Marketing sending you into a spin?
‘Marketing’ is a word banded around by so many people and everyone makes it sound complicated like an algerbraic equation or something very expensive done by PR agencies which is out of the reach of small independent florists.
A little bit of relevant background about me (Amy):
After my life as a florists daughter and before returning to Strelitzia & Flowers by Nattrass I completed a degree in marketing and I spent my working hours as a Brand Manager for large grocery brands & the UK’s largest pub firm.
Here’s what I learnt about marketing.
Its not complicated, it doesn’t have to be expensive and YOU can do it.
So, I have written some questions I think are relevent to a florist business and answered them. (I hope it helps)
What is Marketing?
Despite what you have read and in all likeihood not understood, due to abbreviations & jargon designed to scare you off, marketing is all about talking to your customers and getting them to engage (or react) to the content you’ve created.
The best place to start talking to your customers is email. I would also suggest looking into the scary world of social media (but I’ll save that one for another email/blog)
Who do I market to?
The first stop. Your current customers. It is much easier and cheaper to create regular customers than constantly find new customers. Capture a customer’s email address as you are taking an order and you have a brilliant marketing tool.
Raising your eyebrow & thinking no customer is ever going to give their email..?
I agree. If our team were to open a conversation with ‘Can I have your marketing email?’ most customers would run a mile. Our florist however has a database of over 4,000 emails. How do we get the data? Here’s how the conversation goes;
‘Do you have an email address I can take and I’ll send you a reciept with all your orders details on so you don’t lose them’
‘That would be great; joebloggs@msn.com’
‘We like to keep our customer’s up to date with what we’re doing, don’t worry, we only send out a couple of emails a month. Are you happy to be included?’
9 times out of 10 the answer is ‘no problem’
Now I know who I am marketing to, how do I do it?
The marketing module of Strelitzia allows you to download all of your customer’s email address & is complient with the new GDPR rules (not sure what GDPR is? read here).
You can import these email addresses to MailChimp and start creating emails. It is so simple to use and if you’re not sure we will give out free training to all Strelitzia Users.
What do I say?
That’s not the correct question. The first question is;
What is the result I want from this email?’
Possible answers & suggested content are below. You can have more then one answered in an email but my advice would be to have one focused message
- More website sales.
- Include links to your website & images of your products
- More people visiting your shop.
- Include a 10% discount code only to be used in store or promote deals you already have in store. e.g. mix and match bunched flowers
- More people phoning the shop.
- Include content such as: Not sure what you’re looking for? Give our team a ring on 01325 123567 or drop by our shop and one of our experienced florists will talk you through all the options.
- Letting people know how much better your flowers are than supermarkets
- Use customer reviews. Had a thank-you card recently? take a picture, type it up or if you use sites like reviews.co.uk, google or facebook reviews.
- Letting people know about your new range
- Take pictures and include them. All you need is a smart phone as pictures need to be small.