NAMPA, Idaho, Sept. 28, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- When Jos Zamzow made a training video for nurseries that carry Dr. JimZ TomatoSecret® fertilizer, he had no idea that the YouTube series would garner half a million views.
Even more surprising was the increase in sales, which quadrupled the second summer the video was online.
Zamzow created four videos on how to grow tomato plants that tower overhead during the summer of 2017, posting the first one in April and the final one in October. The goal was to give instructions to the sales staff in nurseries in the Midwest that carry TomatoSecret®.
The videos trace the growth of a 4-inch tomato plant into a 12-foot plant that produced well over 100 pounds of tomatoes. It begins with how to build a frame for a tomato plant that towers overhead, as well as how to plant the tomato horizontally in a trench rather than upright.
The fertilizer includes ingredients not commonly recognized as vegetable fertilizer, such as alfalfa meal, molasses and Epsom salts. “We sometimes joke that you could feed this product to a cow – and you actually could,” Zamzow said.
The video carries no sales information, but people around the world started watching and searching out the manufacturer, Dr. JimZ.
Surprisingly, the first major increase in viewership came in December, long after the tomato-growing season had ended in most of the United States and eight months after the first video was posted.
“In Florida, Texas and California, people can plant tomatoes as early as January,” he said. “In December they start thinking about what they want to do in their gardens.”
TomatoSecret® not only produces huge crops, but the tomatoes also are tastier.
“Most gardeners have more vegetables than they can eat,” Zamzow said. “They grow their own vegetables because they want them to taste better and be fresher than their store-bought counterparts. The increase in tomato yield is a side benefit of our effort to make tastier and more healthful fruits and vegetables.”
His accidental foray into video is quite a change from traditional advertising, he noted. “Initially I made the video as a training tool to show the process of growing a tomato from planting through harvest. The videos are much longer than video experts recommend. They are not optimized for selling. They simply present information. Viewership crept along and then all of a sudden it started to build momentum.
“Jim Zamzow, my father and president of our company, kept questioning me about the video. ‘When are you going sell something?’" he asked.
“What we have learned is that if you are willing to put the effort into making good, quality videos and you share your information with people with no expectation of selling them anything, it works out in the end. I think it's true everywhere, not just on YouTube! People from all over the world are watching the videos and sharing our family techniques. It’s exceeded my wildest expectations!”
Dr. JimZ distributes the product through independent nurseries, with a number of them selling TomatoSecret® fertilizer online as well as through the eBay and Amazon websites.
Requests are coming in from all over the world, and Dr. JimZ is exploring distribution in Australia and Africa.
The Zamzow family has been in the nursery and animal feed business for almost 80 years, and was among the pioneers in studying organic gardening products. Headquarters are in Nampa, Idaho with additional operations in Iowa. Jos is the great-grandson, of August and Carmalita Zamzow, who started the company in 1933.
Media Contact:
Jo Murray, 208-726-5869
jo@jomurray.com
A video accompanying this announcement is available at
http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/26f1604b-8441-48e0-88e6-744c9fcb3119