OK, you’ve got your social media sorted (kinda). You’ve even contemplated embracing the discomfort of Instagram Reels. You’ve been through the process of getting a website sorted and your Google My Business listing is done.
You feel like you’re checking all the boxes but you’re struggling to get enough orders and enquiries. Every day you hear yourself ask, “How can I increase sales as a florist?”
My friend, you’re in exactly the right place. I wanna let you in on the secrets of successful florists and give you super specific, actionable advice to help you make it work.
While all the other florists wanna keep their secrets a secret, hidden from the world, I’m on a mission to ensure every florist knows how to build a profitable flower business.
THE SECRET TO FLOWER BUSINESS SUCCESS
The single most important lesson to learn about marketing + sales as a floral designer is this: you have to follow a different strategy.
Selling flowers requires a different approach to marketing + sales. I know everyone else is teaching you how to increase engagement and grow your following but I’m here to tell you that’s a total waste of energy.
If you go out and talk to any marketing person, they’re going to tell you the go after more “exposure”. That approach works in 99% of other industries. Volkswagen needs to keep reminding you they offer great cars. They need to encourage you to go through the effort of upgrading your vehicle and spend a bit more money.
Prada wants you following them so they can seduce you with their lifestyle and convince you to drop $5K on a bag. The girl selling cute handmade candles needs to keep sharing and showcasing her designs to try to convince you buying a candle is a good idea.
The local cafe wants you to follow them on Instagram to keep you buying your daily coffee from them – 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year.
But when it comes to understanding ‘how can I increase sales as a florist’, the most important lesson to learn is you gotta follow a different strategy to what is traditionally spouted out by your favourite influencer and marketing coach.
There are four things that make floral design sales different to any other industry:
- Your service area is limited – you don’t do weddings in every corner of the planet and you can’t do flower deliveries beyond a specific footprint.
- Your customer could be based anywhere – the person paying for the flowers might be based halfway around the world
- Your customers already know flowers are the right solution – flowers have been part of the human experience for 5000 years. They already know they want flowers at the wedding, funeral or birthday party. They know flowers are perfect for sympathy, get-well-soon and celebration.
- Your customer has a specific need – the majority of customers buy flowers to fulfil a very specific brief (date, location, occasion, budget are all constraints we need to account for)
This is why the traditional approach to marketing + sales doesn’t work for floral designers. It’s why, when you’re focused on growing your following, it doesn’t translate into more revenue for your business. This is why playing the popularity game or going after exposure isn’t required.
It’s also why I will tell you not to worry about wasting energy on Instagram Reels or worrying about doing another styled shoot. It’s why I will tell you, you gotta learn about Search Engine Optimisation and playing a smarter Google game. (Check out this super helpful YouTube video if you want some insider tips.)
HOW CAN I INCREASE SALES AS A FLORIST – 3 STEPS TO SUCCESS
When it comes to understanding how can I increase sales as a florist, here are my 3 steps to success:
STEP 1 – Follow the right strategy
What is the right strategy? Be where your customer is.
Job 1: Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and map out their shopping experience. Quite literally, close your eyes and envision your customer. Where do they go first when they’re looking for a florist?
Once you do this one exercise, you’ll understand why worrying about the Instagram algorithm or chasing exposure isn’t important. That’s not how your customer shops for a florist.
STEP 2 – Make it easy for your customer to buy from you
As much as the relay networks, wire services and wedding planning networks might irritate you, they have figured out what matters most to customers. It’s time to take a page out of their book and realise they are doing a few things right.
So many florists miss the mark because they make online shopping or planning a wedding really freakin’ hard. We overcomplicate the enquiry process, make it hard for customers to understand what their money will get them and never explain how the heck this whole floral design thing works.
My friends, it’s time to blaze a new trail. It’s time to break the tradition and make it really easy for your customers to find the information they’re looking for. The more helpful you are, the most your customers will spend with you. The easier you make it for your customer to say ‘yes’ to what it is you’re offering, the more orders you’ll get.
Essentially, in order to get more customers and make more money, you just need to do the exact opposite of what you traditionally see in this industry: be open with your expertise and guidance; give your clients the answers to the most common questions; and make it really really easy for your customers to buy what you have to offer.
Write that super helpful blog post outlining wedding flowers budgets. Create a section on your online catalogue that explains how to order. Make it clear to your customers what their money will get them. Give them lots of opportunities to spend even more money. They’ll love it!
STEP 3 – Be relentlessly repetitive
One of the biggest lessons I learned early on in my flower business is that every day is a new day filled with new customers. Every day there are new couples planning new weddings. Every day there is a new set of birthdays and babies and get-well-soon gifts to be sent.
This requires you, as the head of marketing + sales, to step up your game and be willing to repeat yourself. A lot.
In many cases, it means we create a set of shortcuts. You don’t need to keep coming up with new content ideas or new better-than-the-rest photos. You could literally post the same thing on Instagram stories every 24 hours. You can repurpose and repeat your posts every 7-14 days.
This is also why tactics like Google Adwords, Google My Business and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and are so important for floral designers. (If you’re totally confused by SEO, check out this blog post SEO For Florists: The #1 Thing You Need to Know.)
The truth is, it doesn’t matter what happened yesterday in your flower business. You might have received 15 new enquiries and 5 online orders or you might still be waiting for your next enquiry and your next online order. Today is a new day filled with a new set of customers.
Being able to consistently show up despite the current results (or lack thereof) is how you make it work. This is why so many florists call it quits. They give up too early because they’re focused on the wrong things and following the wrong sales strategy.
Learning the right marketing strategy, learning to show up every day despite what happened yesterday, learning to believe in our own potential and learning to feel a new level of determination is how you build a thriving flower business. This is what separates a Flower Boss from the rest of the crowd.
NEED HELP GETTING MORE SALES IN YOUR FLOWER BUSINESS?
It’s time to learn the secrets of successful florists – sign up for my {Free} Ultimate Guide to Building a Thriving Flower Business. CLICK HERE to get immediate access.
