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Getting Technical
Four florists share their strategies |
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Written by Amanda Ryder
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The flower business used to be a lot simpler – there was no Internet, no
e-mail and no Facebook. This also means there were fewer ways to reach
your customer base. Technology provides you with a number of avenues for
building client connections and if you’ve got your head stuck only in
the cooler, you’ll lose out to your competitors.
The flower business used to be a lot simpler – there was no Internet, no e-mail and no Facebook. This also means there were fewer ways to reach your customer base. Technology provides you with a number of avenues for building client connections and if you’ve got your head stuck only in the cooler, you’ll lose out to your competitors. We talked to florists about the new forms of technology they’re implementing in their shops and what the payoff has been.
The coupon bandwagon
The recent recession gave rise to a new group of coupon clippers and an explosion of group-buying websites has only added fuel to this fund-saving phenomenon. Groupon led the way, and presented a unique model. The company offers deep discounts to consumers – once a certain amount of people sign up for the deal, it’s validated – and pockets half the coupon’s value. For example, if a retailer offers a coupon for a bouquet worth $80 for $40, then Groupon gets $20 and the florist receives $20 as well, or 25 per cent of the full coupon value.
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Getting technical in your flower shop can help you expand your customer reach and add extra value to the shopping experience at your store.
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Due to Groupon’s popularity, similar sites have popped up and one in particular, Tuango, caters to the Montreal area. Herbert Teichmann of The Flower Pot in Montreal saw how people were gravitating towards coupons and decided to give Tuango a try late last year. He selected Tuango because they cater to a bilingual market and are local. Knowing that taking a 75 per cent discount is a big hit in the flower business, Teichmann was able to negotiate a 40 per cent discount, rather than 50 on his Tuango coupon. The shop’s first coupon launched in early December. The Flower Pot promoted the deal through social media and even created a special “Tuango Bouquet.” Teichmann had big expectations for the deal, but the numbers fell a little short. “We didn’t sell 500 coupons, we sold close to 100. So it was not a hot item but it was a good beginning,” he says. They repeated the deal again in December and got similar results. Vicky Miller, sales coordinator and social media expert at The Flower Pot, says the Tuango coupon-carrying customer base was varied. “Some of them were first-time buyers, some of them bought multiples and some of them were actually clients that were already clients of ours – they saw the deal and thought I usually shop there so I’m going to get the coupon.”
It was this experience with Tuango that got Teichmann thinking about how he could really make coupons work for his shop. Instead of teaming up with these companies and forfeiting a percentage of sales, Teichmann has now decided to go it alone and develop his own in-house coupon system at his shop. This gives The Flower Pot staff the flexibility to design their own deals and market them to their own extensive e-mail database. “Instead of trying to attract new customers who only want to pay half for the coupon, why can’t we reward our customers with a dollar amount off or a percentage? They’re the ones who are sticking with us,” says Miller. The flower shop has started sending out e-mails from time to time that will include a $10 off coupon that’s applicable to any product and only good for a week or two. Like before, the response has been slow, but Miller believes that as they start to spread the word through the shop’s Facebook and Twitter account, this will entice more people to sign up for the mailing list and receive the coupon.
Teichmann has faith that going this route will help attract more loyal customers, as opposed to just deal-seekers. “This way, I think is a winner. We are trying to build a following amongst ourselves here. At least in the long term, I have a vision that I can see this paying off,” he says.
Clicking to the top
At Hearts and Flowers in Charlottetown, P.E.I., co-owner Alan Preston is using Google AdWords to place his shop at the top of Google’s search page results. The online advertising program works like this: a business such as Hearts and Flowers chooses and pays for specific keywords in its local area. When a user searches for these terms, the florist appears as a “sponsored link” at the right of the screen or at the top of the main search results, above the non-paid, organic search results. Also known as pay-per-click advertisements, the business is charged each time a user clicks the link. Google uses a special algorithm to determine where the listing appears and this can be influenced by other businesses in the area who are using the same or similar keywords. “We started approximately two years ago with a lot of doubt because we always thought that organic searches were what people saw. Because AdWords seems to be the domain of people like Pink Lotus, FTD, Teleflora and all those big companies, we didn’t know what it would cost and whether there would be any benefit,” says Preston.
Nevertheless, the florist decided to give Google AdWords a try and began collecting search words that they specifically wanted to pay for. Then a new concern popped up: “We had fears that people would be randomly clicking on it and it would be costing us each time. Basically it sounds like you’re opening your wallet to Google and saying ‘take it all.’” Fortunately that’s not the case and Preston is more than satisfied with the results of this advertising avenue. It took time to find the right mix for his shop – businesses really need to sit down first, decide on the keywords, work out what they are willing to pay for each click and set a daily limit day to determine the maximum amount they want to pay per day. They can always change these totals to keep up with customer shopping patterns. “At busy times you can take a larger share of the market by increasing your daily budget and when it’s quieter, you can just keep it down so there aren’t incidental transactions that are going to take you above the limit,” he says.
