Customer story: Hydrofarm

Seamless marketing coordination

Controlled environment agriculture

About Hydrofarm

Hydrofarm is a leading manufacturer and distributor of branded hydroponics equipment and supplies for controlled environment agriculture.

For over 40 years, they've served growers with innovative products including grow lights, climate control solutions, and nutrients across a 3,000+ product portfolio.

As a publicly traded company with 500+ employees globally, they needed efficient collaboration workflows to support their diverse product brands and marketing campaigns.

500+ employees

47 years

3,000+ products

NASDAQ listed

Website: https://hydrofarm.com

Headquarters: Shoemakersville, PA

Adopted Comind.work in 2011

The challenge

Marketing approval bottlenecks slowed campaigns

Hydrofarm's marketing department struggled with collaboration inefficiencies around creating and approving marketing materials across their diverse product portfolio.

Their complex approval process involved multiple stakeholders including product managers, brand managers, legal teams, and senior leadership, each with different approval authorities.

The fragmented process using email threads and shared folders created bottlenecks, with materials getting stuck in approval cycles and feedback lost in email chains.

Lost feedback chains

Version control chaos

Approval bottlenecks

Manual tracking

The solution

Custom workflows with real-time collaboration

Comind.work enabled Hydrofarm to create custom approval workflows that matched their specific organizational structure and approval requirements.

The platform's flexible workflow design allowed them to handle both structured approval processes and ad-hoc collaboration for different types of marketing materials.

They implemented different workflows for various campaign types - from simple social media posts to complex product launches requiring multiple approval levels.

Custom approval workflows

Tailored workflows for different marketing materials and campaign types, matching their organizational approval structure.

Real-time collaboration

Consolidated feedback and eliminated email chains, allowing stakeholders to collaborate directly on marketing materials.

Approval visibility

Clear visibility into approval status and bottlenecks, showing exactly what needed attention and when.

Version management

Centralized version control eliminating confusion about which materials were current and approved.

The results

Dramatic improvements in marketing efficiency

Marketing approval times decreased significantly while version control issues were virtually eliminated across the organization.

The improved transparency led to better communication and faster decision-making, allowing Hydrofarm to be more responsive to market opportunities.

Success in marketing led to adoption across other departments including product development, sales operations, and training teams.

Key features that made the difference

Workflow automation

Custom approval workflows automatically route materials to the right stakeholders based on campaign type and budget implications.

Impact:

Reduced marketing approval time by 50% and eliminated manual tracking overhead.

Collaborative feedback

Real-time collaboration tools allow multiple stakeholders to review and provide feedback directly within the platform.

Impact:

Version control issues were significantly reduced, eliminating confusion about current materials.

Process transparency

Dashboard visibility shows approval status, bottlenecks, and next steps for all marketing materials in the pipeline.

Impact:

Marketing managers now spend far less time tracking approval status and more time on creative work.

The platform gave us exactly what we needed - custom workflows that matched our approval structure with complete visibility into the process. We can now launch campaigns faster and respond to market opportunities without getting stuck in approval bottlenecks.

— Heather Bené Dubin-Brians

Senior Coordinator, Trade Marketing & Digital Development, Hydrofarm