In order to grow your business and flourish as a wedding florist, you need leads that can be converted into sales

While floral design is certainly an art, it’s also a business. This is particularly true for those in the wedding floristry industry. One of the most low-cost and effective ways to do that is to bring your wedding bouquets online.

According to The Wedding Report, 50% of brides use the internet to research bridal bouquets. Considering the fact that nearly everyone is connected these days, that should be no surprise. The problem is, your competitors are connected too. So how do you get your wedding bouquets noticed when the web is bloated with competing businesses? Here are a few tips…

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Have a Website With Fully-Optimized SEO

Business cards and flyers can only get you so far. If you want your wedding business to take off, you’ll need an online storefront. A majority of potential clients will be looking for you, so you need to make sure your business is visible online where they can see it.

Once you’ve secured a domain name, make sure your website design is smooth and visually pleasing. Have all your information listed there, and provide your audience with high-quality photos of products or real weddings you’ve designed for. If possible, provide an e-commerce platform so clients can submit their orders online as well as a content plan, like an active blog, that promotes your business.

Your website should also have some sort of menu or guide specifically for weddings, so you can let potential clients know what kind of services they can expect from your business, as well as wedding consultation forms so you can coordinate discuss your terms one-on-one.

A whopping 78 percent of local mobile searches result in offline purchases—that’s right, offline purchases.

That means people who search for your store online will physically go to your store to make a purchase. While that’s not exactly a wedding lead, it’s certainly a testament to the amount of exposure and influence an effective website can have for your business.

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Invest in online marketing

Are people finding your business through Google? Or are they finding you through online ads, like those on social media? Determine which of these gives you the most high-quality leads, or leads that end in conversion, and pad your efforts there. It’s a good idea to make use of google analytics too, which is a free service, to learn more about your customers and potential customers.

A cost-effective way to expand your business’ reach is to make yourself visible on social media, particularly Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

The floral business is a very visual, and you can really capture the attention of grooms and brides-to-be with stunning photographs of your handiwork. It’s good to post content on your accounts regularly, like photos, albums, and videos of wedding’s you’ve covered to gain a following and advertise your work. With free tools like Facebook ads, which lets you target specific demographics, you can get quality leads.

You’d be surprised how many leads you can stack up with great content and a bit of social media savvy.

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Put yourself in your potential client’s radar

The first 2 tips have been about establishing your online presence. This last tip is a more targeted approach that puts you in the way of the right audience. If you want to get acquainted with those to-be-wed, consider listing your business in websites like The Knot or Wedding Wire.

Websites like these were made for those planning their weddings. They collate different businesses or vendors who provide wedding services, like florists. If you sign up as a vendor, you can list your business online and make yourself known to these potential brides and grooms. You can create a profile, upload photos of your products, post your social media links, and create your own bio and personal message.

These websites usually have a free version and a paid version. Whether or not you want the paid version depends on you. Review your competition in your region as well as the potential Return on Investment (ROI), and consider if it’s worth it.

At the end of the day, bringing your business online is an affordable and effective way to get your florals on the map and on the radar of potential clients. All you need to do is establish your online presence through your website and social media accounts, fill them with concise info and great content and put them in places where your target audience can find them.

Do this and your business should be blooming online in no time.

Florists, do you have any tips on growing wedding leads? Please share your feedback any related questions in the comment section below!

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Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

We all know how significant reviews are for our floral businesses—over 85% of customers base their purchases on reviews they see online.

Unfortunately, many satisfied customers will not leave a review, but you’ll always hear from the naysayers. This is why florists pull their hair out over negative reviews. Our goal is to encourage you to proactively seek customer reviews, not wait for them.

Online reviews are here to stay, and good or bad reviews are overwhelmingly important for the success of your flower business, the only way to grow your flower business is with reviews, and the best way to combat negative online reviews is with positive reviews.

With some florists now entering their slower months of the year, now is a great time to start building a strategy for garnering more online customers reviews.

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1. Offer Discounts for Floral Reviews

The power of a discount, don’t believe me, try it for your self. The task can be as simple as adding a notice on your counter or florist website. The sign can say something along the lines of, “Google & Yelp On-the-Spot Reviews get $5 off.” If you really need the reviews, offer a $10 discount. Remember, this is all part of marketing and can be written off.

Good to Know: While at a big box home store, at the end of the sale I was invited to leave my cashier an online review for a chance to win $500 gift card. Although the chances I would win this gift card were slim, it did encourage me to leave a review and the store only foots the bill for a single gift card.

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2. Be Direct—Request a Review!

While we’re thankful for the customers that give us positive online reviews without asking, let’s face it—most of the time customers are not privy to online reviews or aware of the impact they have, therefore we must be direct and simply ask.

