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January 11th, 2012
In an effort to drive customers to your Facebook page and to your store we’d like to offer you a simple promotion.
Using your enewsletter, Facebook page and or your Twitter account, offer the chance for your customers to post a picture of their gardening success when using a Coast of Maine soil. If they post on your Facebook page we will give them a free bag of soil. We will credit your account and have them come back to you store to pick it up.
If you don’t have a Facebook page you can have them post on the Coast of Maine Facebook Page
and we will take care of everything.
If you don’t have a Facebook page we would be happy to build one for you.
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January 10th, 2012
With the recent proliferation of high cost, handcrafted, organically approved soils in the urban gardening market, gardening consumers are more aware of what ingredients combine to make a healthy environment for plants to thrive.
Coast of Maine has been making handcrafted compost blends since 1996 using marine residuals, like lobster shells, that are rich in calcium and chitin.
Many years ago Dr. William Albrecht, one of the foremost authorities on the relation of soil fertility to human health, wrote about calcium in one of his many volumes of research.
“Calcium perhaps plays more roles in the overall health of both the plant and the soil than any other nutrient. If we get the calcium right in the soil, most of our work is done.”
At Coast of Maine we know that once we hand craft our soils our work is not done. When you place your order with us we will work to help you market your garden center with our expertise in social media in a way that you won’t receive from any other vendor.
I’ll come to your garden center myself and host the “Great Coast of Maine” giveaway to bring customers to you and stimulate sales.
Give me a call today and I’ll explain how we market your garden center while providing you with outstanding handcrafted, organically approved compost blends.
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Tags: Coast of Maine, Compost, flowers, Garden center, gardening, Independent Garden Center Marketing Social Media Compost Organic, Kelp Meal, Lobster Compost, organic, organic gardening, shellfish compost, soil, television network, vegetable gardening, Worm castings
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January 10th, 2012
At Coast of Maine we are constantly looking for ways to promote the independent garden centers who carry our products. Last year we started posting videos to the Facebook pages of those garden centers. You may have seen a few on your Facebook page.
The results have been wonderful. Views of our videos are way up and early sales of products like our Quoddy Lobster Compost are ahead of last year.
We have “liked” over 350 garden center Facebook pages on the Coast of Maine Facebook page. You may be able to learn from them to improve or build your own Facebook page.
We are also here to help you build or improve your Facebook page. We only ask that you “like” the Coast of Maine Facebook page once this is done.
In addition we will post video content to your Facebook page for the Coast of Maine products that you specifically sell while we invite your customers to view the videos and then go to your garden center to purchases those specific products.
We are building a broadcast network specifically developed to promote and market independent garden centers. I would like to invite you to view the Coast of Maine Facebook Page to see how we highlighted almost 50 garden centers last year.
In addition you may want to check out the Coast of Maine YouTube Channel . You will see that we have begun to produce videos for the garden centers that carry our products. We actually have a section of the YouTube channel set up to promote independent garden centers. We might be able to do this for your garden center too. Just ask us.
We love doing business with independent garden centers and we want to help you market your business.
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Tags: flowers, gardening, Lobster Compost, organic, television network, vegetable gardening
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December 15th, 2011
At Coast of Maine we’ve been fortunate to capture some wonderful moments on video at several of the independent garden centers we work with.
I often encourage our garden centers to video tape their employees and customers. You will be amazed by what they will say and how those videos can be used to increase your relationship with your customers.
We have shot how-to videos, customer testimonials and employee testimonials. They really help to define your garden center.
Don’t be afraid to grab a camera and put your employees and customers on video. It is a great way to expand your brand.
If you need some help celebrating these moments just let us know!
Have a wonderful holiday!
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November 16th, 2011
Do the brands you carry reinforce your garden center brand and do your current vendors help you with reinforcing your brand?
At Coast of Maine we believe in doing much more than creating and distributing our hand crafted, organically approved compost blends.
We believe that it is your garden center’s brand that builds the Coast of Maine brand. Because of that we want to help you expand your brand.
We will help you with all your social media needs. We can even help you with video production.
I just finished editing a couple of videos for Ward’s Nursery & Garden Center in Great Barrington, Mass., Van Houten Garden’s in New City, NY and Sprague’s Nursery & Garden Center in Bangor, Maine. Go ahead and click on the links and let us know if we are helping them reinforce their brand.
We’d love to help you.
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Tags: Independent Garden Center Marketing Social Media Compost Organic
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October 26th, 2011
As you look at your vendor suppliers, an easy way to see if they are helping you market yourself is to go to their website and search for their “store finder”. Try putting in your zip code. If you don’t show up as a location to purchase their products call your vendor contact immediately to correct it.
This is the simplest form of marketing that vendors can do to help you market your garden center. If they can’t fix this quickly or they don’t have a store finder you may want to look for a similar vendor who does.
At Coast of Maine we are constantly updating store locator. In today’s internet world we want our customers to know exactly where to purchase our products and just as importantly we want to help independent garden centers market themselves.
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October 21st, 2011
Portland, Maine USA
Coast of Maine Organic Products launched a new webpage and YouTube channel today “Celebrating Independent Garden Centers.”
“We’ve done something special to support the Independent Garden Centers who have helped us distribute our lobster compost and other organically approved soils to gardeners throughout the Northeast,” said Cameron Bonsey, Director of Marketing. “It is their belief in our products that has enabled Coast of Maine to grow substantially in the last fifteen years. With all the changes in competition and marketing resources over that time we have seen many of these businesses struggle to survive. We saw this as an opportunity to take our marketing knowledge and do something to help each garden center market itself.
