Teleflora's 2019 Christmas Success Guide

CHRISTMAS 2019

SUCCESS GUIDE

TREND REPORTS

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F LO R I S T F E AT U R E

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TELEFLORA'S FLURRY OF ELEGANCE BOUQUET | T19X300

TOP 10 BEST SELLERS

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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AutoBid

Place your AutoBid on Flowerbuyer.com for Thanksgiving

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Merchandising Items

Display merchandising items from Teleflora’s FSG Marketing Kit

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Projected Best Sellers

Finalize your lineup. See Teleflora’s projected best sellers on page 9

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AutoBid

Place your AutoBid on Flowerbuyer.com for Christmas

Thanksgiving (U.S.)

Holiday Auctions

Special holiday auctions are held every Tuesday/Thursday at Flowerbuyer.com

DECEMBER Mon 02

Christmas Temps

Confirm Christmas temps and delivery drivers

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Christmas SKUs

Upload custom Christmas SKUs on your eFlorist site

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Direct Mail & Prep Send Christmas direct mail

Christmas prep staff meeting

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Buy the Bunch ®

Special Auctions

It’s the last Tuesday/Thursday Flowerbuyer.com special auction. Grab your floral favorites before it’s too late!

Order using Flowerbuyer.com’s Buy the Bunch® to complete your Christmas bouquets!

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Social Media

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Priority Overnight

Post, tweet and blog behind-thescenes Christmas bouquet creations

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Last day to use priority overnight to order Christmas flowers through Flowerbuyer.com!

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Christmas 30

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NEW YEARS eve

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New Year

FSG Kits

Open your Valentine's Day FSG Kit!

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TR EN D S Get inspiration for your shop holiday décor with Teleflora’s 2019 holiday trends.

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CHRISTMAS BEST SELLERS Prepare your shop’s inventory for the holiday season.

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SOCIAL MEDIA How to use hashtags to your advantage on Instagram.

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FLORIST FEATURE Watson’s Flower Shop in Tempe, AZ shares how they create fun Facebook videos.

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HOLIDAY WEBSITE eFlorist Manager Teresa Sufczynski’s top tips for your holiday website.

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Trends ARTISANAL ACCENTS

Teleflora's Artisanal Autumn Centerpiece

MERCHANDISING TIP: Create a leaf-rubbing art station for customers to craft their own table place cards.

WINTER WHITES

Teleflora's Flurry of Elegance Bouquet

MERCHANDISING TIP: Create ambience in your store by illuminating this container with votives to show its versatility in a faux fireplace or as mantel décor.

SPARKLE AND SHINE

Teleflora's Merry Mercury Centerpiece

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MERCHANDISING TIP: Merry Mercury! Mercury is having a moment.

Capitalize on it with a mercury-glass Christmas tree, ornaments and décor.

JOLLY HOLLY

Teleflora's Deck the Holly Ornament Bouquet

MERCHANDISING TIP: Holly takes on glitz this holiday season.

Adorn pieces of holly with glitter, jewels, or other bedazzlements for a fun shop décor or bouquet adornment!

WINTER WARMTH

Send a Hug® Snowman Mug Bouquet by Teleflora

MERCHANDISING TIP: Give away free hot cocoa at your shop with "add-on" gifts for sale, including festive marshmallows, fun candy canes, or seasonal treats.

MERRY VINTAGE

Teleflora's Merry Vintage Christmas Bouquet

MERCHANDISING TIP: Take a trip down nostalgia lane with a table of vintage cars, and Christmas décor in rustic red and green.

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CHIP PHILIPS | OWNER, BRENDA'S FLOWERS BATESVILLE, AR

Teleflora’s Holiday Heroes Chip Philips not only serves his community through his flower shop Brenda’s Flowers in Batesville, AR, but he’s also a volunteer firefighter, and church deacon.

Chip has been a volunteer firefighter for 23 years. He said a lot of people don’t realize that volunteer firefighters go through the exact same training and are sanctioned to perform all the duties as paid firefighters. He said he balances his roles by committing 100% to working as a florist during the day and turns off his phone and email when he goes to the fire station.

Cristina and Rick Swanson own Atascocita Lake Houston Florist, Humble, TX, and Rick is a retired firefighter of 35 years. The Swansons ordered Teleflora’s Thomas Kinkade Festive Fire Station Bouquet and love the very nostalgic design and the light up firehouse. Cristina said she might display some of Rick’s firefighter helmets in the store with the Kinkade container.

Thomas Kinkade's Festive Fire Station Bouquet Merchandising Tip: Pay homage to your local firefighters by sending this Teleflora bouquet to the fire station for some holiday cheer!

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Ask a Florist How do you bring in customers during the busy holiday season?

