Chelsea Flower Show Marketing - Huron Tours Our Chelsea Flower Show brochure packet takes a lot of work to put together every year. When we are done with the design, we want it to be a package that shows our pride in our English Garden tours, and give our potential clients a feel for what kind of quality, care, planning and treatment they can expect if they decide to join us on a trip. We always receive a lot of nice comments on the packet, which is great feedback to get! A few years ago I almost gave my Dentist a heart-attack. He asked why I'd waited so long to schedule my appointment, and hadn't I received the helpful reminder postcard his office sent out? I said "I think I saw something from you guys but I just threw it in the trash without reading it." He said "Do you know how long it took us to pick out that postcard? We argued about it for 3 hours!" We at HTT also want to avoid the "I think I saw it, but I might have thrown it in the trash without reading it" comments that are endemic of any marketing by mail campaign (even though we are only sending brochures to people who have requested them!) So like Dr. Mark DDS, we put a lot of effort into creating a package that you might just possibly want to open (unfortunately I can't figure out a cost effective way to include a mini bag of M&Ms with every brochure we send out). Elements of the Chelsea Brochure Packet We have a few different elements to the Chelsea packet. We have an outer "shell" that outlines the highlights of the Chelsea in Style tour, gives our explanation of why we think it's the best tour, a brief history of our company, some feedback from past travelers, and some nice pictures. This is an expensive piece to create and print because it has a custom fold, and is printed on the type of paper stock a folder is made from. We try to print a lot of these each time we need them, and reuse them for several years. This year we are changing some elements of the "Chelsea Flower Show Tour" shell. The last change we made was about 2 years ago. We don't have anything drastic to change, but wanted to update some of the pictures, and change the color scheme a little. We know that people will request this brochure sometimes 3 or 4 years in a row before they are ready and able to join us - we want to give them something new to look at! Then, inside the shell we have the individual brochures for each of the three English garden trips we run each spring (Gorgeous Gardens of the Cotswolds, Chelsea Flower Show in Style, Rye English Garden Extension.) Since each of these trips can be taken individually, or dovetailed nicely together, we include all three trips in the packet. Finally we include information on our travel insurance product, and our reservation form. The whole packet arrives in a special envelope that I won't describe here so we can keep some of the magic alive! 25 Years of Chelsea Trips! This year is a special year for Huron Tours as it is our 25th Chelsea in Style tour. We feel like that is a pretty important milestone. It is hard work year after year to arrange, market, sell, and then lead a tour that people rave about when we send the follow up questionnaire upon returning home (and come on again, and recommend to their friends, and are upset when it is over). There have been lots of companies who have tried to create their own Chelsea trip who are no longer around. And we have several last minute calls each year from people who have picked a different company for whatever reason, only to have the tour cancelled at the last minute. What's the best way to relay all these feelings of pride and hard work, quality, care and 25 years of expertise to a stranger with whom you've at most exchanged an email? Why, with a shiny gold sticker of course! If you've requested a brochure, it is on its way. If you haven't requested one yet, the button below will take you to our "Chelsea in Style" website, where you can request a packet, as well as get other details on this fabulous trip. Happy Travels! -John
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Great Dixter - Chelsea Flower Show Tour I know - it's a picture of a chair. But, I think pretty much even the most casual of landscape design fans, or gardeners, or people who have though about garden travel in their lives have heard of the very influential Christopher Lloyd, and have either visited, or planned to visit his creation: Great Dixter, in East Sussex England. Huron Tours brings our clients to Great Dixter on our "English Garden Extension" at the end of May (following the Chelsea Flower Show). We enjoy a private tour of the Great Dixter house, followed by a private tour of the amazing gardens famous for the mixed long border, meadow/orchard, and sunk and walled gardens. On these garden tours, we are often accompanied by one of the garden cats, or Connie, one of two dachshunds on site (this year we didn't have a dachshund on the tour with us, but we heard the new puppy barking.) So, what about this chair at the top of the page? That's kind of a weird picture for a garden tour website to have - especially on a blog post that's about one of the most famous gardens in the world. Well - in addition to gardening, the late Christopher Lloyd was also a dedicated garden writer with an elegant and lovely writing style - not what one would expect when reading a book called "Exotic Planting for Adventurous Gardeners." He preferred to write in longhand, with his notebook resting on his lap, in that very chair pictured above. The chair, His chair, is in the home at Great Dixter where Christo, as he is called by those who knew him, spent many hours perfecting his weekly garden column over the 42 years he contributed to England's "Country Life Magazine," and his twenty five gardening books. On touring the house, upstairs in an antique bookcase, you will found bound hardback copies of Country Life magazine. Shelves and shelves of them - all containing contributions from Christo. The chair sits in front of a fire hearth. In winter, when the fire was lit, in additional to warmth, the fire would often fill the room with smoke. It has been reported that Christo didn't seem to mind, or even notice the smoke, and often one would have to walk right up next to the chair to see if Christo was there, writing in his notebook. Happy Travels! -John Read More about Christopher Lloyd and Great Dixter: Obituary at The Guardian Newspaper Website Wikipedia page Great Dixter website Learn more about Chelsea Flower Show Tours by Huron Tours and Travel by visiting our website: www.ChelseaFlowerShowTour.com |
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