Emerald City Website Users Meet In Atlanta
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Emerald City Website Users Meet In Atlanta

Emerald City Websites, Flyline Search Marketing

Emerald City Website Users Meet In Atlanta

Flyline Search Marketing Floral Marketing Clients

Meet In North Georgia

Flyline Search Marketing hosted a meeting in Georgia for all of our clients who use the Emerald City website platform. Flower shops in attendance were Flowerama, Mayfield Florist, Rockcastle Florist and Williams Flowers. Flowerama operates 4 floral design centers in the Columbus, Ohio area. They have shops in downtown Columbus, Reynoldsburg, Westerville and Whitehall. Mayfield Florist operates two floral design centers in the Tucson, Arizona area. Rockcastle Florist operates a floral design center in Rochester, another in Canandaigua and a centralized design and distribution operation in Greece. Williams Flowers operates 7 floral design centers in the Puget Sound area. They have flower shops in Gig Habor, Silverdale, Shelton, Poulsbo, Port Orchard, Tacoma and Bremerton.

The meeting was held January 9th and 10th, at the Amicalola Falls State Park Lodge. This gorgeous facility is located in the picturesque North Georgia mountains. Hikers from all over the country begin to congregate at Amicalola Falls State Park in early February. All with the dream of walking the 2187 miles, from Georgia to Maine. The Appalachian Trail is an iconic trail, for those in the hiking community. Walking from Georgia to Maine is truly an adventure of a lifetime.

By adminMWL|2019-09-28T12:44:16+00:00January 12th, 2019|Categories: Emerald City Websites, Flyline Search Marketing|Tags: Flowerama Columbus, Flowers To Go, Rockcastle Florist, Williams Flowers|Comments Off

Flower Shops We Support Are Flourishing

Are you in the flower business? If so, you are no doubt aware that the number of independent flower shops operating in the United States has been dropping over the past 5 years. The United States Department of Labor projects a 7 percent overall employment growth rate for all occupations, between the years of 2014 to 2024. At the same time, Bureau of Labor Statistics also projects that employment in the floral business will drop by 3 percent, over the same period of time.

If you are in the floral industry these numbers probably don’t give you much confidence about your future. Let me share some thoughts with you. At least some of what I have to say may ease your concerns. The numbers say there will be less florists ten years from now than there are today. The data also says there will be fewer jobs in the floral industry. What those stats don’t speak to is demand and supply. If you look at the supply data, you will quickly see that growers are planning to increase supply over the next ten years. Why would they do that you ask? Well, the answer is demand. People love fresh cut flowers and beautiful green and flowering plants. As population in the U.S. continues to increase, the need for fresh cut flowers, wedding flowers and event flowers grows as well.

What Is Causing So Many Flower Shops To Close

If you ask the question around the industry, “What is causing so many flower shops to close?” you will get a bunch of different answers. We have our own opinions on what is causing the decline. Here is what we would describe as the problems.

Flower Shop Reliance On Wire Networks
Order Gatherers Keeping Larger Percentage of Sale
Rapidly Changing Shopping Patterns
More Competition for Fresh Cut Flower Sales

Lets take these bullet points and review them in more detail. Why would we list flower shop reliance on wire networks as a problem. Many small and medium sized flower shops have historically relied on the wire networks for orders. At the height of the wire network effectiveness, a florist could set up shop, hire employees, purchase product, then turn on the order wire and wait for a steady stream of profitable orders to flow across the wire networks. In today’s world, that strategy just does not produce the same result. Take a look at the shops who are closing their doors. Many relied heavily on the wire networks for order volume.

What has changed that makes wire network reliance such a huge problem in todays world? We believe that the order gatherers are keeping a larger percentage of each wire order and passing through a smaller amount of revenue to the flower shop who actually fills the order. What is most likely driving that is the fact that the cost of order acquisition has increased for the order aggregators. In addition to the cost of acquisition, many of the order aggregators are also facing increased pressures by their owners and share holders to increase profitability. Well, how to you increase profitability? The most obvious ways are to increase the number of orders you gather, or increase the percentage of each order that you keep.

What Do We Mean By “Rapidly Changing Shopping Patterns”

The Internet is changing many aspects of our lives. One very clear change is how people are choosing to shop. In the past, if you wanted to purchase something, you generally went down to the store that carried the item you wanted and made a purchase. In today’s world, you can simply order right from the Internet, in the safety and comfort of your own home. The data is clear, online sales are growing at an incredible rate. Check out this data. comScore reported last year that retail spending in the U.S., conducted on desktop computers for the first 30 days of the November-December 2015 holiday season, had reached $27.9 billion. That was a 6% increase versus the same time period the previous year.

Folks, that was just online shopping, done by people using desktop computers. When you look at online sales from all devices, you really begin to see just how dramatically the Internet is changing shopping patterns. 2015 statistics reflected that more than 191 million Americans owned smartphones. That number has continued to increase. People using smartphones are searching the Internet at staggering rates. In fact, searches from smartphone and tablet devices have now exceeded the total number of searches being conducted on desktop and laptop computers. These smartphone shoppers aren’t just researching, they are buying!

