You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how nonprofit attractions
are increasing attendance and sharing their missions through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media.
Jenny, we got a spotlight episode today. Scott McPherson, Director of Sales and Marketing
from the Royal Botanical Gardens outside of Toronto, Canada.
Yeah, excited to talk to Scott today. We’re going to be discussing how Royal Botanical
Gardens is utilizing influencer marketing and really how they’re looking at it as a channel
as part of their paid investment and how they can utilize it to really reach new audiences.
So this kind of goes along with a big POV that we have on paying influencers. It’s not
just about ticket exchanges and Scott’s going to share really how the landscape has changed
to where to get what you want these days. Now you’ve really got to, you know, for the
most part pay these influencers who are creating this great content for cultural attractions.
All right. Let’s get into the episode. Scott, welcome to the show. Thanks for making the
time. No worries. Happy beer. All right. So tell us about your background. How did you land
in the public garden space? I guess I’ve had sort of three stops along the career path.
First one, pretty similar to where I am now. I worked at tennis Canada. So it was a
director of marketing there. So that event, you know, in attraction, basically my job
there was to put bums and seats and try and sell as many tickets to that event as we could.
I then went to the ID agency world for about a decade as an account guy and worked primarily
in the tourism space where my focus was putting heads and beds and then eventually ended up
here at RBG or a channel for gardens Canada where I now try to put noses and roses. So I’ve
had sort of a transparent of focuses in my career. But at the end of the day, they’re all
focused on sort of trying to get someone to buy a ticket from an entertainment experience
stands point and you know, convinced them I’ve got something more to offer than the other
sort of thousand places they could spend their entertainment dollar. So and the tourism
connection is how I got here. Our CEO is someone who used to work in a terrorism and was sort
of connected to a client of mine there. So it’s always nice to kind of keep those relationships
after a decade or so. Jenny, what an ad agency guy right here. I mean, you’re a good company
with us. God knows is in roses, heads and beds. I’m right now one down. Yeah. Bums and seats.
That was the first one. Bums and seats. When I, when I, when I had to be there my first
job at a school, I asked my boss, how I would be evaluated. And she said, if the stadium’s
full, you’re a hero of its empty year, a bomb. I figured that was a fairly binary choice
of being a good employer or not. And even here today, you know, it’s all about revenue
generation selling tickets. What sort of keeps us keeps the lights on. Absolutely. Okay.
So let’s like talk about your role, you know, the director of sales and marketing at the
Royal Botanical Gardens. What’s a day in the life? You talked about revenue generation
and roses and roses. What does it look like for you? Sure. So the sales side of that is we host
about 50 weddings a year, about 200 corporate and social events. So I’ve got a sales team
of about six or seven folks who focus on those sort of revenue streams. That’s the sales
side. Again, you know, the pitch is if you’re going to get married, there are probably worse
places to do that other than a place called Royal Botanical Gardens. And corporately
same sort of thing to offer people an opportunity sort of to experience the beauty of nature during
their breaks, lunch, etc. And then the marketing side is the revenue generation from primarily
just selling tickets. Two streams there. One is the traditionally I joke about the the
noses and roses that typically more were senior crowd who’s going to come out and enjoy
the garden space. And then the second element is selling tickets to all of our special events.
So we have during the summer, we have a concert series, kind of one major concert a week.
We do dining alfresco, which is essentially just as it sounds dinners in our garden areas,
kind of once a month. And we have a bunch of special events targeting either young families
or sort of cold and 19 plus we do once a month for six months during the summer season.
We have a series of events for the 19 plus crowd, which is the drinking age up here called
after dark, where we essentially turn the primary gardens into sort of a cocktail party.
So we probably do almost as many ticket sales for these, you know, humanively all those special
events as we do for people coming to smell the flowers these days. Since again, my my colleagues
in the garden community would know that audience, which is, you know, includes my 89 year old
mother is not growing. And so we need to find new ways to get people into the garden. And
so from a marketing standpoint, that’s really the focus there.
So to get new people into the market, I got to imagine that influencer marketing is a big
focus of rural botanical gardens these days. I know you guys are investing heavily in this
channel, but tell us a little bit about why you could be spending more money in TV, more
money in radio out of home. Why have you chosen influencer marketing?
