August 2014

You can find all kinds of words throughout the industry for marketing, sales, and to individualize a company from order-gather’s and the like. What do or your company use to separate yourself from the rest? What words are you using to extend your reach on the internet and to your consumers? We found only a few of our favorites and also some statistics on how certain words are affecting you, your company, and the industry as a whole. There will be some personal opinions and thoughts as we go along also and we always welcome yours in the comments here or on social media.

Negative Word Associations

This week we will start with the negative as we here at floral.today always prefer to get that out of the way first.


- Email Marketing -

One of the best ways to get yourself and company out to the masses is the most underutilized of all marketing in the floral industry is email marketing. As this is free and easy to do it's a very easy way to get mass amounts of information but only if your smart with your words. The first thing that all your recipients will see along with all the ads from other stores, credit cards, or individuals is the Email Subject Line. Jay Baer's 15 Email Statistics That Are Shaping The Future at Convince&Convert tells us 69% of people will report an email spam by just the email subject line while 35% will open an email purely because of the subject line. 


- Social Media -

As a visual industry everybody sees what we are doing and if they aren't you are becoming irrelevant without even realizing it. With 75% of adults on the internet using social media this has become the new 'Face' of your business as most people 16-60 go to the internet to find services along with reviews, ratings, and pictures to see if they want to even go to a location physically. So the way you word your posts can seem winded, exhibit good or bad emotions, like or dislike for products, and even a like or dislike for employees and customers all through simple wording. We live in a digital world filled with people that like to make a mountain out of an ant hill so a simple phrase or post with the wrong wording can create a very quick exodus of consumers or industry colleagues. 



Interestingly enough, words to avoid are associated with these groups Sales, Charity, Slang/Trend Words the most according to MailChimp, one of the most recognized emailing and internet marketing websites.


Sales - Avoid using %off, help, sale, discounted, save, don't miss, and last chance. Every major retailer has stuffed this down consumers throats for so many years that society has an automatic negative effect to seeing it in an email versus a store front. Most consumers will not even look at the company and just delete these emails especially on phone or mobile devises. 


Charity - Avoid using Donate, Help, Assistance. Before you go crazy see reason. People that receive these emails associate these very quickly with spammers that steal money or mass donation sites that repeatedly ask for donations after you donate.


Slang/Trend Words - Avoid using LOL, Awesome, YOLO, Cray-Cray and all others. Firstly you've instantly started off your interaction with your consumer as very immature. Never sacrifice your social intellect to try and seem like your keeping up with the youth.


Situational Suggestive Words - Avoid using suggestive words unless you know the audience you are servicing it to will all appreciate it. If a few people get offended that may be fine but loosing to many or loosing influential consumers can be bad for business.

Positive Word Association


- Email Marketing -

For those interested in trying email marketing there are many different service we suggest you check out. There are many different services that help you to get out to the masses without to much effort while still assembling a good looking product (email) for your consumer. Make sure to click on their links to go check them out. Our two suggestions to try out email marketing would be MailChimp and Mad MiMi Email Marketing as they are easy to use and you can start getting those well thought out words out there for a better presence and consumer awareness.


- Social Media Posts-

As the new 'Face' of your business, just like in life you have to watch what you say since with the simplest words you can elevate the image people have of you and your company. Though designers and business owners "don't have time" for social media they need to get on the train before others start taking their business. We suggest Hootsuite to help manage your social media for you. This always you to post an almost all your social media at one time and schedule it months ahead of time to reduce the time trying to do it every so many days. Try and be as short and sweet with your words when posting on social media to capture a persons attention as most people only read the first 2-4 lines of a post and then move on. To use your words to best affect post pictures and link, posts with a well worded explanation of what is in the link or post or why they should click on it can be kept really short with enough buzz words and it also lets your work speak for itself instead of trying to explain what's already there. If you need an example check out Blumz by JRDesigns, Floral and Event Professionals as they take the time to try and connect with their consumers through good short interaction and their loyal 4.3k followers are your proof.


Positive words to use when posting!