Lastly, competition in the fresh cut flower business has increased, even though the number of independent flower shops in the U.S. has declined. The competition for florists is coming from grocery stores, Costco, Sam’s Club and other wholesale and natural foods stores. Seems like everyone who sells groceries wants to offer fresh cut flowers, vases, balloons and plants. That clearly wasn’t something that traditional florists had to worry about in the past.

Florists We Support Are Flourishing

Seven years ago, we met a man named Charles Carithers. He was the owner of Carithers Flowers in Atlanta, Georgia. We had just opened our doors for business a few months prior to meeting him. In January of 2009, we sat down with Charles and developed a PPC program that was designed to create a steady order stream for Carithers. The idea was to move away from the reliance on wire orders and to replace those orders with sales that we had generated on our own. That program delivered in a big way! From there, we studied the other issues facing Carithers. We went on to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy for Carithers that allowed us to build brand recognition, customer loyalty, wedding and event sales and more. In essence, we focused on a global strategy that would allow Carithers to grow, while the rest of the floral industry scrambled to find solutions to declining order volume, increased competition, lower value wire orders and overall declines in gross revenues.

Over the past seven years, we have added even more florists as clients. In fact, we have taken on a number of very notable flower shops, including; Veldkamp’s Flowers in Denver, Allen’s Flowers in San Diego and the Ozment Family, who own and operate four Flowerama shops in and around Columbus Ohio. As we took on each new client, we extensively studied the demographic differences of their market, versue markets we already compete in. We also identified the unique elements of the competitive environment each florist was operating in. Armed with this new competitive knowledge, we tactically adjusted elements of our strategy, then deployed the comprehensive program for each shop owner. The end result of all these learnings and tactical adjustments is a program that produces eye popping results.

Shops we serve are achieving historical highs in both sales and revenues. Florists we support are no longer just making a living, they are thriving. The best part of the whole process for us has been the development of long term, strategic relationships with the florists and families we support. For us, the relationship we enjoy with our clients and watching their families grow and flourish is worth all the hours we put in on our end.

By admin|2017-08-15T10:57:59+00:00June 10th, 2016|Categories: Floral Industry Statistics, Flower Shop Marketing, Flyline Search Marketing, Statistics On Florists|Tags: Allen's Flower Market Long Beach, Allen's Flowers San Diego, Carithers Flowers, Flower Shop Statistics, Flowerama Columbus, Flowerama Reynoldsburg, Flowerama Westerville, Flowerama Whitehall, Flowers and Company Houston, Stats For Florists, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

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.

By admin|2017-08-15T11:00:55+00:00May 17th, 2016|Categories: Flower Shop Marketing, Marketing for Carithers Flowers, Marketing For Florists, Marketing for Veldkamps Flowers, Mother's Day Flower Sales|Tags: Allen's Flower Market, Allen's Flowers, Atlanta, Carithers Flowers, Columbus, Denver, Flowerama Columbus, Flowers and Company, Houston, Long Beach, Mother's Day Sales 2016, San Diego, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

Flower Shop Sales Blossom

Even though Valentine’s Day fell on Sunday this year, the vast majority of the flower shop clients we support experienced at least some upward growth in year over year net revenue. Most other flower shops around the country were probably not so lucky. Our bet is that flower shops who depend on the wire services for volume likely felt a sharp decline in sales, deliveries and year over year revenues.

Florists in the U.S. went into this years Valentine’s holiday feeling a bit apprehensive. Some we spoke with were openly discouraged by the floral industry projections for the coming holiday. Historically, the floral industry almost always projects lower than normal holiday sales, anytime Valentine’s falls on a Saturday or Sunday. The Society of American Florists (SAF) put out an article in January of this year, which highlighted industry concerns on this point. The article lays out a pretty compelling case that a very negative mindset existed prior to the 2016 Valentine’s Day holiday (See Article)

Flyline Search Marketing® flower shop clients all told us that they were planning to approach the holiday with caution. All felt the weekend issue would create problems. Most honestly felt going into the holiday that industry projections would likely prove accurate. All of our shop owners have years of experience in the industry. They all have years of historical industry trend data of their own. Many commented to us that their data supported the probable decline theory.

Now for some great news. For the flower shop clients we support, the decline did not happen. Why you ask? Our shop owners are some of the most progressive, high level thinkers in the floral industry. They are intelligent marketers and always open to new ideas. All are motivated to find ways to improve and grow their flower shops. Even though they approached Valentine’s with a cautious eye, none asked us to back off of our aggressive, comprehensive marketing approach. Instead, all opted into the notion that this weekend thing was simply another obstacle in the road that needed to be overcome. For the record, we have a great track record of overcoming obstacles and bucking industry trends.

Virtually every flower shop in our group had solid holiday sales results during February. Almost all experienced at least some level of year over year growth in net revenue. While I cannot share the actual numbers with you, lend it to say that all of our shop owners came away feeling like they had significantly beaten industry projections.

When you look at where our shop owners shined, almost all saw increases in credit card sales, call-in sales and online sales results. A few saw nice gains in their wire-out sales volume. Even though Valentine’s Day is the second busiest sales holiday of the year, almost every shop in the group saw a slight decline in in-store shopping.

