Year over Year Sales Growth Objectives Achieved

Flyline Search Marketing® provides comprehensive marketing services for florists all over the United States. We serve a very distinguished group of flower shop owners. That group includes firms like; Carithers Flowers in Atlanta Georgia, Allen’s Flowers in San Diego California, Veldkamp’s Flowers in Denver Colorado, Allen’s Flower Market in Long Beach California, Flowerama of Columbus Ohio and Flowers and Company in Houston Texas.

These are not your average independent flowers. They are some of the floral industries most successful, lead by some of the industries brightest minds. These florists are also some of the most creative flower shop owners in the flower business today. We consider it to be a huge honor that these florists have strategically partnered with us. They brought us in to handle their online advertising, lead generation, social media marketing, brand management, content development and public relations duties. Our mission is to help our florists win today and build for the future.

Even though each of these flower shops is unique, there is one consistent theme that each of the owners is focused on. That theme is growth! All of the shops owners we support are experiencing growth rates that exceed industry averages and all have either achieved a dominate position within the cities they market to, or are on the path to doing so.

This year, Mother’s Day fell on the 8th of May. In 2015, Mother’s Day fell on the 10th of May. That lead most florists in our group, and many around the country, to project lower estimated sales for the period May 1st through May 8th 2016, versus May 1st thru May 10th of last year. Well, the final sales numbers are now in. Flower shops we support actually generated more sales transactions and higher revenues this year than last, during that time frame. When you think about it, that was no little task. Especially considering each of our florists all enjoyed solid Mother’s Day sales campaigns in 2015.

How did we do it you ask? We did it by utilizing a comprehensive approach to marketing these flower shops. That program is designed to generate sales 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. We do make very specific tactical adjustments for the holidays, but, work to maintain our focus on growth all year long. We would be remiss if we also didn’t mention that the shop owners we support are some of the smartest, hardest working folks in the industry. All of them work relentlessly during the holidays to exceed the expectations of the clients they serve. I have never met a more dedicate or harder working group of business owners. These folks are some of the best and brightest in the floral industry.

I love being around the group of shop owners that we support. They are innovators and are always willing to try new ideas, strategies and tactics. Especially if they believe that the new idea, strategy or tactic will make for a better customer experience for the people buying flowers, as well as for the people they want us to deliver them to. Charles Carithers is always telling me that he truly believes that for his business to succeed, we must focus on innovation and marketing. I think Mr. Carithers is an extremely bright man! The fact that his sales, revenues and customer satisfaction results are continually some of the best in the country, I might not be alone in that thought.

Lets talk specifics about Mother’s Day sales and performance for a moment. In Atlanta, we generated more sales and revenue from May 1 – May 8 of 2016, than we were able to achieve from May 1 – May 10 of 2015. How much more you ask? Can’t provide the exact numbers, but, I will say this. Our online sales transaction totals during that time frame were 9.2% higher in 2016 than 2015. More importantly, our online revenues were 13.2% higher. In San Diego, online sales were up by 11.8% and online revenue was up by 13.5%. I think you get the point. Over an eight day span, we generated significantly more sales and revenues this Mother’s Day, than we did over the 10 day span in 2015.

Again, the flower shop owners in these markets are relentless in their efforts to achieve the highest levels of customer satisfaction possible. They are not just focused on selling more product. They are focused on delivering a great customer experience, while striving to connect with an ever increasing client base. We are thankful that they choose to include us as part of their team. We and they see the relationship as a great fit. Our team matches their intensity and operates with the same tenacity and relentless approach. We don’t sleep much during holidays like Mother’s Day, but, we tend to think the challenge of achieving something special for one of our clients, trumps (no pun intended) getting some beauty sleep.

Our team focuses on all aspects of the buying process. We run advertising targeted to desktops, laptop and mobile smartphone devices. Why you ask? The reason is simple. Shopping patterns are changing dramatically. In-store shopping is dropping and shopping from mobile phones is rapidly increasing. Google advises that from “2011 to 2013, smartphone adoption in the U.S. grew from 36% to 61%. They also advise that tablet ownership has also increased. Tablet ownership is typically associated with high disposable income. As a result, shoppers are now using these smartphones and tablet devices to conduct their research and to connect with businesses offering products and services that match their interests and hobbies.

Lets look at some actual Mother’s Day phone data from San Diego. We utilize a number of tools that allow us to capture phone calls, phone sales and revenues attributed to mobile devices. Tracked and recorded calls for San Diego increased from 371 (May 1 – May 10 2015) up to 492 (May 1 – May 8 2016). More than 30% of those calls lead to actual online sales conversions. The importance of this data is simple. From one year to the next, calls grew by 32.6%, year over year. That would seem to confirm the data provided by Google about the rapid growth in smartphone usage and the need to focus a portion of your advertising program budget to reaching this segment of the market. While we shared some basic stats from San Diego, this same trend played out in other large markets like; Atlanta, Denver, Columbus Ohio, Long Beach and Houston as well.