Preston keeps a close eye on his Google AdWords account to monitor the cost and benefits of the program. “There’s a great correlation between how busy you are that day and how many clicks you have,” he says. Hearts and Flowers also uses Google Places, YellowPages.ca and Weblocal.ca to improve his website’s online search ranking. He advises florists to find a combination that’s right for their shop and their geographic location.
There’s an app for that
Apple proudly promotes the fact that there’s an app for nearly everything and buying flowers is no exception. Last October, the corporate side of Grower Direct launched an iPhone application that allows people to buy flowers from one of the company’s many franchise locations. Grower Direct CEO Doug Munro explains the reasoning behind this move: “More and more people are carrying smartphones and that number’s increasing every year,” he says. “People are trying to find ways to make smartphones more user-friendly and ways to do more commerce on smartphones. We wanted to make sure that we were in a position so that as the amount of commerce done on phones increases, we’re ready.”
The company wrote the smartphone application or “app” from the ground up and the entire process took about 16 weeks. All of the content on the app (this includes information on care and handling, flower varieties, etc.) belongs to Grower Direct and consists of, for the most part, highlights from the organization’s website. The focus was always e-commerce, but the content helps give the app added value for the user. “The reason we put the content on is we researched what was out there already. The reality is that if you go to the iPhone store, there are all sorts of flower apps and they range in price from 99 cents to $2.99. All of them have one function – to allow you to buy flowers. As a consumer, why would you go out and pay for an app to buy flowers two or three times a year. It just didn’t make sense to us . . . . The feeling was, and still is, that in order to get people to put this on the phone, there has to be more value than simply placing an order.”
When iPhone app launched last October, Grower Direct promoted it through its customer base via e-mail, via press releases and on its own website. They also encouraged the Grower Direct stores to spread the word. Marketing has been one of the greatest challenges in creating an app. “It’s not like the web where anyone with a computer can go into Google and type flowers and up you show. Right now, the last number I heard on the iPhone app store was over 300,000. I mean you’re a drop in the bucket,” he says. “You’re basically dragging people to the iPhone store whether it’s from your website or your e-mail. You’ve got to promote it and the return you get is going to be based on how you promote it,” says Munro.
When asked what advice he has for florists who are thinking about getting an app, Munro encourages them to really look at whether it’s a good fit for their business. Grower Direct is constantly maintaining its app and updating it to make sure content is fresh for users. There’s also the issue of compatibility – the Grower Direct app is strictly for the iPhone and Munro says the organization is looking at developing one for Android and BlackBerry users eventually, but that’s another investment. “For the average retail florist, my advice would be, in my humble opinion, there are far better ways to develop your business than rushing out and getting an iPhone app. Unless a retailer feels they have the ability or the resources to do the marketing required to spread word about the app, it’s probably going to fall by the wayside.”
Going mobile with your website
Continuing with the smartphone trend is Grace Lewicki of GenuisLoci Fine Flowers in Toronto. She’s in the process of creating a mobile site for her flower shop that will allow smartphone users to easily view her website from their cellphones. “Sooner or later we will all have smartphones and with them instant access to Internet. Those who use BlackBerry, iPhones and Androids know already that most of the web search or social networking is done not from our computers but phones,” she says.
It was Lewicki’s own fascination with her smartphone that made her realize the potential a mobile site has. She began work on a mobile site back in 2008 and launched it in March 2009. The idea was soon shelved as she realized that flower buyers weren’t quite ready for this type of technology. Since then, Lewicki says she’s been monitoring the mobile market and tweaking her original site concept to come up with a page that’s suited to today’s technology. “I strongly believe that right now very few understand the scale of changes in mobile enterprise or the Internet as a whole. New mobile devices finally showed up with fast enough processors and clear enough screens to make them useful for comfortable browsing and, eventually, for shopping. What is still missing on our road to mobile prosperity is fast 4G carrier networks and speedy and secure checkout systems. There are good signs that they are coming, or being tested but we are still waiting.”
When it comes to designing the site, Lewicki says it’s important that the page reflect her shop: “We sell art, so I want to make sure that it looks like we sell art. In addition to esthetic attractiveness, ease of use and fast navigation were always on our must-have list,” she says.
At this point, Lewicki is still carefully considering her options and is hesitant to rush into a big launch at this stage because the mobile market is constantly changing. “I can bet that in five years from now all good shopping websites will look almost identical in mobile or online moves.” For shops that are interested in tackling their own mobile site, Lewicki advises them to really research their options and not rush into a design or format that doesn’t reflect the beautiful product they sell.
In talking with tech-savvy florists, it’s clear that there are many forms of technology available to retailers but the trick is finding the right fit for each individual shop. To do this, you have to really know your customer base and how they shop with you – that’s the only way technology and selling flowers will really click.
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