The only shops in the group that continue to experience positive growth in walk-in sales are our florists in Long Beach and Denver. The Long Beach shop takes a very unique approach to Valentine’s and Mother’s Day. Beginning 48 hours before the actual holiday, they remain open 24 hours a day over the last two days. You would not believe how many people in Long Beach actually shop in the middle of the night. Pretty crazy and not something that would likely work everywhere, but, a solid idea in that unique market. In Denver, they opted for a multi-million dollar store renovation a year or so ago, that has proven to be a great idea. The store is absolutely fabulous. Truly one of the nicest flower and gift shops you will ever see. In-store sales have nearly doubled since the renovation occurred.

If you study enough Analytics data for flower shops, it is clear that most shops across the U.S. are experiencing a decline in-store sales. That seems to be a universal problem throughout the floral industry. A further review of the data will point to the reason for the problem. The data clearly points to a shift in shopping patterns of folks purchasing flowers. More and more people are opting to make their purchases online, in lieu of coming into the shop. The driver behind the shift appears to be the rapid growth in smartphone and tablet usage.

In speaking with our support team at Google, it is clear they are seeing the same trend. They talk often about the continuous growth in overall Internet search traffic. They point to the enormous growth in smartphone usage as the major driver of the ever increasing search traffic.

Did any of you use mobile friendly ads in your Valentine’s PPC campaigns this year? If so, how did those ads perform for you? Did you see increases in click through rates on your mobile ads, as say compared to your desktop and laptop focused text ads? Did any of you try “Call Only” campaigns? If so, we would love to hear how those campaigns performed as well. In our case, we utilize both of those elements, along with a ton of other tools like RLSA, mobile bid adjustments, call extensions and some very sophisticated call tracking scripts and phone tracking platforms.

It is my humble opinion that flower shop owners across the country really need to find a marketing firm who understands the floral industry and partner up with them. The floral industry landscape has become extremely complex. You face challenges that you may not even fully understand. The national order gatherers are becoming more and more aggressive in advertising in your local communities. Most of you are now starting to realize that their presence in local search results is affecting your ability to drive local sales volume. You just cannot stay in business if your only plan is to continue taking orders from them off the wire services. Those orders are becoming less and less valuable. Most of you are starting to figure out that you cannot pay your bills based on the ever decreasing revenue share those orders are providing to you.

We have partnered with a number of shops located throughout the United States. Those flower shops are flourishing, even in these difficult times. They are growing, while at the same time the floral industry continues to see a rapid increase in the number of local flower shops who are closing their doors. They are closing because they can no longer figure out ways to generate a profit. If you are a local flower shop owner, we are here to tell you that there is a way to grow again. We can help you grow, assuming you are willing to strategically partner with us in building your brand and comprehensively marketing your business. We don’t take on all flower shops, but, we do strategically partner with one shop owner in each major market. When we take on a client, our mission is to help that flower shop and the family who owns it to grow and thrive! It might be that Flyline Search Marketing® could be a good fit with you!

Another Valentine’s Day is in the books. I know most of you are happy to get back to normal work schedules and regular delivery volumes for a few months. I know our team didn’t get much sleep during February, so we are definitely ready. With Valentine’s Day behind us, it’s time to start planning for Mother’s Day!

By admin|2017-08-15T11:24:57+00:00March 2nd, 2016|Categories: Florists Valentines Day, Flyline Search Marketing, Valentine's Day Advertising Strategies, Valentine's Day Marketing, Valentines Flowers|Tags: Allen's Flower Market, Allen's Flowers, Carithers Flowers, Flowerama Columbus, Flowers and Company, Valentines Day Sales Results, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

Smart Firms Go Digital

Business owners who insist on sticking to the old traditional way of selling are finding it harder and harder to compete in today’s fast paced environment. We meet folks like this everyday. They are honest, hard working people. They have each built successful businesses by the sweat of their brow. Almost all of them feel they understand their business better than anyone else, yet they find themselves wondering why their revenue growth has seemingly stagnated. Most are afraid of change and thus stuck in proverbial quicksand. They know change is needed, but, don’t have any real idea of what that change should be.

Please don’t mistake what I am saying. These are some of the brightest folks you will ever meet. Most are college grads, all have built successful businesses and lead happy, productive lives. Yet they all seem to find themselves at that same intersection in the road. For years their businesses have grown and flourished. The need to change approach has arrived though and they are simply not sure which fork in the road is the right one to go down. Change seems to be one of the hardest things for the human mind to wrap itself around. Many find it so much easier to just ignore the need for change because they are comfortable with how they have done things over the years. They know that change sometimes brings pain. Change means reinvestment in the business. Change means they are probably going to have to work more hours, like they did when they were first getting started with their businesses.

One of the smartest folks I am blessed to work with is a man named Charles Carithers. He is the owner of Carithers Flowers. Charles has built one of the most successful flower shops in the southeastern United States. We have been right there by his side, helping him to accomplish that impressive feat. Charles often says, there are two key things that he focuses on. The first is reinvention and the second is marketing. He is convinced that maintaining a keen focus on these two things has helped him to grow Carithers Flowers into the successful flower shop that it has become.