Sales - Descriptive Words, 1-2 Lines Minimum, Excitement Words, Proper Names and Terms. When you use words such as extravagance, delicious or other descriptive words create an emotional connection where they look into the post to find those descriptions to experience the post. The shorter the better as very few have an attention span now a days. Using emotional response again you can get them excited by using emotionally responsive words yourself just be careful of using to many capital letters. Those that matter will always appreciate when you use proper names and terms as it shows professionalism and how seriously you take your industry and craft. 


Charity - Fundraise. Of all the words used in trying to raise money for any type of charity, scholarship or really anything the most responsive word to get the most clicks is fundraise as it sounds exactly like what your doing, raising funds for something. Your should avoid writing a lot in a post as most people will ignore your post for being to long, create a link with all the particulars and have a brief post linking to your post.


Slang/Trend Words - Not to much to give you here. Wen you use proper english, you present yourself and your company on a professional level and show good social intellect. Avoid being that one immature designer and keep your industry and consumer image presentable with good posts and content.


Situational Suggestive Words - Our favorite word right now that is perfect for this situation is 'Florgasm', as this team has been able to keep their professionalism and design skill at such a level that the name of the company doesn't outshine them and become overly scandalous. It grasps your attention and makes you wonder but it doesn't step to over the line of being inappropriate. Make sure that using a word that can be scandalous or attention getting that you don't lose yourself and your company in a word that is bigger than you'll ever be. It takes a big personality and sometimes a few to be able to use such words as florgasmic and still maintain a level of professionalism while still having fun.

You should never underestimate the power the words you are sharing have so always be wary how it can affect your business and career. Sadly floral.today has found people that we won’t be able to work with until they work on their professional presentation to the industry because of how they use their social media in industry groups or personal pages about industry content. As we work on our grammar and word use we challenge you to always to and elevate yourself and how you use your words on the internet when it comes to your company, you or the industry because you never know who is watching you and how it will affect your future.

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Unlike yesterday’s post full of our opinions and thoughts about your personal floral health, today we have collected articles and thoughts about what florists may be missing when it comes to running their business. Please keep in mind we are not business experts or doctors here at Floral.today, we just have observations and know how to google solutions to some of the issues we see or drive us crazy. For the floral industry to stay strong for many more years to come we the floral designers, crafters and professionals need to stay on top of ourselves and good business. For today we will give you links for each category provided and only 1-3 comments of what our favorite or thought was very educational about said article. So Here We Go!

Business Practices That Go Unnoticed or Get Ignored Do To Stress Or Being "To Busy"

- Employee/Customer Relations
- Owner/Employee Relations
- Online Reviews and Comments
- Industry or Business Image
- Product Sales or Organization
- Business Issues
- Scheduling or Meetings

Employees and Customer Relations

How often have watched your employees sell your products and company to people on the phone or in-store? Even if they have been at your store for 15-30 years they should be representing your company to the very best of their ability and treat every customer as their next pay check. When your customers walk out your door, no matter who they spoke to at your business, the customer should not have a single reason to doubt your companies professionalism and quality and most of the shoppers experience will be placed on the shoulders of your employees.

Owner and Employee Relationships

Are you friends with all of your employees while at work or are you their boss? There is always the struggle of keeping your employees happy but still being a boss. Your employees must always understand that you not a charity and at the end of the day you are running a business and they were hired to do a job. It is also important to make sure that employees understand that you are not running a high school, so they can keep their grips and moans at home about work, each other or any other plethora of topics that have nothing to do with doing their job. This makes for a acid filled workplace that can only lead to a mess of issues at the end of the day. What can you do show you support your employees to better them and your company?

Online Reviews and Comments

Good, mediocre or bad reviews or comments, you should always try your very best to address them all. For the good or mediocre, a response to the personals review or comment can show you value you customers and their opinions. Especially with mediocre and bad reviews you should always be on top of responding in a timely manner. When other’s see that you tried to professionally and calmly rectify the issue or problem they see your professionalism and wether the person with the review was right or wrong in other’s eyes you will be given a chance do to your professionalism and your caring about your customers. You don’t have to give the whole shop to a person but a simple “Thank you, we appreciate your business and support”, or “We sincerely apologize for this mishap, please feel free to contact us so we can fix this issue you for you right away”. It’s all about serving that professional controlled face to people even when you are ready to throw things. According to PricewaterhouseCoopersLLC in 2012 83% of consumers checked reviews, comments, and social media before actually going into or contacting a brick and mortar store.