Well, if you’re going to give me all the money, Jenny, I’d be happy to spend it, but maybe
some money in TV. Most of us on this block, yeah, if you want to listen again, you know, we don’t
necessarily have unlimited finances. And so, and you kind of test on it and set up there. So,
you know, we have a lot of information and we have regular communication with our existing
customer base. So whether that’s weekly emails, whether they follow us on our social media channels,
whether they’re here on site and see us on a regular basis when they’re visiting the garden,
we have, you know, a lot of opportunities to connect and communicate on a regular basis with
our existing customer base. But we’re all tasked with growing our audience. And so from a new client
acquisition standpoint, yeah, if I had unlimited resources, I would probably be spending a lot more
money in traditional media. And for those who don’t know, rural botanical gardens Canada were just
on essentially the western suburbs of Toronto, which is the same size as Chicago. And as you can
imagine, it’s not an inexpensive media market to try and invest in. And I’m just really an all-honesty,
not going to be able to afford traditional media. So we revert to sort of that digital and new media
space. And again, I’m trying to attract new clients. So I can’t use my own communication channels,
because that’s not going to grow my base essentially. And so we looked at what influencers are doing,
the audience that they reach. And certainly it’s a much more affordable space for us to be in.
There was an opportunity, you know, it was recently as a year ago to find influencers we wanted
to work with where we could simply exchange and experience at one of our events or a day in the
garden or an opportunity to visit one of our restaurants and exchange for that content.
It’s a shifting dynamic. Same people that did it for a free experience a year ago now want a
specific sum of money. So we’re sort of dealing with that, but probably yourselves and the people that
are listening in. So, but we really did think that influencer market was going to get us a much younger
audience. Again, my joke is maybe not always that funny, but that we lose 10% of our membership base
every year due to natural causes in the garden world. And, you know, we have two significant
portions of membership base. The first and the largest is that elderly audience who grew up with
the guards in their backyard and probably parents are themselves maintaining that garden. And so they have
significant interest in the primary product we have. Our second audience is young families,
because our growth is not continuing to have beautiful gardens. We just don’t think we’re going to
change the cultural norms out there. We’re not going to change the organization that’s taking over
in the fact that most families today are living in a condo. We’re at much smaller home than
myself and my parents kind of grew up in. Were they tended gardens themselves? So that garden
audience is very different. And so what we want to do is use the gardens that we have which are
beautiful spaces and we’re not ashamed of them at all. We still want as many people as we can
to come and enjoy the garden, which use the garden as a natural backdrop to other events. And so we
tried to program other events to target young families again so that we can get them in when
you know the parents are 30, 35 and the kids are young and then develop programming that we keep
them here until they’re 85 just like many of the members that we have today. So that influencer
audience allows us to sort of target people based on a level of interest in whether, for example,
young young family events. We have a beautiful T-house that’s right next to the Rose Garden. We have
some other dining options as well. So again, we can find influencers that are have a significant
following in culinary experiences and work with them to promote or call culinary experiences.
If we have a ton of young family events, we’ve got a pumpkin trail event coming up where we line
a one kilometer trail around the garden at night with Jaco Lantern said to lit up, we have entertainment.
It’s just an awesome event. But again, it’s a very different audience that’s coming from that for
that then there is an audience coming to smell the roses and you know July or August up here.
So those influencers are attractors allow us to track the new audience in a cost effective way.
Yes, I love what you said that you’re using your paid dollars to reach the new audiences
and one of those areas are with paid influencers. And I guess let’s kind of break that down a little bit
because you’ve got several events throughout the year that are reaching these newer younger audiences.
I mean, from a content creation standpoint, I’ve got to imagine influencers are a really economical
way for you to actually get a lot of this video content out there versus having to produce it yourself.
How are you? How is that kind of benefiting your team in terms of being able to come up with that
content from influencers? Yeah, no, it’s a great point. I mean, the truth is I have a couple of staff that
share responsibility for content capture. But the truth is if I was dependent on only what they captured,
our audience would be seeing a lot of the same content over and over again. So if we can have
relationships with influencers who allow us to share, sorry, to use some of their content,
it means I can communicate not just in my client acquisition mode, but in my current campaigns with
my existing clients through my own channel communication. I can use that content again so that I can
keep promoting some events and stay top of mind without using the same 10 seconds of video or the same
three still photo images over and over again. So it allows us to kind of refill that creative funnel
on sort of a daily basis. You know, let me just set the stage a little bit just in case if anybody
in our audience isn’t too familiar with what we’re calling influencer marketing. Scott, I’m going to
give you my definition and you feel on the blanks for me here, but we’re talking about like short
videos on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, like something that’s super shareable within the social media space.