Lets talk for a minute about the reinvention piece of the equation for a minute. If you are the owner of a flower shop, or any other business, you probably have certain practices and procedures that you have historically followed in running your company. Many of you have spent years of your lives, honing these practices and operational procedures into a fine edge. You are proud of that accomplishment and have made money sticking to what has worked to keep your business growing all these years. Now, all of the sudden, things have started to change. You are seeing less walk-in traffic in your stores. Competitors are popping up in your industry and they seem to be very tech savvy. These firms have deployed websites. Armed with a website and a high tech work team, these new kids on the block are fast gaining ground on your business and that concerns you. The truth is, they will catch up to you, and pass you, if you don’t embrace change!

Reinvention can mean a lot of things to different people. For the sake of this discussion, I choose to think of it as a means of challenging yourself, and your employees, to find ways to drop the traditional methodology in favor of a different way of doing things. Here is one example of how Charles Carithers approaches reinvention. For years, he built his business around the traditional brick and mortar approach to growing a flower shop. As his business grew, he opened store after store, all over the Atlanta area. To provide flower orders for each new store, he traditionally counted on walk-in traffic and wire in flower orders from BloomNet and other sources. This approach worked for years and Carithers grew into a huge flower business. Then one day, Charles realized that growth had stagnated. Instead of living off his past success, he smartly realized that change was needed. He quickly began to dismantle the traditional business he and his family had worked so hard to create. Charles hired our firm to help him compete and evolve his firm, using growth opportunities offered via the new digital advertising space.

What I am telling you is this. Charles literally scraped the traditional business approach and started all over again. Most would never have had the courage, nor the conviction to do such a thing. It’s not unusual to see business owners unload and sell off their businesses at that point. Most would never have the energy to go through the pain of the reinvention. That is what I love about Charles Carithers. He isn’t afraid of any challenge! Instead, he embraces change and makes it a part of his operational strategy. The employees who work for him have come to realize that change is a good thing. He challenges them all to find ways to be better at what they do. His management style and approach is designed to encourage employees to evolve and to compete and I am telling you, it is working!

Now lets talk about the marketing piece of the equation for a minute. I am going to use flower shops as an example for the sake of this part of the discussion. Many of the flower shop owners I meet tell me that they are willing to dedicate 5% of sales, back to a marketing program. I ask them where they came up with 5% of sales as the magic number. They give me all kinds of reasons for it, but, at the end of the day they are just trying to do what others in their industry are telling them they do. Most flower shop owners belong to various floral groups. These floral user groups share information about tactics and strategies and things like marketing budgets. Oh I don’t blame flower shop owners for going to these group meetings. They do learn lots of things that are helpful.

If it were me, I would watch what innovators like Charles Carithers are doing. If I owned a flower shop, I would also study what the largest florists in the industry are doing. That would require spending time and energy analyzing companies like 1-800 Flowers, FTD, Teleflora and ProFlowers. These firms are all enjoying huge success in the flower business. Yes I agree. Studying these firms isn’t rocket science, it’s just common sense. A number of these large florists are public companies. That means they are required to publish an annual report. These annual reports include information about those firms strategies. They also contain statements about anticipated benefits and future financial projections on revenues, operating expenses, market trends, cash flows and uses of cash. That means you can glean information from their annual reports to help you better understand how much they spend on marketing. Let is suffice to say, they are not reinvesting 5% of their sales back into marketing. In fact, they are spending more like 12% – 15% of sales on marketing.

[button link=”http://investor.ftdcompanies.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1047469-14-2022&CIK=1575360″ color=”custom” size=”large” type=”” shape=”pill” target=”_blank” title=”” gradient_colors=”#8224e3|#8224e3″ gradient_hover_colors=”#dd3333|#dd3333″ accent_color=”#b5b5b5″ accent_hover_color=”#8c8c8c” bevel_color=”” border_width=”2px” shadow=”no” icon=”” icon_divider=”yes” icon_position=”left” modal=”” animation_type=”0″ animation_direction=”down” animation_speed=”0.1″ alignment=”center” class=”” id=””]Peruse The 2014 Form 10K Annual Report Filed By FTD[/button]

Let me ask you this question. Does it make more sense to follow the lead of ultra successful florists, or should you stick to the traditional way you have always managed? I guess the answer to that question will lie in whether you are open to change or stuck in quicksand. Business owners with an open mind can evolve and win. If you choose to avoid the fray, you may find yourself owning a company that is becoming increasingly less productive and valuable. My advice, embrace change and evolve. The new digital advertising arena is kind of rocket science stuff, but, it offers change and possibility for growth and success.

If you are ready to take the next step, but, realize you aren’t knowledgeable enough to head in that direction on your own, give us a call. We can help you. Our approach is unique and our track record of success is on record for all to see. When we agree to take on a new client, we don’t just view ourselves as a vendor. Instead, we focus on becoming an extension of the business owner. To that end, we seek to find business owners who are actually looking for a strategic partner, and not just another vendor to do a task. When we find those types of folks, we step right in and take ownership and responsibility in helping them grow their firms. Not to sound redundant, but, our work, effort and performance are second to none! Ask companies like Carithers Flowers, Veldkamp’s Flowers, Flowerama of Columbus and Allen’s Flowers. We have helped these firms to achieve new levels of success. We also help lots of firms in other industries, such as; Gwinnett Medical Center. All will tell you that we have stepped right in and played a major role in helping them to implement growth strategies and achieve their goals. For us, it’s about relationships and driving success for those we serve. We see ourselves as servants and appreciate the chance to be part of the team. Money is a secondary component and not what motivates us. We just love finding family owned businesses who are worth spending our life energy to help. We enjoy helping other families and thrive on bringing these types of businesses back to a vibrant state. It’s friendship, trust and respect we seek, not a paycheck.

