Opening a fantastic selection of gardens across Scotland to raise money for hundreds of charities
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Making the Most of Promotional Opportunities

While preparing your information for your garden opening, please check through the following details to be sure that you are making the most of your promotional opportunities. We try to avoid paid advertising where possible to reduce our charity’s costs, so seeking other promotional opportunities are more important than ever. Please help us by making sure we have up-to-date information about your garden, including good photographs, and even video if you are feeling creative!

Descriptions

The description of garden is very important and this will ‘sell’ your garden to potential visitors. It should be both succinct and inspiring. This is no time to be modest! Tell the reader what is special about your garden – such as your plant collections, architectural features, views, etc.

Photographs

Photographs are essential to promote your garden on the website and in the press. Your photographs should work well with your Garden Description, displaying what has been described. Many districts have Volunteer Photographers who are happy to come to your garden and take pictures. Please get in touch with your District Organiser to arrange it. If you would like to photograph your garden yourself, check out THIS article by a professional garden photographer describing how to approach it.

Video of your garden

We have been using home-made videos created by our Garden Openers to promote garden open days, raise money for our charities and raise awareness of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme’s mission. Please refer to this GUIDE that includes lots of tips on how to create your own garden tour.

Working with your chosen charity

Your elected (60%) charity(s) may be able to help promote your opening to their network of supporters, thus widening your reach. Ask them to advertise your opening on their social media and in any relevant newsletters. If appropriate, have them help to put up your posters and offer SGS leaflets. They can also use our editable templates as well as check list and tips included in CHARITY PACK.

Editorial permission

This section provides the SGS Office and your local team with the necessary permissions to promote your garden opening. Please check which level of permissions you would like us to seek for promotional purposes:

  • Please check ‘Always’ so that we have permission to pass on your garden open information to journalists for promotional and editorial feature purposes. Journalists usually require almost instant information, and this option allows us to be responsive. Newspaper and magazine features will always increase your visitors! We are sometimes also asked for contact details from groups such as Beechgrove Gardens or specialist photographers and this will also fall within this permission category.

  • Check ‘On Request’ if you require us to check with you before releasing any of your information. Note that depending on the nature of the request, we may need to miss your garden if we’re under a tight deadline.

  • Check ‘Never’ if you do not want any promotion aside from the basic SGS marketing materials.

National Collection & Champion Trees

We would like to offer a list of our gardens who have National Collections and/or Champion Trees. We seem to be getting an increase in interest in these, so please could you check and be sure that our information is correct.