Customer retention is essential to profitable floral design: 5 creative ways to stimulate sales
Did you know that the cost of acquiring a new customer is 5 to 25X more expensive than keeping an existing one?
Engaging your customers, motivating them to shop repeatedly, and building loyalty to your brand is the ultimate goal of customer retention marketing.
And it’s important because...
I love knowing that a small 5% change can create such impactful results. That fact is energizing! Don’t you think? Now let’s talk about how it works and how you can use this strategy to increase profitability in your floral design business.
Customer retention marketing is all about your dream client.
Your dream client is the customer that not only buys from you often but tells others about your services when the opportunity strikes!
She’s sharing user-generated content about your business on her social media posts.
She’s important, but are you giving her the attention she needs from you? You must serve your core customers who bring steady income to your business. So, are you bringing them value? How much of it? In what ways?
Think about it for a minute. Do you have these customers?
If yes, it’s time to embrace them big-time. And if you don’t currently have these customers, now is the time to start building the foundation to get their attention. You can first build trust with them. Then use the referral strategies from my previous post to get them talking. Lastly, you’ll use the 5 examples below to motivate them to shop with you regularly.
If you don’t think it’ll work, here’s one more statistic to prove it does.
Steady customers help businesses weather lean economic times; businesses with 40% repeat customers generated nearly 50% more revenue than similar businesses with only 10% repeat customers. [Skoshe]
Here’s the breakdown. Let’s call it the cycle of customer loyalty:
Your epic customer service motivates your client to share her experience with others.
Those customer referrals build up your business.
Your customer retention marketing efforts keep repeat customers coming back often.
You win! Your customers win! Then, repeat.
In fact, that’s what we’re going to dig into today. I’ve got 5 real examples of customer retention marketing to show you. Yes they are specific to floral design. In fact, I know you can apply similar strategies to increase your revenue right now. So, let’s get started.
Customer retention: 5 real examples of floral designers crushing it!
1. Develop unique items to keep things fresh:
Abby Daigle and her creative team at Stems Floral Design + Event Styling, here in Austin, TX, is giving local customers reason after reason to purchase from their online shop since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month they promoted a date night combo of charcuterie and flowers. Of course, it was a hit with their young hip customers. Then, the team started selling 'everlasting' floral arrangements out of dried elements. Abby clearly understands the importance of keeping her offerings fresh!
Their most recent endeavor is a selection of hand-crafted cutting boards combined with plants in cheecky packaging for Father’s Day! Ordering from a floral studio might not be the most typical option for the upcoming holiday, but that’s what I love about it. Their production team is skilled in woodworking so cutting boards made sense for them. A cutting board and plant gift set that is handmade, locally sourced, and unique has the word winner written all over it!
It’s your turn. Your homework is to brainstorm several specialty items that your customers can purchase from you over the next year. Start with one per quarter tying them into special occasions. This strategy will increase your revenues and keep your customers interested in what new exciting concepts you bring to their lives! It doesn’t even have to be cut flowers. Then, you can find new occasions for your current customers to shop with you and do it often!
Stems Floral Design + Event Styling
| hand crafted cutting boards and plant gift sets for Father's Day
2. Partner up to offer a new take on your services:
Kelly Shore is a floral designer in love with American grown flowers. So, naturally she’s got great relationships with several domestic growers and wants to share their flowers with the masses. Here’s the concept. Fresh American grown flowers are delivered to the client’s door via her business The Floral Source. The flowers are then showcased in an online video tutorial. Kelly guides her customers step-by-step through the process of creating an arrangement. She developed a surefire way to retain customers! Also, she’s marketing this concept to her fellow floral designers and hobbyists alike. Being that this concept appeals to both markets you can see how that increases its value.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBRoPYuFvJ1/
The Floral Source is offering American grown blooms direct to your door.
So, how can you partner with other businesses to benefit your repeat customers? What types of complementary products can you pair up with an online session for your most loyal fans? Brainstorm with other business owners you know and trust. I know you’ll come up with something compelling to catch your customers’ eyes!