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By admin|2015-06-11T13:05:22+00:00June 11th, 2015|Categories: Advertising For Florists, Affordable Web Design, Digital Marketing Agency, Google Partner|Tags: Advertising Agency, Allen's Flowers, Carithers Flowers, Flowerama Columbus, Gwinnett Medical Center, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

Mother’s Day Sales Hit New Levels

The floral industry seems to be in a constant state of change. Many small to medium flower shop owners find themselves struggling to make a profit. At the same time, a number of large order gatherers appear to be flourishing. Even with all the turbulence, florists we serve are all experiencing strong, steady growth. The week of Mother’s Day was no exception. Each shop in our floral group achieved solid growth in sales and revenues. Several reported the strongest Mother’s Day sales in their firms histories!

The two largest flower occasions of the year are Valentine’s Day and Mothers’ Day. Both are extremely challenging for flower shop owners. For example, our florists all buy farm-direct. Buying direct has some huge benefits in terms of the quality and variety of flowers they can offer. It also comes with risk during a week like Mother’s Day. Most of the flower farms require a partial payment for each flower order at the time the order is placed. With final payment being due at the time the flowers are actually cut, wrapped and shipped. Meaning, florists who buy direct from the growers spend huge sums of money before the first Mother’s Day order has ever been taken.

Once the flowers arrive, the next big issue becomes inventory management. How do you store thousands and thousands of fresh cut flowers, and not loose them to spoilage before the Mother’s Day orders begin to flow. Our shop owners are incredibly bright folks. All have installed massive cooler systems, capable of maintaining the precise temperatures needed to effectively store fresh cut flowers. The secret is to ensure the blooms stay closed while in storage. The goal is the design the arrangement and have the blooms open precisely when the arrangement is delivered to the recipient. During Mother’s Day, flower storage capacity is always an issue. The sheer volume of product needed to fulfill all the orders that come through during the holiday is staggering. Solving that problem requires creativity on the part of each shop owner. For most, the answer lies in positioning huge refrigerated trailers on-site. These refrigerated units provide the additional temporary storage space required to handle the massive influx of product.

The challenges don’t end there. In fact, the difficulty factor just seems to keep ramping up for the flower shop owners during Mother’s Day. The next major issue the face is manpower. Most flower shops maintain staffing levels designed to get them through the everyday business of designing and delivering fresh cut flowers. Mother’s Day requires a far different strategy. Our shop owners are extremely busy year round. When Mother’s Day rolls around, they are always under pressure to find a way to effectively increase staffing levels, while maximizing the available floor space in their shops. That isn’t an easy task.

For our shop owners, holiday hiring begins well in advance of Mother’s Day week. The call center has to be beefed up. These sales people have to be trained and field tested before the holiday arrives. Floral design staff schedules have to be tweaked. Holiday production runs have to be completed, while still fulfilling other commitments, such as; weddings and events that may also be on the May calendar. Most of the shop owners we support maintain a staff of part time designers. During Mother’s Day, full time and part time designers all come together in concert to handle the spike in work loads. Staffing challenges are also something shop owners have to deal with in other parts of the operation. Delivery is a mission critical component of every flower shop. This is a task that often keeps many a flower shop owner up late at night. During holidays like Mother’s Day, it not unusual to see one of our florists personally work 80 or more hour during the week. We would know that because our staff is also at it day and night working to ensure our marketing program is delivering optimal results. We routinely trade emails with our shop owners in the middle of the night during Mother’s Day week. Really!!

The flower shop owners we support all enjoy a steady stream of business each day. We focus much of our energy teaching them how to successfully make money year round. Keeping the shops busy during normal months is mission critical to having them ready for peak periods. The busy daily schedules have lead to the development of some pretty sophisticated delivery operations in most of the shops. All of our shop owners provide nationwide same day delivery. Most offer local rush delivery, and several offer express local delivery. The express delivery option enables customers to select the actual time of day they want the arrangement to be delivered.

Flower delivery is to say the least a very challenging piece of the business. You are dealing with a perishable product. That perishable product has been expertly designed into a magnificent floral arrangement. Then that gorgeous flower arrangement must be carefully loaded into a delivery vehicle, with no damage to the flowers. It must be kept stable during transport to the recipient. The flowers must not get too hot, nor too cold during this transportation process. Delivery routes must be constructed to ensure the drivers can get the arrangements to the intended recipient within the agreed to time frames. During Mother’s Day, drivers are expected to handle multiple delivery runs each day. That requires the delivery management team to build delivery routes that maximize the value and effectiveness of each drivers available hours.

Holidays like Mother’s Day challenge every single department within a flower shop. If all departments aren’t properly managed, the end result can be disastrous for the shop owner. If you are a flower shop owner, the last thing you want is to have hundreds of unhappy customers who either didn’t receive their Mother’s Day flowers on time, or received an arrangement that wasn’t in top condition. The thing I love most about the shop owners we support is this. For them, Mother’s Day isn’t just about trying to make money. There vision of Mother’s Day is much more than that. It’s about keeping a commitment to customers they value. That commitment is to ensure that each Mom they serve receives a masterfully crafted fresh cut flower arrangement. Each arrangement is crafted with love and designed to exceed the expectations of the sender and recipient. Our shop owners focus on quality, luxury and customer satisfaction. They steer clear of the tactics and strategies used by the large order gatherers and drop ship florists. Mother’s Day is special. It’s about celebrating relationships with the special people in our lives that make this world a better place. It’s awesome to be working with florists who have such lofty ideals.

