What Percentage Of Your Customers Are Men?

Even in today's society, it is still women that are the main recipient of flowers as gifts.

That means for the most part, you need to target men as customers, as logically, they buy flowers as gifts. 

Birthdays, anniversaries etc are the main reason for a man to buy flowers so why should they not buy them from you.

The other reason to market to men is that genetically and psychologically, men are not that spontaneous when it comes to popping into a florist and buying flowers just because. They generally need a reason, an event, both as a psychological trigger and a motivating factor to do it.

If you could increase the number of times a man purchases flowers by just once a year for their someone special, think how much you could generate in terms of increased business. If you could increase that to several more times a year while adding more men to your customer base, even better.

The problem with marketing specifically to men is that they don’t usually engage with the content florists produce and use for marketing and posting content etc on the various social channels.

How many of your Instagram or FB followers are men?

A different approach is needed. 

Why should you do it? 

Well apart from the reasons above, you will be quite unique as there are a tiny amount of florists that have anything close to targeted marketing or content specifically for men.

Hmm says you, but if I just advertise generally they will see the ads or use Google or know where the shop is as they are local.

That is a common misconception from a lot of business owners regardless of industry.

If you advertise generally, they may see the ad but it doesn’t necessarily drive them to take action.

If you don’t rank on top of Google then search is not an option.

They are local. Maybe or maybe they just work in that area and drive in and out and don’t know you exist. Even local people don’t know all the different shops in their local area. 

If you want more business, you have to do something to get it. You can’t just sit and expect it to come.

Florists, like the majority of other small business owners, fail to grasp the importance of marketing, especially to a targeted segment of their customer base. Even if they consider it, a lot of the time they fail to find a way to effectively accomplish it.

With florists generally having lower profits per sale and relying on quantity of sales to maintain and grow their businesses, every effort should be made to maximise the visibility of YOUR business. Often, this is difficult from several perspectives.

A florist business is very hands on and time consuming, there is not always time to consistently work on other things such as marketing.

There has to be a certain knowledge level involved to effect good marketing so that lends from the above reason in the time it takes to learn and execute the marketing.

Certain avenues of marketing can be expensive, paid ads from Google or Facebook are effective but not necessarily the most cost effective action. SEO services from an agency can run to £1500 a month and search rankings are not guaranteed.

So, with that in mind, what options do you have left?

Number one are some things you are already using or should be, Instagram and Facebook.

While you post beautiful images of bouquets, wedding setups and everything else that you create, it doesn’t appeal or trigger the IG algorithm to show the content to a male audience.

What you need to do is create some male biassed content. How do you do that, think like a guy.

Have you done any football related arrangements, club badges in flowers, part of a wreath etc. It's more male content by association. What you need to do is create posts with that imagery but adjust your captions / written content. Add specific words such as the club name, the term football etc to your content in order to trigger the algorithm to show it to a more male oriented audience.

Images of button holes for men for weddings, posts that target specific events such as anniversaries and birthdays that provide reminders for guys to buy flowers for that special day. Anything that you can think of that will get your social content in front of a male audience.

Next up is an old but effective strategy. Good old flyers.

Usually a florist will produce flyers with images of wonderful floral creations and messaging of their services. Not the way to do it this time.

Think MAN. 

Think forgetful, non spontaneous, easily distracted, and requiring some form of specific imagery or wording to grab their attention.

These flyers will go into shop windows, onto notice boards, into businesses etc, anywhere there is a male audience.

The content on the flyer should be male inspired, along with the written creative, whether that is once again reminding them of anniversaries, birthdays or just to be nice and do something spontaneous. 

Fortunately, Connectionably For Florists has this covered.

A pre designed flyer that targets men with both it's imagery and messaging is available FREE for all subscribers to Connectionably For Florists.

Next up is radio. 

How many people listen to a radio when they are working, at home or in the car.

Advertising on the radio can be effective and a lot cheaper than you would think. Contact your local station and ask about pricing and concessions for small businesses running their first trial ad.

Once again, target your male audience with specific language that appeals.

Done that flyer thing, use the same imagery etc in an ad in the local paper.

Look for local online directories or ‘what's on in your area’ type sites. Put some male targeted ads on there.

Local football clubs should have a club magazine or newsletter, get that ad in there.

The main point behind all this is the messaging and targeting, it must target the male mind.

With the right messaging and imagery etc, you can increase your customer base and income from a primary product purchaser.

While these marketing opportunities will bring in new clients, you ideally want to turn those clients into repeat customers.

In order to do this you need to have a CRM database that captures and stores customers details and their marketing consent options when they come to buy from you. This will allow you to remarket to them and keep them coming back.

You can read about the importance of a CRM in this article and you can read about Connectionably For Florists built in marketing system here

If you have questions about how to go about any of the things mentioned here feel free to contact me.

If all that still seems too much and you need a more efficient way to do it, Connectionably For Florists has a built in marketing system and CRM that automates virtually the whole process. There is a minimal amount of initial work required to get it running and it is designed not only to generate new customers, but to increase theirs and any existing customers that sign up,  lifetime spend through repeat business.

Feel free to make any enquiries or visit  Connectionably For Florists