How to Market Your Floral Shop for Peak Holidays

Preparing for peak business periods like Mother’s Day can be a tough balancing act, but by managing your floral shop’s marketing presence, you can guarantee a more successful holiday season.

And while almost 81% of shoppers spend time researching online before purchasing, creating a digital presence with a website isn’t enough. The best floral shops leverage the power of social media, community apps, email marketing to maximize their traffic.

Understanding Paid and Organic Social Media

There’s more to Facebook advertising than posting your store hours and a bouquet or two—it’s a total investment, but one that’s been known to pay off. It’s essential your shop has a Facebook business page, as well as an Instagram to engage with new and old customers.

There are two ways to advertise on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram: organic and paid. Organic social media is considered free content such as photos of your designers building bouquets and posts on shop updates and news. Not only are organic posts one of the backbones of every social media marketing strategy, but it’s also an excellent way to build a connection with your customers.

Paid social media is when you pay to have your content shared with specific audiences who are likely to purchase your types of goods and services. Use paid social media when you’re attracting new followers and customers, generating leads or promoting new deals and events. You’ll also have the power to target your audience, making it easier to serve specific ads to specific demographics who tend to frequent your shop during the Valentine’s Day season, for example. Head over to Facebook Business Manager to learn more about running paid ads.

The perfect social media strategy is a combination of both. By boosting specific posts to reach certain audiences, and constantly staying engaged on social platforms, you keep your shop relevant to existing and potential customers. It’s also an easy way to communicate with customers when they need to ask questions and find information about your business.

Collecting Customer Emails to Make Sales

An easy way to remind your customers about deals, holidays and special announcements is through email marketing. Known as one of the most effective forms of marketing for its cost and engagement, nearly nine out of every ten marketers use email marketing to distribute different types of content. Seeing how Americans have been known to check their personal emails more than two hours each day, your email strategy is essential to a growing business.

But how does one create an email list that leads to more sales? There are a handful of ways, like collecting their email address when taking an order on the phone or website, offering a coupon in exchange for an email or running a promotion on social media. It’s important you only send emails to customers or leads that have opted in, otherwise you’ll create some pretty unhappy shoppers.

When creating emails, always use best practices like writing captivating subject lines to get customer’s attentions, as well as clear call to action buttons like “shop now” so they know where to go to find out more or purchase the advertised product. If creating an email campaign isn’t in your wheelhouse, you can always opt in to FTD’s email marketing program, where our experts can do it for you.

Get Higher Website Rankings with SEO

When local customers are looking to buy from local flower shops, many head to Google for a quick search—and click through to the first few that appear. And there’s easy ways for you to get higher rankings. It’s called search engine optimization, or SEO.

To rank your site higher on Google, you’re going to want to add valuable keywords towards the top of your webpage, such as “flowers,” “bouquet” or specific holiday-focused language near peak seasons. You’ll also want to include reference of events and services you provide, as well as your geographical location. Make sure your website is easy to navigate and there’s no broken links.

You can also ask for Google Reviews of your website. The higher the quality and positive reviews, the greater visibility you’ll have on Google.

Stay Current to Stay Ahead

Improving your marketing skills comes down to staying up-to-date on trends and new platforms. When new products and services pop up, like Nextdoor or even Tik Tok, it’s essential to understand how this new service could engage, or attract, your audience in a different way. When you’re constantly trying new things and staying curious, your customers will reward that curiosity by coming back year after year to see what’s new.

SOURCES:https://www.fundera.com/resources/small-business-marketing-statistics

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