How Do You Advertise a Flower Shop?
It sounds like you are great at arranging flowers, and have found an excellent location for your business, but how do you advertise a flower shop? Although getting people in the door is a very challenging task, many people fail to follow these basic steps. Here are some tried and true tips to help you market your flower shop and grow. To generate buzz in your community, you may want to consider some additional grand opening promotions when starting your flower shop in addition to these tips.
Identifying your niche and target market is the most important thing to consider before creating your advertising. To improve your effectiveness, do some market research before preparing a marketing strategy. If you are planning to be a flower shop and you are indeed able to sell to everyone in the market, you need to have a niche to differentiate yourself from the competition. Most likely, you possess a special skill that sets you apart from others. Your marketing must be built around your “secret sauce” once you have it.
The following marketing ideas can help you formulate a marketing strategy:
Flyers – Have some professional flower flyers made to circulate to funeral homes, wedding shops, and hospitals. Usually, people say they can’t afford to have them professionally made. The number of people who think that making a terrible flyer on Publisher is a good thing will surprise you. For your floral business, you only have one chance to make a good first impression. In a business where things need to look good, make sure your marketing follows suit.
Signage – You will also need a sign for your building. In most cases, you will need a sign that costs between $1,000 and $5,000.
Samples – Next, choose a couple of noticeable referral sources such as nearby funeral homes, wedding shops, wedding photographers, wedding coordinators, and hospital chaplains, and set aside some funds to send a nice basket of flowers to them. The chamber of commerce is also a good place to send flowers as you are likely to see prominent and engaged business people at their monthly meetings. Using sampling is a powerful technique, and a small investment up front will pay for itself for years to come. Make sure to follow up with a phone call to find out if they received them and if there is potential to work together.
Online – Because people don’t use the phone book as much as they used to, you need to have an online presence. Make sure your business is listed in Google and Bing business listings, and consider social media outlets like Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, if you plan on being active.
As your website will be new, you may want to consider purchasing display ads to increase your visibility in search engine results. Because of the sheer number of people using Google Ads, it’s likely that the most popular is Google Ads, but you can also check out others.
Reviews – Having positive reviews of your flower shop is critical as many people search for reviews before setting foot in your door. Bad reviews are going to happen, but it’s how you deal with these that is important. Respond to every review, both positive and negative, and for the cost of only a few minutes of your time, you will slowly become a trusted flower shop.
Phonebook – Even though this is a dying channel, you almost can’t go without it. Keep upsells to a minimum because they are seldom effective. Get the cheapest listing possible.
Newspaper – In addition to declining newspaper viewership, you may consider advertising in newspapers as well. It will be more likely that people will send flowers during these times if you place your ads in the obituary or wedding announcement section.
Trade shows- If there are local bridal shows in your area, consider getting a booth, displaying some flowers, and distributing flyers.
It will be harder to get your name known in the community if you skip advertising your flower shop. You may want to reconsider starting this business if you can’t afford to spend a decent amount of money. Your business won’t survive if you don’t reach out to potential customers.