In truth, we are extremely blessed to serve such a distinguished group of flower shop owners. Our firm is fortunate to work with companies like Carithers Flowers, Veldkamp’s Flowers, Allen’s Flowers, Flowerama and a number of others. Every single florist in our group is currently experiencing strong growth. They all enjoyed nice increases in sales and revenues during Mother’s Day. These increases weren’t just from online sales efforts. Our marketing program also delivered significant growth in their call-in’s, walk-in’s, wire outs and credit card sales as well. How do we know that our shop owners are out performing their peer group? Each shop owner we support participates in various floral industry user groups. These user groups all share high level financial and operational results data. Our shop owners indicate to us that their Mother’s Day sales performance far outpaced other shop owners in their user groups.

It is our mission to be the very best marketing firm in the floral industry. We won’t stop until we achieve that mission. When you work with our team, it won’t take you long to see just how relentless we are in pursuing success for your firm. Don’t take our word for it. Just ask the shop owners we support. Every flower shop owner we currently support is extremely happy with our performance. Most of them are now opting for multi-year service agreements with us. They have seen the value we deliver and know first hand how dedicated our team is to generating results for them. We aspire to be a true strategic partner to all those we serve. Nothing is more gratifying than when one of our flower shop owners decides to tell others about the great work we are doing for them.

By admin|2015-05-18T10:20:22+00:00May 18th, 2015|Categories: Mother's Day, Mother's Day Flower Sales, Online Sales For Flower Shops|Tags: Allen's Flower Market, Allen's Flowers, Carithers Flowers, Flower Shop Marketing, Flowerama Columbus, mother's day flower sales, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

Flowers & Company Hires Flyline Search Marketing

Flowers & Company of Houston, Texas, has hired Flyline Search Marketing to design and deliver a comprehensive marketing program for their firm. The Flowers and Company firm is owned by the Aaron family. Bryan Aaron is the President and day to day manager of the flower shop. The Flowers and Company design center is physically located in Pasadena.

Flowers & Company employs a team of professional delivery drivers. Each driver is specifically trained in the art of hauling and delivering floral products. The folks at Flowers and Company offer nationwide same day delivery. If you live in the Houston area, you can also take advantage of their express local delivery service. They provide same day express delivery in: Atascocita, Baytown, Bellaire, Channelview, Conroe, Crosby, Deer Park, Friendswood, Galena Park, Houston, Humble, Katy, Kemah, La Porte, League City, Manvel, Missouri City, Pasadena, Pearland, Seabrook, South Houston, Spring, Stafford, Webster and The Woodlands.

The floral design professionals at Flowers and Company are true artisans. They design some of the most stunning flower arrangements found anywhere in the state of Texas. Flowers and Company has actually been designing and hand delivering flowers in the Houston area since 1986. The Aaron family has always taken great pride in the flower arrangements they delivery. They stand behind every arrangement they create. When you purchase flowers from Flowers and Company, you can take comfort in the fact that all products come with Bryan Aaron’s personal 100% customer satisfaction guarantee! If you don’t like what Bryan’s team has created for you, just contact the Flowers and Company office at (281) 487-1896. They will replace that floral arrangement with one of equal or greater value, at absolutely no charge to you.

Flowers and Company hired Flyline Search Marketing in February of 2015. Bryan Aaron advised that he was impressed by the results we are generating for two other flower shops, who participate in the floral group that he is a member of. Our team is already well underway in deploying our comprehensive Internet marketing program for them. In just our first month of serving Flowers and Company, they experienced an increase in online sales transactions of 109.4%. In March, online sales grew by approximately 193%. Historically, clients we serve routinely experience monthly online sales increases ranging from 30%, up to 65%.

Flower shops that we support include some of the most prominent and successful florists in the country. We handle marketing services for companies like Carithers Flowers in Atlanta, Veldkamp’s Flowers in Denver and Allen’s Flowers in San Diego. All three of these shops are extremely well known throughout the floral industry. Our program is designed to deliver industry leading online sales growth. We don’t stop there. Using our strategic marketing approach, we can also deliver eye popping additional financial benefits, such as; increases in call-in and walk-in sales, as well as improvements in overall credit card sales as well.

Our marketing approach has proven successful in market after market. We have delivered marketing services for flower shops in major markets such as; Albuquerque, Atlanta, Columbus, Denver, Houston, Long Beach, Reseda and San Diego. The results produced have been equally stunning, regardless of the website platform that we have been asked to work with. Deploying our marketing strategies with different e-commerce platforms has allowed us to refine and customize our program, based on the type of website our client is using.

