Declare war on vacancies in your allotment garden association!
Vacant allotment gardens can be seen more and more often when strolling through one’s own allotment garden association. Unkempt, overgrown gardens that nobody cares about. The vacancy of tomorrow. Mostly, however, this picture has been there for months or years. The current tenant no longer cares for his garden. And without permission the association may not become independently active around the garden at short notice into shot to bring it afterwards again new to lease. To get new interested parties for a chaos garden is very difficult. We have compiled all the challenges and show you possible solutions and suggestions for your club.
Causes for vacancies
– Cancellations due to age
– Time problems
– Building a house, no time for two gardens
– Lack of interest
– Changed, bad climate in associations
– Lack of cohesion among the garden friends
– The expectations of the garden friends regarding an allotment garden have changed or are no longer fulfilled
Association problems with vacancies in allotment gardens
– Interested parties are basically nonexistent. And not from now on.
– If somebody is interested he will be overwhelmed by the amount of work that an uncultivated garden entails.
– If the club has volunteers to get gardens up and running promptly, they can’t keep helping for months and years. Just because the garden can’t be rented out.
– Converting unrentable gardens back into association property is a hairy business. And is not always possible.
– Prospective tenants can’t find your club at all. Because not everyone has heard of Google Maps. A Basic GOOGLE MAPS ENTRY is already included in our solution. In addition later more. But also the web page is not optimized for Google. It’s as if you have many gardens in your garden club but no way in.
Effects of empty gardens
Empty gardens have many effects on allotment garden associations:
– Unkept gardens show an unkempt image of the association.
– Weeds grow happily and proliferate in neighbouring gardens and cause extra work
– Of course this makes gardeners angry. One cares where one can and then so what. The cooperation in the association becomes difficult
– Lease incomes remain out, which the association needs naturally for running costs and reserves
– Unkept gardens make unfortunately also a bad impression with new prospective customers. “What’s going on here? Oh ha. Doesn’t anyone here care?” – Prospective customers, who had little to do with the board work in the past, do not know naturally also that one cannot provide as association here simply immediately for clear ship. Although exactly that would like the association.
– unfortunately no more all tenants worry about your gardens if it goes around itself from the garden to separate
– it leases no new and above all younger people – the association vergreist slowly however surely. Straight one is to be addressed it necessary younger prospective customers. How this could be done you can read in the section “Addressing young people”
Addressing young people
Young people don’t read daily newspapers anymore. This medium is simply not trendy. It is static, too slow, not up-to-date enough, does not represent the interests of young people and then it costs money. In sum, not worth a purchase. It is therefore obvious. Every generation has its own media you grow up with or prefer. Yesterday it was Facebook, then Instagram. What’s next? The challenge is to recognize and respond to this fact. One possible solution to this consists of several factors. A modern, inviting and informative website provides the basis. Online marketing can then be used to reach and address different target groups via so-called “marketing channels”. We offer a possible solution for this with our product Online Marketing product. This is aimed at all clubs that have already purchased or rented an optimised and improved website from UNSER KGV ONLINE and are now looking for new interested parties
The website packages of UNSER KGV ONLINE are available in different here available in different versions. These are constantly being improved with new features for clubs to support them and relieve them of time:
What garden clubs have already done to combat vacancies
– Find volunteers for maintenance
– Advertisements on eBay classifieds, which, however, become a dead end after months and are then automatically deleted by
– Multiple communication with the current previous owners for support
– Newspaper advertisements, which, however, unfortunately only appeal to older gardeners. The problem with the rejuvenation of the association would not be solved yet
You do more? Write it in the comments.
The basic requirements for success
As always in life, there is no easy answer or one right way. As always, many roads lead to Rome. If you have found a great way yourself, write to us and we will add your ideas. This way all allotment garden associations can benefit from it.
Basic requirements for a successful letting are:
– Keep an eye on the age of your garden friends. Through personal conversations you can capture the motivation and the current mood. Based on this information, you can predict future vacancies and thus respond to them prepared. Read more in the PDF.
– Get a basic order in gardens for rent. No one is interested in a garden with rusty gardening tools like lawnmowers standing outside
– Rough cosmetic repairs: Small cracks in the walls or the paint is peeling? Wouldn’t it be great to have a mini budget available for such repairs to improve the value and appeal of empty or littered gardens?
– Sharp and unblurred photos of the garden and arbor. It’s all in the eye. These photos, of course, get better the more work that is put into “renovating” the gardens.
– Modern presentation of these great photos on a website that attracts new prospective customers.
Creative ideas from other clubs – The PDF to download
We have talked to some clubs, started a survey and compiled a collection of creative solutions. The result is an exchange of experiences.
After successful participation you can download all results as PDF for free.
Practical example: KGV Vogelsang e.V. in Braunschweig
Initial situation:
The association did not have a website before. Like many allotment garden associations in Germany it was facing the same problem. More and more often gardens become vacant and there is no new tenant in sight.
Our measures:
Logo: First the already existing logo was vectorized to be able to use it for the new website. Would be a pity if something is displayed blurred at the prospective customer You can find the bookable product for this here.
Create website: A website optimised for gardening enthusiasts communicates all the important information about the association – clearly and in an orderly fashion. New interested parties are not immediately deterred and get a good first impression. Interested parties can ask themselves the first questions about the location, the size and the price. Impressions in the form of photos in a photo gallery show an authentic association life Order your own club website right here.
Association maintains free gardens online: Vacant gardens / plots could already be entered online after a short time. Tenants can view them around the clock. At home and on the way. Potential applicants can also share their favourite garden online with friends and family and make a decision together. All further texts to the association, to expirations, photos and dates maintained the association independently. Who needs assistance here can book that however also here comfortably in addition.
Marketing: After all free gardens were online, an online marketing campaign was started This can be purchased here.
Evaluation of the marketing measures in figures
Views
Saves
Clicks
Leads
%
Final vacancy
The combination of a clear website, all relevant and general information, the details of the gardens and a marketing campaign led us together to a great result. In total our ads were viewed 1831x, saved 8x and clicked 871x. All this generated 15x new contact information (leads) to new prospects. In the end the association was able to find a new tenant for each of the 7x open gardens. A complete success.
Our solution in short form
- Ensuring that there is a professional and vectorised logo (More information here)
- Delivering a modern and clear website that communicated all relevant information for new and old tenants (More information here)
- Planning and implementing an online marketing campaign that generated more than twice as many prospective tenants as there were available gardens (More information here)
A full list of other possible services and products you can see here in our onlineshop.
You might be interested in this!
Our eBook “Vacancy NO THANKS” helps you take your vacancy into your own hands.
– With over 42 ideas to try out for yourself (tested by other KGVs)
– Make your KGV appealing to new tenants
– Find younger, pfind potential tenants
Have we forgotten anything?
Feel free to share your solutions and suggestions with us via comment or email. What have you had a good experience with? We’ll be happy to publish your information in this blog post. That way, other gardening enthusiasts can benefit from your ideas.
