Week 5A: Defining Your Target Market

For this week's assignment, I'm comparing the differences between Myrtle Creek Botanical Garden and Armstrong Garden Centers.

Starting with Myrtle Creek, you immediately get the vibe that this is a smaller, homey nursery likely targeting women between the age of 30-65. Specifically, women who perhaps enjoy a rustic, quaint atmosphere. The fact that they offer seminars on various gardening and horticulture topics, also leads me to believe they're marketing to older woman, perhaps retired, who have free time to participate in these seminars.

As for the psychographics, it seems they value history given the fact they've maintained an authentic carriage and plantation house that appears to be a big attraction of the botanical garden. They also advertise their cafe, which offers "farm-fresh, locally-grown ingredients." This is targeting local customers who like to shop local but it's also targeting the health conscious consumers.

As for Armstrong Garden Centers, it's got more of a big business, almost corporate-like feel to it. I think Armstrong caters more to both men and women who enjoy gardening, which if I had to guess is probably between the ages of 40-65. They offer landscape design and landscape installation, two features I feel are geared towards older men with some time on their hands, perhaps retired. As the "largest independent garden retailer", they're able to offer a variety of different services and products, including the fact they're employee owned.

I think there's crossover between both websites simply because they target people who enjoy gardening for a hobby. The age and gender demographics are probably more vast for Armstrong, where as for Myrtle, it's targeting a specific, female market. I think both websites have a friendly, customer service oriented approach but with that being said, Armstrong seems to have an information overload on their website which initially made me overwhelmed. I've found Armstrong Gardens to be pricy for plants and flowers but they're probably able to adjust prices easier than a place like Myrtle, which appears to be a small business that is also, probably overpriced. 

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