May 2020 - 35

POHMER ON
Look to the Competition
One of your erstwhile competitors,
The Home Depot, has already found a
way to populate its stores, enticing a
portion of their customer base to visit
12 times a year, and it's a customer
you share with them ... kids with
parents and grandparents! The beauty
of focusing a program on kids is that
they can't drive themselves, so an
adult must accompany them. And once
in the store for this program, there's
always an opportunity for Dad and
Granddad to walk the store and shop
while waiting for the project they just
painted to dry to take it home.
How It Works
On the second Saturday of every
month, The Home Depot invites kids
(generally under the age of 12) to a
workshop that runs from 9 to 11 a.m.
(the project may only take a half hour
to complete, but you can stop in any
time during these hours) to participate
in a hands-on clinic using real 'grown up'
tools to create a different, seasonally
themed project monthly.
The first time you attend one of these
workshops, you're asked to fill out a
form (and liability release) where they
capture all of your contact information
(also for follow up marketing efforts)
and, when you check in, the child is
given a kid-sized Home Depot orange
apron to keep, just like the associates
wear, right down to writing their first
names on them in black marker. And
they also give the child a project pin
that can be placed on the apron every
time they attend a workshop (almost
every child I've seen at the clinics brings
his or her apron with them every time
to show off their collection of pins;
some of the children proudly displayed
50+ pins on their aprons!).
The themed projects are seasonally
appropriate, the materials prepackaged
(with an instruction sheet),
and can be completed at each child/
adult team's individual pace. For
example, the first workshop I attended
with my 4- and 1 ½-year-old grandkids
was in December, and the project
was assembling a pre-cut wooden
tree ornament with a slot to slide in
your picture (the HD team took each
kid's photo with a Polaroid camera),
and then painting the ornament and
applying holly decals.
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What It Costs
The investment costs are pretty
reasonable for the results achieved ...
two kid-friendly associates to greet,
hand out the project kits and mingle
for two hours; poly sheets to protect
the floors from paint and to make
clean up easy (reusable); low poly
coated plywood sheet/saw horse work
tables (reusable); upside down orange
buckets for seats (reusable); tools for
completing the project (reusable); and
the pre-packaged project materials
(which can be purchased from
premium companies or from store
inventory). And, as with everything
else, some planning and execution
which are the keys to success. All in
all, a pretty inexpensive investment to
entice kids (a.k.a, future customers)
and their parents/grandparents
(current customers) into the stores 12
times a year! (And the HD associates
I've talked with told me that they
usually get 250 to 300 'teams' per store
in for every kids project workshop!).
Thinking out loud, a sampling of the
projects you could offer are: Halloween
decorations in October, Christmas
ornaments in December, Mother's
Day plantings in April, Fourth of July
plantings/decorations in June, thank you
gifts for teachers and day care workers
in May, etc. Two of our leading industry
groups, Kidsgardening.org and National
Garden Bureau, have already put together
some ideas to help inspire you: www.
kidsgardening.org/garden-activities
and www.ngb.org/2020/03/25/kidsgardening-activities.
Increasing
the frequency of shop
of your existing customers and
simultaneously growing your future
customer base, two huge paybacks
with relatively minor investments. It's
definitely true... big things do come in
little packages.
Stan Pohmer is president of Pohmer
Consulting Group in Minnetonka, Minn.
He can be reached at spohmer@pohmerconsulting.com
or 612.605.8799.
http://www.Kidsgardening.org http://www.kidsgardening.org/garden-activities http://www.ngb.org/2020/03/25/kids http://www.consulting.com http://www.LGRMAG.COM
May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2020