Over years with online retail becoming so big, we’ve come up with ways to get customers both new and old to come to our holiday open house. We like to promote it as a sort of holiday kickoff event, a day to come with your friends, and family to be part of the community. The neighborhood and community aspect really draws people in, and we offer unique gifts that you might not find elsewhere … plus special discounts don’t hurt! Every year the ornament container is a great seller for us. We merchandise it with both classic holiday décor and more modern styles. The beauty of the container is it works great for every taste REBEKAH CASEY AIFD, CFD | BALLARD BLOSSOM INC SEATTLE, WA

This year will be our 16th annual holiday open house and we typically have 150 people attend. We have made this a fun tradition and honestly people call about it months in advance.

We give away a free Teleflora wall calendar for the next year and put a sticker as a save the date for our Holiday open house! We also have a raffle, chocolate fountain, and yummy food.

We also always put up 4 or 5 trees that are themed around some of the Teleflora containers. This year we have a tree planned with the red truck theme. As well as a snowman or snowy theme.

CLARA ANNIS | RAZZLE DAZZLE FLOWERS & GIFTS MESA, AZ

We do 3 open houses per year—Spring, Fall, and Winter. This year we will serve holiday bread and champagne during our winter Poinsettias and Champagne Open House. We always run a fun sale during Open House. Marketing Open House is really important as well. We send out eblasts and put it on social media. Consistency also contributes a lot to our success.

You have to commit to them every year and work on innovative ideas to make it better each time.

JORDAN DAVIS | LAFAYETTE FLORIST GIFT SHOP & GARDEN CENTER LAFAYETTE, CO

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Tim’s Technology Tips Education specialist and shop owner Tim Farrell has owned and operated Farrell’s Florist in Drexel Hill, PA, since 1983.

Favorite Tools on eSat: My most-used tools on eSat are Home Page Product and Messaging. With this tool, I initially position the product I have purchased the most of for the holiday, and, depending on how sales are going leading up the that holiday, I can change positions to promote exactly what I want to sell ... It really does work!!!

How do you personalize your site? eSat also makes it very easy to upload and feature my own designs. I would highly advise other florists to do the same. It only takes minutes to do!!!

What are some modern florist challenges?

One of our greatest challenges seems to be avoiding customer confusion when buying on the web. We have found that our partnership with Teleflora and having an eFlorist website lets potential customers know we are a local flower shop.

Tip: Use the product management tool to flag certain items as best sellers, as "Hot,” or even as “Sold Out” when you run out of a particular item.

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Projected 2019 Holiday Best Sellers

Thomas Kinkade's Festive Fire Station Bouquet T19X200

Teleflora's Deck The Holly Ornament Bouquet T19X400

Teleflora's Vintage Greetings Tree T19X610

Send A HugÂŽ Snowman Mug Bouquet by Teleflora T19X500

Teleflora's Merry Vintage Christmas Bouquet T19X600

Holiday Splendor T119-1

All Is Bright T114

Teleflora's Merry Mercury Centerpiece T19X100

Teleflora's Flurry Of Elegance Bouquet T19X300

Christmas Wishes Centerpiece T127-1

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5 Reasons Why You Should Be on Instagram Every day, 500 million people log on to Instagram. While your customers are viewing their friends' and family's photos, they are also seeing posts by brands.

200 Million Instagrammers visit at least one business profile a day.

200 Million Daily Instagram Story users.

75% of Instagrammers take action after being inspired by a post.

60% of Users Learn about a new product or service on Instagram.

68% of Instagrammers engage with brands regularly.

*Sourced from Statista, Constant Contact, Adspresso, Lyfe Marketing, Social Media Explorer, Small Business Trends.

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How to use #Hashtags

With so many accounts and photos on Instagram, getting your business noticed can seem like a daunting undertaking. Hashtags can help with that. Their purpose is to make it easier for people to find, follow, and engage with your page.

HERE'S 5 TIPS ON HOW TO USE THEM:

Relevance – Hashtags must be relevant to your store, business, or products. Suggested hashtags: #florist, #flowerdelivery, #(YOUR TOWN NAME), #flowershop, #(YOUR SHOP NAME).

Less is More – Even though you can use up to 30 hashtags, data shows that 9 is the sweet spot with a steep drop-off after 10 hashtags per post.

Stay Focused – Competition for common hashtags is fierce. Use specific or niche hashtags to stand out to your audience.

Brevity – Keep hashtags short and easy to remember (#LoveOutLoud, for example).

#Tip: Save commonly used hashtags in the notes on your phone, so you can copy and paste them into your Instagram post.

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Unboxing with Watson's Valerie Johnson of Watson's Flower Shop, Tempe, AZ, said they are constantly trying new things on their Facebook, from bouquet-naming contests to fun videos like unboxing new products.