Is that sound about that? Yeah, it is. And I think, you know, I’m not that young and I picture people
my age and older is not really being, quote, social media. But, you know, when we have events, there’s as
many grandmothers taken out their phone to capture content to share with their extended family members
as there is the 16 year old kid sending a video by text to their friend group. So social media and
influencers aren’t necessarily purely for, you know, the 20 to 24 year old audience. But yeah, how
you described it is correct. It’s people essentially capturing that content and sharing it. And,
you know, the industry isn’t that old and it’s growing and it’s kind of it’s dynamic. You know,
there are people out there who again a year ago, we’d offer them sort of free hot, you know, again,
our T-house is spectacular. It’s right next to Rose Garden, invite them out for a high T in the afternoon.
And, you know, they gave us some great content. It allows to use some imagery at no cost.
And now that’s the same audience wants to get paid for that. But, you know, and I’ll drift a little bit
here, but one of the things I wanted to mention on the influencers is, this in Kim Kardashian has
a couple hundred million followers out there. That’s not an influencer or the type of influencer
that we’re looking to work with for a couple reasons. One, my entire budget would be a fraction of
what she would charge for one post. But the practical is I’m looking for Michael influencers who have
an audience that is probably no more than 10, 20 miles central around where I’m located. You know,
I’m just outside Toronto, you know, having a whole bunch of people following an influencer who
live in Vancouver is going to do nothing for me. So I’m not looking at national influencers or even
statewide. You know, I’m looking for, again, influencers with a smaller following, but ultra-local.
So that if I am going to invest with them, and again, we are drifting into more cash investments now
that I know that a hundred percent of their followers are as, you know, a highest percentage as
possible. Those are potential customers for me. I can sell them, I take it to come and smell the
roses in the summertime. They might come catch it, you know, maybe that one of their favorite artists
is performing in our summer concert series, or they’ve got a young family, they’re going to come to
our pump control event. But I can’t invest with, you know, influencers who have followers that are
national because I don’t sell tickets on a national basis. So that’s the channel is that we have,
you know, here, but, you know, people in the attraction industry would have, as opposed to if I’m
a national brand and I’m selling shampoo, it’s a very different story and finding those influencers
that are sort of local, that makes, A, it makes them more affordable because their followers
is a smaller number, which allows people like me to actually have the money to invest,
but it makes them harder to find a little bit too. Yeah, finding those nano-micro influencers,
we preach that all the time with our clients of, you know, using the ones that are close to
home, of course, but then kind of going back to what you said about the events, like the more, the
smaller influencers that you work with, the more influencers that you can afford to work with,
and the more events and content you can cover and create, which becomes really valuable to
all cultural attractions. But it’s also right, if you pay them, you’re not going to influence what
they’re going to talk about. So I think in the past, when it was the ticket exchange for the
experiences or the, I think maybe a lot of cultural attractions are so sort of in that,
they’re going to come in post content anyways, but they might not be posting the content that you
want them to create, whereas if you’re paying them, you can direct them on what that’s going to be.
So do you guys use some type of brief with them? Do you have kind of a checklist of things they
have to provide for you all? How are you working with them that way? Well, it’s a great question,
but it’s a fine line because you really do want them to be authentic. You know, I think, you know,
there are a lot of influencers who, you know, are seen as just cash in a check and those influencers
typically see a significant drop in their followers as time goes by because they’re seen as
what made them of interest for people to follow. People are pretty quick to catch, you know,
this is all kind of, you’re getting paid a lot of money to say this or do this. So people lose their
credibility fairly quickly. So I’m, personally, I’m very cognizant of that. I think we try to let
our events speak for themselves. If I was worried about the quality of something I was going to promote,
I’m not sure influencers would be the way to go. I also don’t know if I’m a great job if I don’t have
confidence in what I want to promote and sell. So yeah, I know we give them a brief on what they’re
going to cover. So if it’s a culinary influencer and we have Donning, Al Fresco, you know, we’ll have,
it’s a very small intimate dinner literally served in the middle of our Rose Garden sort of at sunset.
