Plant tags are small, but they have a big job to do.
In garden centers, customers’ eyes move fast. The plant tag is often the only opportunity growers have to grab their attention.
“The tag is really the only way for growers to give their plants a certain style and aesthetic,” says Nikki Alford-Magers, senior manager of creative and interactive marketing at MasterTag. “It’s your silent salesman—it can be used to highlight your brand message and the unique attributes of your plant.”
After spending 27 years on MasterTag’s marketing team, Alford-Magers has seen just about every design a grower can come up with. A few designs have stuck with her throughout the years, and growers are still finding ways to surprise her today.
Encouraging Creativity
While MasterTag always gives customers the plant tags they ask for, the company encourages growers to elevate their design a bit.
“We’ll always step it up,” she explains. “We won’t take the design too far out of the box unless we know a grower is willing to go there—we can tell when customers are willing to make the leap versus those who aren’t.”
An elevated design starts with understanding the message a grower is trying to send or the problem they’re trying to solve. Those two things are addressed in a conversation between MasterTag and the customer.
One example is Armstrong Growers, a wholesale grower headquartered in Glendora, California.
Going All in with Armstrong Growers
When MasterTag first started working with Armstrong Growers, they worked on the core of their business: herbs, vegetables, and fruit. Gradually, they moved into the annual and perennial side of the business.
“We really leaned into the key features they wanted to express about their business when we designed their plant tags,” Alford-Magers says. “For instance, their heirloom vegetables were renamed as ‘vintage veggies.’”
Another enhancement to the program is MasterTag provides custom illustrations for each of their herb varieties. Each time a new design request comes in, the MT design team creates the illustration. For fruit items, the company explores alternative ways for fruits to be showcased through inspirational imagery.
“We show lifestyle imagery of how to actually use the fruit,” she explains. “We can all eat a strawberry off the plant, but what more can you do with it? Think of strawberry milkshakes, strawberry shortcakes, that sort of thing. Thinking outside the box can elevate that experience for customers when they’re in the garden center.”
Imagery draws customers in at the shelf, but QR codes can extend that conversation online.
Implementing QR Codes
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more growers have started including QR codes that link back to their website and boosting their other platforms on their plant tags.
“COVID showed growers that to be seen, you need to have an online presence,” she says. “We’re seeing more requests to include QR codes, social media logos, and social media handles on the plant tag.”
Growers, she says, are becoming more savvy with their marketing efforts. She’s seen them put more effort behind strengthening their marketing team and tracking the data. Unless a grower is directing the customer to My Garden Life, MasterTag won’t have those numbers at the ready.
If growers direct customers back to their own company website, however, they can easily track their own analytics.
“I’m seeing many of the larger customers track their web traffic and analytics,” she adds. “Trends tend to start with the bigger players and gradually spread across the entire industry.”
If growers are just getting started and don’t know what they want aesthetically, MasterTag has a simple solution: The Idea Gallery, a library of approved design layouts and styles.
Giving Growers Designs at the Ready
When growers are developing a plant tag design, MasterTag typically provides three or four options to choose from. The remaining two or three designs used to be abandoned completely—until now.
Over the years, MasterTag has kept those designs that weren’t originally chosen. Recently, the company launched the Idea Gallery on the MasterTag website. Instead of starting from scratch, growers can choose from a selection of designs that weren’t chosen but are still relevant, effective and creative.
“We have found a way to harness the work that wasn’t selected and make it available to others,” she explains. “Just because a design wasn’t chosen doesn’t mean it’s not good or applicable to another grower. Now we have a section on our website highlighting the work that’s readily available.”
Once growers access the Idea Gallery, they can search by category. This ranges from plant types like annuals and perennials to qualities like sun, shade, pollinator, deer resistant, and everything in between.
“There are plenty of options in the gallery,” Alford-Magers says. “Growers can customize the design, use it as inspiration for their own tags, or run with it as-is. All specific customer logos and DORs have been removed, so it’s skinned down to being general artwork.”
For growers that feel overwhelmed about the plant tag and label design process, Alford-Magers encourages them to browse the designs that are already available—and hand selected by MasterTag’s creative team.
While the plant tag hasn’t gotten any bigger, what growers are willing to put on it has changed considerably.
Your brand starts with your plant tag design. If you’re not sure where to begin, the Idea Gallery is a perfect place to find inspiration and create a look that gets noticed.