At the 2017 Teleflora Tech Conference, Valerie attended a class on social video which gave her the tools to start making videos. She said she invested in a microphone and the Smooth 2 phone stabilizer, which were recommended during the class. From there her shop created several unboxing videos showing off new containers, products, and recently promoted “What’s in the Box: Christmas in July Edition” to tease future holiday products.

Valerie said they faced some challenges at the beginning like getting the lighting correct and finding the right times to film.

“We first started shooting with customers in the store, but we kept picking up background noise!” she said.

Their “What’s in the Box?” videos can often be a gamble too. She said Teleflora’s boxes have the products listed on the box, but they've opened a few mystery boxes that they scrapped because it wasn’t a fun item. They plan on creating more unboxing videos for their high-price décor items for the holiday season to draw customers to the store.

Valerie said she’s recorded a lot of word-of-mouth buzz about the videos, even if they don’t generate a lot of engagement on Facebook. Johnson said their social media helps with store name recognition and show off their custom orders.

Her advice to other shops creating videos is to keep videos real, authentic, and relatable.

We always try to promote items on Facebook that are cool and new, and that we personally find trendy.

Check out the Watson's Flower Shop's unboxing videos at Bitlylink bit.ly/WatsonsFlower

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2019 Christmas Floral Trend Break out of the red flowers and greenery rut this holiday season, Teleflora education specialist Gerard Toh AIFD, CFD, CCF, advises on a new trend popping up for Christmas. Flowerbuyer has the florals to bring these trends to life.

Tactile & Touchable

NATURAL TEXTURES, ORGANIC SURFACES, & COLORS

WHITE LA LILIES

GREEN DIANTHUS

Flowerbuyer Auction Prices: As low as $0.70

Flowerbuyer Auction Prices: As low as $0.44

ANASTASIA GREEN CHRYSANTHEMUMS

Flowerbuyer Auction Prices: As low as $0.70

Visit www.flowerbuyer.com or call 877.625.3243 ext. 3 to get 10% off your next Flowerbuyer purchase using the code HSG2019*.

*Coupon code valid for one purchase for any customer with any purchase method with a max value of $100. Deliveries must occur by 12/25/19.

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eFlorist Tips for a Top Holiday Website Check website preparation off your holiday to-do list with tips from eFlorist Manager Teresa Sufczynski.

BOUQUET PRICING Ensure that your website offers a variety of bouquets at various price points that are suitable for every customer's needs.

MERCHANDISING Update your website to promote holiday-themed bouquets and stock up on inventory to fill headquarter orders. Don’t forget to promote your own custom, Christmas bouquets on your website as well.

DELIVERY FEES Create your own delivery zones and price them appropriately.

Knowledge is power and once the florist realizes how powerful our websites are they can really start to grow their online presence.

We have an entire staff that is dedicated to teaching florists how to use our eFlorist self-administration tool.

TERESA SUFCZYNSKI

If you are not comfortable making website changes yourself, the eFlorist team is more than happy to make changes on your behalf. Reach the eFlorist tech team by email: eflorist@teleflora.com Phone: 866-983-3923 or even chat on bit.ly/eFloristSupport

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Start Your Holiday Planning Today Pre-Holiday: SECURE ORDERS: Send your customers email reminders encouraging them to place their holiday orders at least two weeks prior to the holiday.

AUTOMATE SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS: Our Christmas Social Media Kit contains banners and images —plus messages already written for you! Download it at bit.ly/2019XmasSocialMedia and schedule your posts in advance.

PLAN DELIVERY AREAS: Add or remove postal codes to change your delivery areas for headquarter orders. The Flexible Codifications Holiday Delivery tab becomes active 2 weeks prior to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Manage your delivery areas at bit.ly/FlexibleCodifications.

Holiday Rush: CONFIRM ORDERS WITHIN AN HOUR: Teleflora doesn’t penalize you for refusing an order. Please reject it within one hour, so that another shop can pick up the order. Not responding to an order results in a “non-delivery” fee.

SEND DELIVERY CONFIRMATIONS: Today, customers expect to receive a confirmation after the delivery has been made. Delivery confirmations are an easy way to ensure customer satisfaction.

Holiday Support: AT CAPACITY? When you reach your order capacity, place a Dove Stop on your shop. Visit MyTeleflora.com/Stop_Dove.aspx to learn how.

NEED HELP? Simply send Teleflora a message through your Dove or POS system, and we’ll have support contact you.

Helpful Contact Numbers Customer Service:

800.421.2815 U.S. and Canada

Monday – Friday: 8 a.m. – 7 p.m. (CST)

Saturday: 8 a.m. – 2 p.m. (CST)

eFlorist: 866.983.3932 DovePlus: 800.720.9410 Products: 800.333.0205 Flowerbuyer.com: 877.625.3243