“We have spent a tremendous amount of time and resources in helping garden centers build and manage their Facebook pages and YouTube channels as a way to help them compete with businesses that have much larger budgets. In a sense, when they purchase our soil we also become their Social Media agency free of charge.”
Coast of Maine Organic Products are approved for organic growers by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). Their lobster based compost blends are distributed to independent retailers from Maine to North Carolina and west to Ohio.
“We have spent the last fifteen years providing hand crafted, high quality soils along with great customer service,” said Bonsey. “Now is the time for us to truly give something back. The reason customers come to independent garden centers is for knowledge and high quality, effective, unique products. Our videos, produced quickly and economically, convey the homespun uniqueness that makes each of these destinations worth visiting in person.”
For more information contact:
Cameron Bonsey
Director of Marketing
Coast of Maine Organic Products, Inc
145 NewburyStreet
Portland, Maine 04101
1-800-345-9315
cameronb@coastofmaine.com
www.coastofmaine.com
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August 25th, 2011
 Especially formulated for vegetable crops, flowers, lawns and all general garden use.
All Natural
Ingredients
Worm Castings: Worm castings are full of biologically activated minerals and rich source of beneficial soil biology. Some describe it as “nature’s perfect plant food” and an exceptional form of humus.
Lobster & Crab Shells: Lobster and crab shells are rich in calcium and chitin to help make plants strong and disease resistant.
Kelp Meal: Kelp meal stimulates soil bacteria helping to increase soil fertility.
Dehydrated Poultry Manure: Dehydrated poultry manure is great for growing green and vigorous plants.
Peat Humus: Peat humus (the humified remains of sphagnum peat) is a highly organic material that loosens
clay soil and gives body to sandy soil.
Sphagnum Peat Moss: sSphagnum peat moss provides a stable environment for root growth and helps hold water and maintain pore space.
Aged Bark: Aged Bark provides organic matter in the form of well-aged northern softwood and bark adding structure and holding moisture.
Composted Cow Manure: Composted cow manure brings active biology and is rich in organic matter plant roots need.
Dolomitic Lime:Dolomitic Lime added to adjust pH.
CONTAINS ECTO & ENDOMYCORRHIZAE!
Mycorrhizae are a natural occurring fungi (same family as mushrooms) which work in partnership with plant roots to help increase a plant’s ability to absorb nutrients and waters from the soil. The way they work
is a lot like the beneficial bacteria in our own digestive system. Plants inoculated early with mycorrhizae have a better chance of becoming more vigorous and fruitful.
There are two broad categories of mycorrhizal fungi, endo and ecto.
The endos penetrate plant root cells and colonize approximately 80% of the world’s plant species, including most vegetables, fruit trees, flowering plants and shrubs, grasses, legumes and many more.
The ectos live only on the exterior surface of the root and will colonize an additional 7% of the world’s plant species including most conifers and a few broadleaf trees such as oak, elm, poplar, birch and beech.
Benefits of Mycorrhizae
• 100% Natural and organic treatment (mycorrhizae are living organisms)
• Tried and tested by nature over more than 400 million years
• One off treatment that lasts the duration of a plants’ lifetime (when planting in final position)
• Easy and safe to apply
• Increased drought resistance and immunity to heat stress
• Decreased requirement for chemical fertilizers and pesticides
• Faster growth due to increased uptake of soil phosphorous
• Increased resistance to root diseases
• Improves soil structure on eroded or reclaimed sites or steep banks (helps bind soil together)
• Helps limit weed invasion (through improved soil structure)
• Increases plant diversity
• Increased root area, flowering & fruiting
• Increased survival rates of transplants and seedlings
• Can be applied to mature plants and trees
• Roots colonized by mycorrhizae take hold faster in newly planted plants
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Tags: Composted Cow Manure, Dehydrated Poultry Manure, Kelp Meal, Lobster & Crab Shells, Mycorrhizae, Worm castings
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April 13th, 2011
We get several calls a year at www.coastofmaine.com from gardeners who are concerned about exposing themselves, or their loved ones, to possible shellfish allergens.
People who are allergic to shellfish are actually reacting to a muscle protein, called a tropomyosin, in the shrimp, crab or lobster. It’s not the shells that cause allergies. According to an article in the N.Y. Times citing research in India and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, tropomyosins are in all muscle tissue and there are specific variations within different groups of animals. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/28/health/studies-unmask-protein-culprit-behind-allergy-to-shrimp.html
Shellfish tropomyosin may cause various allergic reactions in some people, just as proteins found in milk, grains or peanuts affect others.
The good news is we’ve never had a single call from anyone reacting to our lobster compost and here’s why: By the time the composting process is complete, there’s no protein left! Composting is a systematic biological degradation of the “food” in the mix. If you have a compost recipe including lobster shell residuals and wood shavings, it’s a full meal for the composting microbes. They will “eat” the protein to get nitrogen to build their own proteins and consume the carbon-rich wood shavings to power their activities. Lots of heat, moisture, and gases are released in the process…. That’s why active compost piles are hot and steamy.
When choosing what to “eat” first, the compost microbes go for the low hanging fruit first – The proteins and sugars. The proteins in a finished and stable shellfish compost are long gone, so grab that bag of Quoddy Lobster Compost and make your vegetable garden happy!
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Tags: Lobster Compost, organic gardening, shellfish compost, vegetable gardening
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