We’ll have them out and we’ll let them know kind of what the menu is to expect, what the entertainment
is going to be. But we really just want them to experience the event exactly like all of our
other customers would if they came so that they can authentically kind of talk to their followers,
the people who are listening to them for their thoughts and communicate what they would experience
themselves. So they came for that same dinner. They came to the tea house for high tea with their mother
or their teenage daughter. They experienced the exact same thing. I mean, Zoolai, I don’t want to
oversell and under deliver and I don’t want to see content from my influencer that I encourage
Adam Gojis, they’re really selling me a little too hard because I don’t think that benefits anybody.
So we give them a slight guideline, but it’s much more just informative about what they’re going
to be experiencing and then we leave it up to them to kind of explain the event in their own words
and how they honestly feel. Scott, I’m loving what you’re saying here. It seems like you’re setting up
the influencers to create the most authentic content that they possibly can. Right? It’s not like
you’re putting words in their mouth and say this, say this. Yeah, I think, you know, listen, again,
I got two teenage boys that unfortunately educated and informed me about social media on a regular
basis, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. But, you know, when I chat with them, it not to be the
focus group of one family, but, you know, certainly when we talk to others, I think that authenticity is
everything to the influencer. I think, you know, the reason why people are following them is they believe
that this is someone I want to either emulate someone I want to follow because they seem to have
interesting things to say. They have information that I kind of want to know about.
And yeah, I think if we try to spoon feed too much, it just comes across as an ad and we lose it.
And we see that ourselves, you know, in our own communication, channel communications,
you know, we’re on Mattis, so Instagram and Facebook YouTube as well. If we, if we, if our, our paid
working that area, if it’s too polished and we’ll do videos that I’ll go, wow, this is stuff my
old ad is CDs, you know, my colleagues would be proud of. It doesn’t do nearly as well as that
stuff that is maybe not very professional, but is honest. And it’s just, you know, hey, here’s some
images we took at the event last night. We just thought I would share it because we got another one
coming up next week. That creative always outperforms are more polished creative. And again, I’m not sure if
that’s the space ring as an attraction, you know, whether it’s a garden, the museum, etc. But I think
people are looking for authenticity and honesty and not, hey, there’s an ad from a national brand that
has a $500 million dollar annual ad spend. You know, I think they can kind of appreciate it a
little bit more if it just is like, hey, this is what we’ve got. And it’s really cool. And are you
interested? Yeah. And, you know, I think thinking through kind of that payment for these influencers,
right? Like they’re, they’re definitely telling people, yes, we are, you know, getting paid in exchange
for this content. They have to disclose all of that. But just the more natural they are with the
content that they’re creating and producing the less people care that they’re getting compensated.
And I think they’re followers. If they’re like actual real fans and followers of it, they’re almost like,
yeah, good for them. They got a contract with a brand that fits them and that we, you know,
we like and we want to support us well too. So we can, you know, actually, it can go for well that
way too as long as that content is really authentic and true to that, that creator. Yeah. And I,
all stress one point on that is again, we’re not dealing with the Kim Kardashian’s of the world.
That have a team behind her and, you know, have the standards and they’ve got the logo on it when
it’s paid. Like again, we’re dealing with micro influencers. Again, they might have 10, 15,000 people.
But they’re all local. But that also means they’re not as polished. They’re not as experienced.
They’re still gaining some traction. The whole, this is a business part, you know, is new to them.
And so I think we’re hesitant because of their lack of experience in the industry to kind of
push them too hard by asking them to talk about specific things and just let them, you know, let them
act like they did when, you know, when they started out and they did their first event and they had 12
followers and they were all family members. Let them just come and experience the event and speak to it
in an honest opinion of this is what I thought about what I did yesterday at RBG.
You’re listening to the Marketing Attractions podcast. Conversations on how non-profit
attractions are increasing attendance and sharing their mission through marketing. Your hosts are
Ryan Dick and Jenny Williams of Attend Media. Attend Media is a media planning and buying agency,
specializing in zoos, aquariums, gardens and museums. For more information, please visit attend.media.
