As a floral designer, when you hear Mother’s Day, it’s likely bitter sweet to your ears. On one hand, you know you’re about to get a flood of business, but on the other, you know it’ll be a non-stop, hair pulling, nail biting experience.
While a portion of this stress is unavoidable, there are ways to make Mother’s Day work around you instead of you being blown around by it. By using these strategies, several GlobalPetals florists have been able to make the most of Mother’s Day and even earn upwards of $40,000 in a relatively short period of time.
Here are some key strategies that will help you win Mother’s Day this year and into the future.
Be In Sight, In Mind
The most important part of any business is having an amazing product. Since you’re likely a talented designer first and business person second, your products and designs are likely spectacular. Unfortunately, where most artists fall short are creating ways for people to find you and your products. Advertising is essential. Yes, I understand that when you hear the word advertising, you might have tasted your breakfast for the second time. However, if your designs truly stand apart from everyone else in your town, you’d be doing your neighbors a disservice by not making an effort to show your work off. Fear not – here are some quick and low-hassle ways to advertise your business to capture Mother’s Day business as well as any future holidays or special events:
Leverage your local Facebook friends
Are you Facebook friends with any of your past customers? Do you have photos of the products you’ve made of them? If so, post those photos and tag your friends in them, with a kind note saying something along the lines of, “I remember doing this piece for @FriendName – one of my favorites!” – you don’t necessarily need to call out “Mother’s Day” because the photo will remind this friend (and their friends who see it) that you’re a great florist and they’ll connect the dots on their own. That way, it doesn’t seem spammy either. If you’re not already friends with your customers on Facebook, start adding them so you can do this in the future.
Create a BloomNation account
BloomNation let’s you quickly setup your own web storefront. It’s well designed and already has plenty of search engine juice to capture people looking to buy flowers in your area. You get to set your own price and sell your own designs!
Share timely content
If you’re already active on marketing your products, prices, and specials on social media, be sure to create a save future posts, maybe in microsoft excel, so you can start posting today through Mother’s Day (and even after for those sons and husbands who inevitably forget). Be sure to share on social media and if you have a Yelp account, you should also add more photos there as well, since that’ll be a go-to search place for flower newbies. Advertising is a huge part of your sales through word of mouth marketing as well as the new and continuing foot traffic within your storefront.
Those are just a few turnkey tactics you can use. Maybe you’ve also experimented with modes of advertising including your local paper, flyers, boards in your front windows, design expos, and more, but none of them resulted in constant customer engagement. Social media marketing has become the new standard of advertising.
We mentioned one tactic you can use on Facebook above, but if you don’t already have a page, ask your son or daughter to help create a nicely designed Facebook page. If you want, check ours out here. Remember to include a bit of content and a high quality image that exemplifies your design style and holistic value proposition.
If you aren’t’ already aware of how technology greatly influences how your flowers are arranged, check out our guide on the impacts of technology on your business.
What you post is important, but timing can be just as important in gaining likes, mentions, and follows on your social media platforms. In the future, make sure you invest your time in advertising at least 4 weeks before Mother’s Day. During the week of Mother’s Day, you should be expect to double the time and money you invested during the previous months. This is also something that could be outsourced to a millennial college student looking to flex their social media muscle and add a project to their resume.
Don’t Skimp on Design
As a floral designer, you’ve been letting your work speak for itself, but sometimes it’s helpful to speak for it. For example, if you’re reading our blog, you likely see the value in incorporating unique product in your designs. On Mother’s Day, many of your customers likely won’t be very flower savvy. This is your chance to make it clear to them how different you are. When they pick up their purchases, point out to them the types of flowers you used, how they can’t be found in any of the neighboring shops and that their mother’s design is one of a kind, just like she is.
Personalization counts and they’ll remember it. It’s a prime time to establish customer loyalty so they come straight back to you next year. Obviously as a florist and floral designer, you’ve been letting your work speak for itself for as long as you can remember.
In order to get your hands on the rare products that can make your designs one-of-a-kind, be prepared to use less filler and more flower in your arrangements and don’t wait until a month before to source top quality roses from your wholesalers or direct purchasing partners. We can typically get flowers with a week’s notice, but like any rare blooms, supply is limited and more advanced notice can only help your cause.
Everyone within the supply chain, wholesalers, brokers, and others, will be marking up their prices all the way to the day before Mother’s Day in order to beat margins. If you’ve built a working relationship with your supplier over the years, you may be able to lock in purchase rates up to five months ahead of time! That way, you’ll have plenty of time to brainstorm and advertise with your design team.
Designed by GP Designer, HandPickd
Hedge Against Hiccups
Let’s face it, we work with perishable products, which means things can go wrong. During holidays, most pre-existing controls go out the door and your supplier’s reliability is up in the air. However, that doesn’t mean you just have to sit back and take the hit. Your suppliers should be able to shield you from a most bumps in the road, but they’re not full-proof. Plan to order your flowers from a couple different sources on major holidays. That way, if your overnight shipment from your supplier doesn’t show up, you to have other shipments coming in to fall back on.
If your supply was messed up by a local wholesaler/broker, it’s likely many other local florists will be affected. By diversifying your supplier network, you’ll be able to stand-out from others and serve the clients your competition can’t.
If you don’t hedge your holidays, be ready to pay an arm and a leg. All of the upfront planning pays off when Mother’s Day finally arrives.
Be Proactive with In-Person Customer Outreach
We’ve heard many designers argue that they don’t have enough foot traffic because of their location. While location does play a large role in the “organic” foot traffic into your shop, there are ways to redirect traffic into your doors eve if you are on a side-street or less traveled part of town.
If you have a storefront, you likely have neighboring stores and restaurants nearby. Get to know these other owners and make deals with them to cross-promote each other’s stores. Put pictures of your artwork in their shop and display their products on your selves. Recommend that your clients head into the neighboring stores and ask that the others do the same for you.
Your goal should be to get everyone within the area to stop in and “smell the roses” year round. Go out onto the street and walk to the busier parts of the block, start conversations and invite them to come have a tea in your shop. Develop rapport and create “regulars” who simply want to stop in and check out your latest work. Those are the people that will end up spreading the word and extending their networks into your shops.
In addition, to physical and in-person engagement, virtual engagement is equally important. Better for you, you can do this from the comfort of your own couch. Take pictures of all your work, your conversations with customers, team meetings, anything that gets the eyes of your Facebook followers and Pinterest members. You should be making at least 20 posts a month – while this seems steep, you’re likely making at least 20 arrangements a week, if not per day. Take a snapshot, add a filter and post. Many successful social media stories are posting multiple times a day and replying to every single comment and like. These are called social or virtual engagements that are just as valuable and define your brand.
Summary:
- Keep yourself in sight and in mind by leveraging your friend network and various storefront sharing tools.
- Be cognizant of timing your posts to attract the most eyes.
- Your product shouldn’t only speak for itself. Give it some help by pointing out to customers why it’s one-of-a-kind.
- Make sure you have a supplier backup plan
- Be intentional about building in-person customer relationships
Conclusion:
Mother’s Day can be a pain in the neck, but if you are proactive in planning for it, you’ll at least have a brace that will make your business even stronger when it’s over. By leveraging your relationships online and off, you’ll be able to build customer loyalty, pad your pockets, and win Mother’s Day like a pro this year and into the future.
