Of course, firms strove to sell reliable and productive seeds as the first priority in ‘maintaining this confidence’. But they also used the friendly counsel on the planning, sowing, tending and harvesting of fields, gardens, lawns and other planted landscapes to maintain a personal touch in what was an increasingly far-flung business. These marketing practices had both an abstract and specific aim: consumers first needed to be convinced that it was worth buying seeds year after year, and then convinced that they should buy them year after year from the same company.
The epistolary style of the company’s address to the consumer through the seed catalogue invited a response. First, of course, came a response in the form of an order of seeds. But beyond the strict commercial exchange, the personal style of many catalogues suggested a person (or persona) behind the company, who would want to hear about the consumer’s experience with those seeds, experience that was available only at the end of the growing season, whether at harvest time, or when considering purchases for the following year. This social convention, of writing what amounted to a ‘thank you note’ (even for items purchased rather than received as a gift), established a relationship that might then be continued in further correspondence. The forms of exchange between company and consumer – catalogues, letters, orders, all requested and sent on an annual basis – had the effect of encouraging brand loyalty in a trade that relied on a high volume of exchange. What we might now call a ‘feedback loop’ was created, not only between the company and consumers, but also, by printing customers’ letters as testimonials, among the broad community of consumers.
The variety in the consumer base for seeds was used to advantage by the trade, which frequently published excerpts from customers’ letters in catalogues, advertisements or other ephemera. The companies occasionally employed publicly recognizable names, such as the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, whose endorsement graced several competitors’ pages in the 1860s, or the author Anna Warner, whose 1866 letter to the Vick Company was accompanied by a short story, originally published in Harper’s Weekly, which featured the company (Spring Catalogue 1868; Vick’s Illustrated Catalogue 1867: iii; 1868: i). More often, however, the companies presented the experiences of ordinary customers, who shared the occasionally extraordinary moments of their lives. Testimonial letters were so effective in this broad and varied market because no particular status was needed to voice success; all parties could claim equal authority. The words of a well-established market gardener who relied on a given company’s seeds for income were no more authoritative than the story of a self-described amateur gardener whose flowers were the envy of her neighbourhood. Having some sort of professional credential or expertise might lend credence to a testimonial, but not having this experience could equally well convince buyers that such results were attainable by anyone. As a letter from Rev. R.H. Waggoner of Hillsdale, Michigan, noted, ‘The seeds I obtained from you gave great satisfaction. The marvel with all is that with the care, or more properly the neglect, they receive in a common garden they should come equal to your recommendation (Vick’s Illustrated Catalogue 1866: iv). Here, as in many of the letters, it is the status of the common gardener writing in appreciation that in fact becomes a valuable marketing tool.
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Marina Moskowitz