Now back to Ryan and Jenny. Do you have any of the tips for the audience on how to
bet an influencer that most or if all if their followers are local to the Toronto area?
Yeah, this is all shared this. My team would probably be much more informed than I would but
you know, there are social listening tools that we use that give us some insight into that.
We review sort of tag social content to see use kind of following us to help us find the right
people. We also have people reaching out to us. You know kind of saying hey this is who we are.
So when we look into those folks or even the people that we sort of track down a little bit,
you know, on their sites, at least here sort of in Toronto or in Canada,
they indicate sort of the top three geographic regions of where their followers are.
So again, I’m not sure if that’s a, you know, social media wide thing or just a Canadian thing. So
at least when we see those top three geographies, if we’re seeing, you know, our local market
Burlington, which is the name of sort of the suburb here in Toronto, then we have a sense that
it’s more than just their word and not to, you know, suggest that they’re not going to be open
and honest. But it’s always nice to have independent third party verification of this stuff rather than
taking people’s sort of personal sort of affirmation that hey this is where my audience is when
it’s in their own benefit to say something. So those, the social listening tools are helpful. And again,
when you check out up here, there’s their actual social media sites. You can see the top three
geographic locations, which help drive some of our decisions.
So let’s talk a little bit about kind of that evolution of influencer marketing and your experience.
You know, we mentioned, are you talked a little bit about kind of working with some of those
smaller influencers, which I think has been a big transition for just the industry as a whole. But
how about just kind of in general, however you seen that change over the last 12 to 18 months?
Yeah, so I mean, it’s a bit of the wild west. So two things come to mind, you know, when you kind
of asked a question like that one, you know, I already stayed a little bit a year ago, we invited lots
of influencers out. They came with their families, they injured our family events and they posted it
and all it took was a bunch of free tickets and everyone had a good time and everyone was happy.
So same people today are like, hey, you know, we’d like some cash if you want us to do that.
So that’s a changing dynamic and it’s certainly not going backwards.
The other element too that again, I touched earlier or sort of in my background as an old ad agency guy,
you know, there’s always structure and pricing and you know, I know you guys obviously with your
background in the agency world, you know, if something’s got a circulation of a million in charges acts,
you know, something with two million in circulations, probably going to charge two acts. So there’s
kind of structure, whatever my reach is, there’s a price point. We have influencers who have 10,000
followers who want less than influencers who have 20,000 followers. And we have influencers who have
30,000 followers who will do it for a free experience. And influencers, you know, with 40,000 followers,
you’re one half a million dollars. There’s no structure to what they charge. It’s just sort of,
they’re kind of, well, you’re going to pay me? Yeah. So that’s, you know, the frustrating part is that,
you know, the industry is so new that and there’s no governing body or, you know, I forget,
I’m sure what down you ask what the names of, you know, sort of the out of home advertising
organization would be called or the TV or the print, but there is nothing to sort of guide them in
what they charge. They’re all free agents, they’re all independent contractors. They can do it for
a free experience. They can charge money and whatever they charge is up to them. So it’s, it’s just,
I find it confusing when, yeah, the, the person who has twice as many followers wants less than the
person with, you know, twice as many followers. So that’s, but that’s where we are. That’s just where
we are today. Scott, I want to be an optimist on this one. I think it’s a really good opportunity
because there’s some very good bargains to be had. I think the price point in this type of advertising
is only going to go up and up and up. So if you’re out there, influencers are, I’m sure, like even here,
there are agencies that have developed the last two or three years that represent influencers.
So if I’m a major national brand, I can go to a social media influencer agency and say, hey,
listen, I want to reach women 25 to 44. Who do you have on your roster? And what are the rates?
So those agencies exist, but they typically are for the larger influencers who also have
more of a track record and have been around for several years. What we find again, because we’re looking
for local that we’re finding them individually or they’re finding us and we’re not going through
that social media influencer sector, which to me, again, if I’ve got a national brand, I’ve got a
significant budget, you know, that makes sense because I’m looking for people across the country.
But for us, yeah, it hasn’t made any sense for us to approach those agencies yet.
