How To Market A Flower Shop or Garden Center In Preparation For A Big Spring Season

Small businesses that center around plants can have dramatic shifts in busyness throughout the year, so it’s important to take advantage of those upswings when you can. 

Of course Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, homecomings and proms, graduations, and weddings are big for cut flowers. Similarly, early spring for starting seeds indoors, mid-to-late spring for garden prep and backyard clean up, and even fall in prep for bulb planting and winterization will be popular for garden centers.

Both types of green thumb growers have an opportunity to attract new customers as well as deepen their roots with returning ones.

Educate Your Customers

Even in the slower winter months, many folks are researching how to improve their gardens and flower beds for next summer. Providing expert advice on social media can be a fun way to demonstrate your knowledge and grow your following. Think soil health, growing zones, native plants, propagation, and repotting schedules; the ideas here are endless. This could also evolve into a robust blog and improve the findability of your website online.

Workshops and classes are also a great way to engage folks. You could do traditional vase flower arranging, ikebana, outdoor stylized pots, succulent wreaths, or terrariums. 

Surprise Your Customers

One way to increase awareness and spread some good cheer is to check home sales in your area and drop off a small, native seedling one to two months after a home sale with a card and discount code for them to shop at your store to bring life to their new home.

What small things can you offer your customers with their purchases? Is it a drainage tray for a pot, a ball of twine for their garden? A packet of seeds to celebrate a holiday? A small card with tips on making their flowers last as long as possible? Or maybe it’s a snack you made with your garden veggies in the fall.

Highlight Your Customers

Encourage your customers to take photos and tag you on social media so you can reshare their beautiful photos. It’s a great way to mix up your Instagram feed and show how these plants fit into your customers’ homes and offices.

Any time someone makes a big purchase like wedding bouquets, trees, seasonal decor (even if it’s just a whole lot of mulch), ask them if you can take a photo and celebrate their event or project on social media. Be sure to include someone from your business in those photos when possible.

Marketing Your Flower Shop

Creativity is the easy part. Once you have the ideas, make sure as many people as possible are introduced to or reminded of your business. You may add events to Facebook or EventBrite, add schema markup to improve your local SEO, email your current customers with the new fun campaigns, and, of course, boost your best social media posts with a little cash to increase their reach. 

If you want support coming up with a strategic plan and bringing your marketing to life, we’d love to help!