Our staff is now very familiar with the flower industries most popular floral website platforms. For example, we have a great working knowledge of the Gravity Free website and support a number of flower shops who utilize that platform. We enjoy a great working relationship with Scott Heaps and his super talented team. We also have a great working relationship with the Ozment family. They created a new, fully customized floral website of their own. They own Flowerama of Columbus and also own and operate 3 other Flowerama branded flower shops in Reynoldsburg, Westerville and Whitehall. We working with Steve, Kara, Andrea and Bob Ozment. They are just outstanding folks and have created a pretty incredible floral website. They have given us permission to discuss their site with prospective clients we encounter.

We routinely meet flower shop owners who utilize Teleflora or FTD template sites. We encourage those shop owners to consider our floral platform. Flyline Search Marketing offers an extremely affordable and highly effective e-commerce website, specifically designed for flower shops. The framework is fully responsive, making the site mobile friendly. It comes with a ton of great features, such as the ability to sell on Facebook and Ebay, the ability to generate your own Google Product Feeds, email integration with either an internal email system, Constant Contact or MailChimp, a user focused product review module and bulk product import and export capabilities, just to name a few. Our floral platform delivers excellent results, especially when paired with our comprehensive marketing program.

In the case of Flowers and Company, our client Bryan Aaron, will be licensing use of the new custom website designed by the Ozment family. That is exciting for all involved. We get another opportunity to demonstrate our ability to work our magic on a third party website. The Ozments get the chance to show the industry that their platform can be equally productive, when deployed outside of the state of Ohio. The folks at Flowers and Company are the biggest winners. They will be the beneficiaries of all the sales and revenue that comes as a result of deploying one of the best websites in the floral industry, coupled with arguably one of the floral industries most productive marketing agencies.

By admin|2015-04-03T19:41:11+00:00April 3rd, 2015|Categories: Flowers and Company, Flyline Search Marketing, Website Design|Tags: Allen's Flower Market, Allen's Flowers, Carithers Flowers, Flowerama Columbus, Marketing For Florists, Veldkamp's Flowers, Websites For Flower Shops|Comments Off

Marketing For Florists

Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2015

The Flyline Search Marketing team is totally immersed in Valentine’s Day marketing activities for the flower shop owners we support. Our staff is literally working round the clock to ensure every florist in our floral group achieves their financial goals this Valentine’s Day.

4 Days Left Until Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day Online Sales (February 1 – February 10)

Online Sales Generated = 2,837

Online Revenue Generated = $313,582

There are four days remaining in the Valentine’s flower season. If you haven’t purchased Valentine’s flowers for your special someone, you are running out of time. Most small to medium sized flower shops are running out of flowers and delivery capacity. The smallest have likely already taken all of the order volume that they can handle. The larger independent flower shops, like the ones we support, are still able to take and fill orders due to their ability to order direct from the flower growers. The last four days of the Valentine’s season are historically the strongest sales days of the year for the larger shops. The numbers shown above should increase dramatically over the next few days.

The Flyline Search Marketing team has a ton of experience in marketing flower shops. In fact, this year represents the sixth year that we have planned and managed Valentine’s Day advertising for Carithers Flowers. We received our baptism of fire back in February of 2009 with them. What an experience that turned out to be. People who have never experienced life in a flower shop during Valentine’s will never fully grasp the magnitude of the endeavor. Valentine’s is the single busiest day of the entire year for virtually every flower shop in the country. The second busiest day is Mother’s Day.

In addition to Carithers Flowers, we also handle marketing responsibilities for other regionally and nationally known flower shops, including such notables as; Allen’s Flowers in San Diego, Allen’s Flower Market in Long Beach, Flowerama in Columbus, Flowers and Company in Pasadena and Veldkamp’s Flowers in Denver. Many of the flower shops in our floral group have opted into log term strategic relationships with us. Quite frankly, that makes great sense for the flower shop owners and for our firm. The level of success that we have achieved for the shop owners we support has set the bar pretty high for other competing advertising agencies. Part of the reason that our floral clients are doing so well is the fact that we integrate into their businesses as a strategic partner. We are not just a vendor selling services.

Each flower shop in our group benefits from the knowledge we have gleaned from years of specializing in marketing for florists. They also benefit from the highly refined and incredibly effective tactics and platforms we bring to the table. One example is our Google Adwords program. The success of our floral group is all the proof you need that our Adwords program provides a huge tactical advantage for those we serve. That program was originally created in January of 2009 and has been enhanced and fine tuned over the past 6 years. It literally has morphed into a tactical weapon, that drives stunning results in every city that we have deployed it in.

On to the subject of Valentine’s Day marketing. We utilize a strategic mix of tools for market each shop during Valentine’s. Platforms we use include; Google Adwords, Bing Search, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Blogging, Press Releases, Email Blasts and a few more. We strategically utilize each platform to maximize exposure for our clients and to position them to effectively compete with all of the national order gatherers who always advertise heavy during floral holidays like Valentine’s. The key to the whole strategy lies not in just the tactics and strategies we use during Valentine’s, but, in the way we strategically market each client year round. The PPC landscape is a crowded ad space during all major holidays. If you haven’t laid the necessary ground work during the year, you aren’t likely going to see huge profits by just advertising during the holidays.