Business Image

We live in the world of judging a book by it’s cover, and that’s what can hurt many really good designers and businesses in the long run. If we were to log into any of our personal facebook pages right this second and click on almost any floral industry facebook group, we will find at least 3-4 people that seem to always be complaining about a lot of everything. We don’t have problem with venting as most of us have been there and can support but when it’s all that’s seen from a designer it would make us very weary of working with those designer, is there a reason that seems they always have customers complaining, why are they quick to criticizes but don’t show their own work, why do all of their comments have personal opinions and nothing to contribute to helping the person.

Do you post photo’s of event you’re designing for your own company or freelancing before the event is held? You can believe our freelance designer list can be shortened if one you have time to take pictures on my time and two if I see a photo before the event is done and struck. If you are doing it with your own business be wary that your clients may have some type of connection or way of seeing your post before their event is held. Hell hath no furry like a bride who’s wedding flowers are online before she even walks down the aisle or a marketing team who see’s all their party planning on twitter before the owner even see’s what the company has paid for. Just be careful what or how many times you say something and be very careful when you post pre-event photos no matter how beautiful they are.

Product Sales and/or Organization

How many times has been slow and you haven’t went to your straight to the cleaning supplies, you go to grab a vase and your out, your plant section area is all dead? When you get busy you don’t have the time to baby sit your employees so always have well trained staff that know what to do when they are done with their designs for the day or it’s slow. Even doing a walk through with a notepad right before walking out for the day, you can jot down things to be addressed the next day. The great thing about a well trained staff or manager is that they will instantly go to the next project that needs to be done without having to stop you to ask what to do next. It’s very hard to give up that kind of control but it’s very satisfying when you know they will wash the windows and display glass when it’s slow or how much water each plant needs so reduce over watering or under watering. Every shop has it’s own amount of extra time or none at all but there should always be ways of making sure that a business is kept clean organized and well stocked. The biggest part of it all is communication so that you know how your business is operating, when products need bought, or the quality is lacking and not to your standard. With good communication you should never have issues with product sales or organization because you should always know when your getting low on something not when you’ve run out after just selling something.

Business Issues

Along the same lines as before, you owe it to yourself and staff to always be communicating. Leave drama at home unless it effects the work place than squash it like a bug and always keep communication open about how the company is doing to avoid rumors starting. Like we said up top, you do not run a high school so when people are on your time you should solve any drama that has to do with your company and all other drama should be left at the door when employees come in. If employees can work and talk (A rare true trait in designers) then tidy ho talk about that ice cream social last wednesday but if it interferes with the work process in any way turn the music up and get the job done.

When we say to keep communication open about the business we don’t mean everything. An example of what we consider sharing is tell all the employees at the same time that hours are being reduced because it’s one, slow so not as many people need to be there to accomplish the work and two, you honestly can’t afford it with it being slow. When your upfront and honest with your employees, customers and yourself about why you can and can’t do things you will receive respect from that situation. When employees understand why something is happening, it reduces everybody jumping to conclusions such as all of a sudden your shop is closing or you’re firing someone because you just didn’t like them personally. If your business can’t handle something than you need to be honest with yourself, you can’t just keep taking out more and more loans if you know you’ll never pay them back or buy those containers when you can’t afford to pay for this weeks pay checks. When it finally hits you, it will hit you hard and it will be nobody’s fault you didn’t listen or realize what was right in front of your face to begin with.

Meetings and Scheduling

When people get busy they get frazzled and forget things. No matter if that appointment is in 3 hours or 3 months way you should always have it document in at the very least 1 place. Many schedulers are inexpensive or free and will save your life as being late in our book is one of the most un-professional things you can do. So you aren’t missing those meetings or showing up late to those appointments we have collected our favorite schedulers and a couple articles of helpful time organizing tips for busy small business owners.

Final Bits and Bobs

Don’t be another statistic of a fail or stagnate business because you were to busy trying to run that business. As we enjoy history here at Floral.today it may sound cruel but just like great people and civilizations we find the rise and fall of a company to be interesting since it is a learning experience. We hope you are able to find just a little bit of one of these observations to be helpful toward the success of your business since the floral industry is only as great as it’s weakest designer.

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