3. Solve your customers' problems through education:
My friend Lea of Blackbird Floral gets lots of repeat customers. She knows that the flowers in a tightly packed arrangement have the appearance of holding up longer than in a loose airy bouquet and she’s not afraid to educate her customers about it. Therefore, she intentionally uses hearty stems and foliage to support more delicate blooms and clearly stated it on her website. The wording is straightforward and educates the customer about the benefits of this style of floral design. She learned early on that customers want long-lasting flowers. No questions asked. It’s hands down the most common source of customer complaints, but not for her. Instead, it’s now her signature style and focal-point of her business model. She’s got customers raving about her flowers and how long they last. Which we all know is great for business.
Here’s an example…
“My second order was just as awesome (if not a little better) as the first! Obviously Lea is amazing at what she does. The arrangement was very creative, beautiful, and great for the price! My girlfriend has been so excited about these flowers! I can’t wait to use them again! Lea, thank you!” — BRANDON W.
Here’ a friendly reminder. You’re not in the floral design business. You’re in the problem-solving business. So, your challenge is figuring out what problems you can solve for your customers. Can you educate them on some aspect of the floral design industry or your offerings? How will that benefit you both in the long run? Ask a few of your closest customers for their honest opinions or send out a simple email survey. I trust you’ll find an angle where educating your customers will lead to higher retention rates.
4. Create a subscription service:
54% of online shoppers subscribe to a subscription box service. [Smallbiztrends]
We live in a subscription-based world. Busy clients do not have time to order every month. Surely, they don’t want to type their credit card number more than once. Companies like Netflix, Butcher Box, and Stitch Fix are putting their customers on auto-pilot. You can too! A subscription service is an effective way to drive a series of purchases with one interaction. For example, Erin and her team at Plum Sage Flowers in Denver, CO have a 5 order minimum for their subscription service.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CAaO_hMF9Kz/
The floral design industry is prime for subscription service growth!
Approximately 44% of millennial consumers are interested in a floral subscription service. [American Floral Endowment]
In short, your younger clients are interested in the concept. They just need to be persuaded to click buy. What niche can you satisfy with a subscription service? Based on the statistics above there are plenty of opportunities to mobilize a unique program that works for your business.
You can ensure that you are pricing your subscriptions with confidence by using an affordable florist pricing software like EveryStem. It will simplify and speed up all your flower pricing and ordering while giving you an accurate real-time snapshot of the profit margin of every design you sell!
5. Support a worthwhile cause:
As human beings, we long to connect to a cause that is close to our hearts.
37% of consumers show loyalty to brands that actively support charities and other shared causes. [Accenture]
This is one reason the Chicago based Flowers for Dreams donates 25% percent of their proceeds to charity. The concept of donating a percentage of your proceeds to a worthy cause isn’t new, but it is fitting today. The worthwhile causes of racial injustice, poverty, and hunger need our support now.
By donating a percentage of proceeds, you give your customers a compelling reason to purchase flowers from your business over a competitor. Whether you feature one special arrangement for your cause or donate a percentage of all proceeds is up to you.
Alternatively, you could offer a one for one model like Tom’s or Warby Parker. Where for every floral arrangement you sell, you plant a tree or donate lunch for a child in your community. The options are endless when it comes to giving back. So, take a little time and discuss it with your team and some of your customers. Find out which causes would make sense for you to align with going forward. Give it a shot! You can’t go wrong when you are giving back!
In closing, customer retention requires your creativity!
As I have shown, with the 5 examples above, customer retention is alive and well in many floral design businesses today. You can nab these concepts and apply them to your business. Then, use your website, email marketing, and social media to broadcast it to your clients.
In conclusion, here are 5 ways your business can start focusing on customer retention today:
Developing unique and unconventional items for special occasions
Partnering up to offer a new take on your service
Solving customer problems through education
Creating a subscription service
Actively supporting a worthwhile cause in your community
Without doubt, you can take these ideas and mold them into something that will work for your business. Provided that you put your own spin on your marketing effortsI know you can find the right solutions to your customers’ problems. Customer retention is about giving your clients floral design in new and inventive ways. Finally, don’t forget to back it up with epic customer service every single time. With this in mind you can consistently make the cycle of customer loyalty work in your favor.
Until next time,
LuAnn