To achieve best in class results, you need a comprehensive marketing program. If you are wise, you will hire a firm like Flyline Search Marketing, who brings a dedicated team of professionals to the table. A talented team like ours can actively manage your program and all the related platforms, to achieve optimal results. Lets face it, flower shop owners have their hands full just trying to run the shop. This is especially true during holidays like Valentine’s. If anyone works as many hours as we do, it’s the flower shop owners we support. These dedicated folks handle everything from ordering product, to order capture and entry, to designing and delivering arrangements. Oh and did I mention, they are have to find time to handle HR issues, such as staffing, training, monitoring work flow and quality control of designs headed out the door and bound for the excited recipients.

By admin|2015-02-10T17:03:10+00:00February 10th, 2015|Categories: Marketing For Florists, Valentine's Day Advertising Strategies, Valentine's Day Marketing|Tags: Allen's Flower Market, Allen's Flowers, Carithers Flowers, Flowerama Columbus, Flowers and Company, Veldkamp's Flowers|Comments Off

Flower Shop Growth Rates Off The Charts

Data from The Society of American Florists indicates that the number of locally owned and operated flower shops in the United States continues to decline at an alarming rate. This downward trend has been going on for years. Industry leaders and flower shop owners have all shared opinions and feelings about what they feel are the root causes. In our estimation, there are likely many factors that are truly to blame. One red flag that stands out to us is, we see far too many local flower shops who don’t know how to effectively generate sales leads for their organizations. Relying too heavily on wire-in order volume could potentially be a formula for disaster, if you haven’t laid the proper ground work to win with that business model. Our advice. Learn how to generate your own sales leads.

While the floral industry continues it’s shake out, flower shops supported by Flyline Search Marketing continue to grow at astonishing rates! We routinely hear back from our flower shop owners that their growth rates far exceed those of other flower shop owners in the industry floral groups they participate in. Why are they doing so well you ask? The secret lies in the great vision and leadership of folks like Charles Carithers, Brad Levy and John Veldkamp.

These florists didn’t just hire a marketing vendor to do some work. Instead, they chose to treat us with great respect and to add us to their team as a strategic partner. They placed their unwavering belief in us that we could successfully drive positive change for their businesses. Then they gave us the latitude to do our job to the best of our ability. Some think we are far too quick in taking on the heavy burden of helping a flower shop to turn their fortunes around. Heck, where we come from, we call that opportunity! Who wouldn’t want the chance to partner with some of the greatest families in the flower business. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to help these families thrive, while at the same time giving us the chance to deliver stunning results and prove that we are the best marketing team in the floral industry.

The florists we serve are truly some of the brightest and most innovative minds in the floral industry. Most of them prefer to leave the industry spotlight to others. The vast majority of them actually seem to favor maintaining an effective degree of anonymity. These folks are simply brilliant, tactically gifted, forward thinkers who are the some of the most successful people in their industry. Oh the truth be told, not everyone we have served falls into this category, although the vast majority have truly embraced the value of a strategic partnership with our firm. At the end of the day, we can honestly say that we put every ounce of energy we have into our service. To those who continue to put their faith in us, we are honored, thankful and truly blessed for the chance to serve you and your family. Thank you for allowing us to contribute to your success.

What Flyline Search Marketing ultimately brings to the table is an incredibly well thought out strategy, a comprehensive marketing approach, industry leading PPC platform designs, relentless drive, a competitive spirit and and dogged determination to drive success for those we serve. It’s not money that motivates us. It is the chance to be a part of something special. We relish the challenge of helping a flower shop owner go from good to great! We will always place a higher value on our clients success than we will ever place on our own. Those who place their faith and trust in us are rewarded. We are fiercely loyal and never rest until the families we serve have achieved their goals. For those that say they don’t understand, it is not your money we desire. Instead, we seek to earn your lasting friendship, trust and respect. That is just how we are wired!

The Flyline Search Marketing team out works and out performs those we compete with. If you want to beat us, you had better plan to spend a ton of sleepless nights because while you are sleeping, we plan to be up kicking your backside. You can ask the florists we serve, our team will work whatever hours are necessary to ensure we deliver on the promise! Our program has been deployed in some of the largest and most competitive cities in the United States. It has delivered results in all of them. We are talking cities such as; Atlanta, Albuquerque, Columbus, Denver, San Diego, Long Beach and more. As new clients have partnered with us, our knowledge and ability to identify local and regional demographic differences has steadily gotten stronger. In addition, the new marketing opportunities have allowed us to continually refine our approach and platform designs. Our advertising program was capable of delivering a seven digit annual revenue result five years ago. Today it has morphed into a strategic weapon, designed to deliver astonishing results for florists who partner with us. The truth is in the sales results. Flower shop owners we support have significantly grown their brand strength and now hold commanding, dominant positions in the markets they choose to operate in.

Couple visionary leadership with the best marketing program in the industry, sounds like a formula for a very successful, long term business partnership. Are you interested in working with us?

By admin|2014-11-18T00:41:17+00:00November 18th, 2014|Categories: Advertising For Florists, Flower Shop Marketing, Internet Marketing For Florists, Local Florists, Local Flower Shops|Tags: Allen's Flowers, Ben Veldkamp, Brad Levy, Carithers Flowers, Charles Carithers, Flowerama Columbus, Harry Goldman, John Veldkamp, Local Flower Shop Marketing, Paul Goldman, Peoples Flowers, Steve Ozment, Veldkamp's Flowers, Wayne Pollack|Comments Off

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