes it all happen.

Dorsey oversees the department and serves as contributor, writer, advertiser, and copy lead. Petitti’s head horticulturist and the marketing team’s subject matter expert, Noelle, is the face of Petitti’s YouTube channel. Taylor handles photography, videography (including audio), and social media. Graphic designer Anne Marie completes the team.

The process that powers the YouTube channel's success is a lesson in leveraging focus, consistency, and content optimization. The team meets monthly to discuss what topics matter, where content gaps exist, what’s happening with the business and its customers, and industry trends. After brainstorming topics, they ask questions like these: Why would we do this? Why would we do this now? Should we table it for next year? Is this the right video? Is this the right time?

Once they produce a video, they research the topic to uncover the best title and search engine optimization for the description. If a video goes up on Friday, there’s an e-blast about the topic by Saturday morning—complete with the embedded video, more information on the topic, and sometimes an added “by the way” to share a related in-store promo. The video gets amplified via other social channels as well.

“We go through this checklist for the process of choosing our topics, publishing them, amplifying them, optimizing them for web. … They’re all branches of the same wheel,” Dorsey says. She tracks topics, coverage, content gaps, timing, and more on a simple “not too pretty” Excel spreadsheet. A topic that starts as a magazine article or a video eventually triggers content for all the other branches. While the team designs some time-specific content, most of their content is evergreen.

The process is working. When promotional emails started focusing on helpful content first and foremost, open rates went from 10% on average to more than 40%. Unsubscribes went down, new subscribers went up, and overall retention grew.

Though some customers still call the semi-annual magazine “the coupon book,” it’s gone from a 20-page catalog to a glossy, full-color, 76-page print publication bursting with helpful content. Printers print it and a mailing house mails it, but the rest of the Northeast Ohio-focused publication is pure Petitti.

“We own that effort 100% internally. We mail it to 117,500 of our best customers every spring,” Dorsey shares. Magazine strategy starts at least a year out, with 99% of the photography done in house. The summer, the team will be busy creating raw material for next year’s spring magazine.

A new website launched in 2020 has achieved the goal of becoming the online hub for all Petitti marketing efforts. User-friendly for customers, the site is equally user-friendly for the marketing department and allows them to update their content daily.

Controlling Your Content and Your Success

Dorsey acknowledges that content marketing can be challenging with so many options available. But she encourages others to see the opportunity and stay excited. 

“We encourage ourselves every day to stay excited and just keep trying because we've never had this much opportunity to communicate,” she says. “You just have to figure out what you want to tackle, what works for you. Never just sit back and say, ‘I'm done.’ Keep pushing to find what the next progression is. That’s what Angelo's trying to do. That’s what we try to do every day.”

AJ adds that content marketing is just one piece of an interconnected puzzle built on trust. 

“All the way through, you have to go full circle and make sure that you're fulfilling that promise. You can't sell a dream and not follow through. It's one thing to show pretty flowers on the website or social media, but if customers going in the store aren’t seeing that clean environment, professional staff, good quality plants, well-maintained displays, and everything else that goes with that, then you’re doing more harm than good because you broke trust.”

Dorsey says that Angelo encourages the marketing team to communicate the same way he operates the company—helping friends be more successful, have more enjoyment, and maximize their investment. “If they’re going to come here, and they're going to shop our beautiful plants, and they're going to take the time to plant them, we want them to be successful,” she says. “We want them to enjoy it. This is the root of everything that we do in those content marketing communications.”

Jolene Hansen is a freelance writer specializing in the horticulture and CEA industries. Reach her at jolene@jolenehansen.com.

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