• Ask customers after a sale, either by phone or in person
• Be sure to ask customers on your floral website
• Email customers with a link to review your flower shop with website order confirmation
• Be blunt and post links on social media to your review pages asking for reviews

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3. Make Leaving a Floral Review Easy and Accessible

We all think customers know how to leave reviews online, the fact is that some do and most don’t or rather not take so much effort. Make the process for reviewing your floral business easy and we mean as easy as ultimately possible.

• Have a direct link on your website to your review page; the home page is great, however using this link on multiple pages improves visibility
• Have an iPad or another device at your counter with your review page open and ready for action
• Send monthly or quarterly emails to your customers to review you with a direct link to your review page
• Add your social media address to your business cards—make sure your social media has all the appropriate links to your review pages

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4. Be Responsive When You Get a Floral Review

When getting reviews—good or bad—you must respond either with a grateful “thank you,” or with your version of the story. Nothing entices customers to leave a review more than when they see the business is acknowledging your interactions. Feeling they got the owner’s attention and feedback can be very gratifying to customers.

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Some Ways Reviews Help Your Floral Business Thrive

• High SEO impact, making your brand stand out from competitors on search engines
• Reviews can show on online search engines lists raising your placement
• Influences consumers into making a purchase
• Offers business credibility

Getting a Bad Review

This all said, we don’t want you to dwell on the occasional negative review. Yes, they can be annoying and even flat-out untrue, however having a good balance actually ranks your brand best. The key is a few poor reviews, with appropriate non-defensive response with good reviews, makes your business look legitimate, and also shows you care enough to respond and ultimately that is what customers want to see. Click here to learn more about the ways bad reviews can be helpful.

 

For florists who would never think of asking for reviews, it good to start building reviews into your everyday business tactics, just like asking a customer if they would like an add-on or upgrade. We cannot emphasize enough how important these are in building your online reputation and brand.

Florists, do you have any advice or questions regarding online customer reviews? Please share your feedback, tips, or questions in the comment section below.

Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.

“Help, someone left me a bad review online!”

So what do you do? First, remember that any business on Yelp, Facebook, or Google may get an occasional bad review. It’s unreasonable for a florist to expect a perfect 5-star review every time. And sometimes a less-than-perfect review can actually be helpful to your floral business!

But even so, there are a few important steps you should take whenever you receive a poor review online.

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Bad Reviews Can Be Helpful!

Let’s touch on this briefly—unless all your business reviews are bad, a couple bad reviews can actually make your good reviews stand out and look better. It also shows customers that your reviews are real and creates a sense of authenticity.

And of course, a few poor reviews next to many positive ones are not going to deter customers—many shoppers are perfectly comfortable viewing a couple negative reviews as outliers.

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How Should You Respond if Your Flower Shop Gets a Bad Review?

No one is perfect or can be perfect all the time, especially in business when sometimes things happen that are beyond our control. There may have been miscommunication with the customer, late delivery, etc.

One course of action you should avoid is reaching out to the site itself (Google, Yelp, etc.) to ask that they remove a bad review. The ethics of this are questionable and it is almost always unsuccessful. Unless you know the review to be fraudulent or meant for another shop, we do not recommend this approach.

1. Respond to the Review

Regardless if the bad review is authentic you need to respond ASAP. Customers and readers (potential customers) want to see that a negative review did not go unaddressed.

2. Weigh Your Response

It is important to formulate your responses appropriately. You don’t need to offer a full refund in the poor review response, but be sure to read the review and determine the reason for the bad review—is the customer incorrect? Was there miscommunication between you? Was it simply an error on your part?

When communicating with the reviewing customer, consider the points below:

• Don’t be defensive
• Acknowledge the issue
• Protect your brand
• Highlight the positive aspects of your business in your response

If there was poor communication before, this could be an opportunity to make things right.

3. Offer a Resolution Offline

Always offer a resolution offline. There are many possible resolutions to a customer’s issue that can win them back for the long term. In your response, be sure to list contact information to continue the discussion privately. Below is a quick example:

Hi-

I’m the manager/owner of XYZ Flower Shop. We pride ourselves on maintaining the highest quality standards for our customers. We hope you will give us an opportunity to discuss this further. You can reach us at (235)867-5309 or email us at info@xyzflowershop. We hope to resolve this to your benefit and earn you back as a customer.

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4. Don’t Beat Yourself Up

No business owner is invulnerable to bad reviews. The most important thing is to learn something from a bad review and move forward. Florists often take a bad review very personally and should not. Use a bad review to improve your business.

And remember that the online review game isn’t just about waiting for good reviews and fending off bad ones: always encourage satisfied customers to review you. For better or for worse, reviews are often read by online shoppers, so they aren’t going away.

Florists, how have bad reviews affected your floral business? How have you resolved a bad review? Please share your feedback and questions in the comment section below.

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Floranext offers great florist software, florist POS, florist websites and florist wedding proposal software. Our florist technology products are built by florists, for florists. Let us know if you want a free demo or try our software for free here.