The business of flowers can be an extremely lucrative one with scalability. Fortunately technology and flower sentiment makes the possibility of a thriving floral business a very likely one.
Strategy
Like any blue chip company, the same principles to a florist business applies. Know your mission, vision, scope, clients, competitive advantages, vulnerabilities and aspirations before embarking on a growth process. Once above areas are considered, a simple implementable plan needs to be effected. The question will always come back to ownership and leadership’s vision on where you want your business to go. Once that’s verbalized and documented, engage and research the options. A project plan will essentially help you track activities and data should be interpreted to see if the activities and plans are working.
Know your bunch
The immediate process is to look at what your current clients, business environment and location provides and to optimize activity to leverage it. Everyone knows that customer retention is the cheaper option of the sales process than to acquire new ones. So, look at understanding if your clients are tech au fait and if so what is the preferred communication style. Understanding consumer behavior patterns will help determine if push notifications of calendar specific events work for them. When collating data from your clients, probe as much into their preferences, head space and worlds to understand as much as you can. Asking questions like anniversary dates, birthday’s could assist with notification prompts to alert them of their next floral consideration. Especially in an age of convenience and instant gratification, togethered with tech advancements, being coaxed shows interest and gets client buy in.
Prune your bush
Once it’s understood on who your clients are, review your offering to establish if there’s room for other revenue generating products e.g flowers paired with chocolates, champagne, teddybears, dried fruit parcels, savory imported wine/cheese/deli goods.
When tech makes sense, branch out
Brand awareness through tech emersion or leverage can see you partnering with platform hosting advertisements that target clients. This could be with navigation centric apps like WAZE. Facebook advertising, twitter handle posts, Youtube advertising and Google adwords are options provided you understand your current clients digital appetite and/or, look to target new clients like millennials who have no struggle with tech. Partnering with alternative but complimentary services like UBER to, for example, deliver flowers with puppies on valentines or balloons are optional. The more innovative, the more welcomes. If you are looking to branch out and grow outside of your current core target market, logistic geared and efficient ofcourse, then it’s imperative to look at established tech platforms, partners and establishments who see flowers as a complimentary service to their clients (e.g. hotels for their patrons who want to surprise partners etc.).
Florist mobile applications are endless, with the best being to develop one’s own. Where functionality, UX and offerings can be tailored to your company’s preference, the costs always pose challenges. Separately you need to budget and market your app which still see the above options required.
The business of flowers will never cease to bloom or should we say boom. Understand and choose with data driven insights.
Guest article written by: PrincetonFloralDesign.com is a flower shop located in Princeton (NJ). Browse through beautiful orchids, indoor house and office green plants, gourmet gift boxes & many more on their websites. The company offers the same or the next day delivery, COD option & can create custom floral arrangements just for you.