Well, Scott, before we get to our last question, I think you’ve been given some solid gold advice
here. I do kind of kind of put together a little recap for our audience. Here’s what I got.
One, you’re making sure that the influencers content is aligning with the audience or the event
that you’re looking for. I like the example you gave about the Pumpkin Patch. That’s going to be a
younger family. The T in the Rose Garden might be a different audience. Number two, and this totally
makes sense, but you’ve got a system or criteria in place to make sure you’re only working with local
influencers. I mean, guys, we’re local audiences here. Number three, you actually paying the influencers.
And we’re finding that to be a little bit rare within the garden space, at least. So kudos to that.
I think this is a space that if you want the content done, quote unquote, right, you got to expect
financial compensation. And I would, I really like the last thing is you’re giving your influencers
that create a freedom to make sure they’re creating authentic content. It’s not totally scripted.
It’s not a 32nd TV spot. You’re giving that in that freedom to make something that’s going to
sink. Yeah, no, the last point is important because again, what we’re buying from the influencer is
their personality and their followers. If I try to steal that away and get them to be a talking head,
I’m sort of defeating the whole purpose there. And the other point to, I think your second or
third point there, listen, I think all of us have had social media channels for many, many years now,
but we’re just speaking to our own base there. And that’s important. You know, keeping people
engaged and coming back, but if we’re all looking to attract new customers and that client acquisition
strategy needs to be needs to make needs to involve speaking to people in new mediums that we haven’t
used before to new audiences. And again, for us, it’s as cost efficient as anything out there if not more
cost efficient. All right, Scott, our last question here, in your opinion, what do you think non-profit
attractions should be doing more of or less of in terms of their marketing? Yeah, so the one thing
that is sort of a personal that pee for me is the lack of research in the sector and or just in
general, I should say, you know, I like to think I’m a fairly intelligent guy and I’ve had many years
of being able to learn from lots of really intelligent people in different areas, but you know, I don’t
know what’s in consumer’s mind as much as I sit down and go, hey, I’ve got an idea of what the consumer
wants, you know, I’m a focus group of one. And so we try to do as much research as we can with new audiences.
Again, you know, I’ve been here 18 months. I was very fortunate. We know everything that we
could possibly want to know about our existing customers, whether those are members or people
who just bought tickets to our events. The organization when I joined was very research focused and we know a lot
and that’s amazing, but my task is to find new customers and we know nothing about the people who don’t come.
And so I don’t think that’s unusual. I’m sure whether it’s a museum or a garden, it’s the same thing.
We’re all tasked with getting customers to come that have never been before, but we’re heavily
weighted down with information on the people who come and know very little about those who don’t. So
I, the research needs to happen about why aren’t, you know, what are you interested in?
For example, here we ask people, what are you interested in? Because again, our strategy to get people
to increase attendance is not find more people who want to come and smell the roses because that just
doesn’t exist, but music concerts, dining experiences is a live entertainment, like is it comedy shows,
is it live theater? But how can we leverage the natural environment? We have to host other events
with the garden as a backdrop. And instead of me guessing, hey, I think live music should be it.
You know, we ask people. We ask them how far they would travel. We ask them how much they would
spend. We ask them what type of entertainment, so what type of musical entertainment? So that from
a programming standpoint, you know, we now know if we’re going to invest all sorts of money in live
theater or live music or culinary experiences, it’s not, well, Scott thinks, which is all a very,
very dangerous place to be, but we have validated, you know, with statistically significant numbers of
people who have replied to the research, how much they’ll spend, how far they’ll travel to do specific
experiences. And then we can create programming to match that. So I can’t stress enough. I think
the value of research and it’s hard to take money away from, you know, advertising because we generally
don’t have enough to do both, but I think it’s important if you can to take a little bit away from
what you’re going to spend to promote something, just to at least reaffirm that you’re promoting the
right thing. And, but yeah, research is the one thing that I’ve always tried to sort of stay focused
on and start being some of the things I know more than I actually do and to ask consumers what they think.
Jenny, maybe we can have Scott back on for another episode. We can talk about research.
Thank you so much for your time. Excellent, excellent to have you on and I hope to see you in Denver at
APGA next year. Hope to be there. Thank you for listening to the Marketing Attractions Podcast.
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