CALENDAR
04
MERCHANDISING TIPS
Valentine’s Day Trends and Merchandising Tips
06
BEST SELLERS
Top 10 Projected Best Sellers for Valentine’s Day
10
FLORIST FEATURE
The English Garden
12
SOCIAL MEDIA
How to Create Seasonal Giveaways on Social Media to Drive Engagement
14
NEW FROM EFLORIST
Blogging for SEO Success
VALENTINE’S DAY MERCHANDISING TIPS
SEND ‘EM SWIRLING
MERCHANDISING TIP: This sculpted glass vase is sure to make a statement! Pair this swirling stunner with romantic tapered candles, luxurious stemware, and chocolatecovered strawberries for the ultimate evening of romance.
ROSE-COLORED MAGIC
MERCHANDISING TIP: This geometric vase is the picture of modern romance! Style this pearlescent beauty with velvety chocolates and stationery for love letters.
BLUSH CRUSH
MERCHANDISING TIP: Pastel pink is always in style! Pair this sweet, sculpted glass vase with candy hearts, heart sunglasses, a heart garland for the ultimate Galentine’s setup.
STEAL HEARTS
MERCHANDISING TIP: What says Valentine’s Day more than a debossed heart pattern? Style this festive, fun container with gourmet treats, heart balloons, and cards for the perfect Valentine’s Day celebration!
Teleflora’s Blushing Gem Bouquet T25V300
VALENTINE'S DAY PROJECTED BEST SELLERS
Teleflora's Wild Romance Bouquet T22V310
Teleflora's Loving Swirls Bouquet T25V100
Teleflora's Garden Glow Bouquet TEV74-4
Teleflora's Oh So Lovely Bouquet TEV72-3
Teleflora's Blushing Gem Bouquet T25V300
BEHIND THE BLOOMS:
THE JOURNEY OF THE FREEDOM ROSE WITH FLOWERBUYER
For more than 20 years, the Freedom Rose has remained the shining star of floral bouquets enjoyed on Valentine’s Day. One of our best Rose partners in Ecuador, Mystic Flowers, shares how they prepare, cultivate, and ship these beautiful flowers destined for florist coolers around the globe.
THE FREEDOM FLOWER PRODUCTION PROCESS IN 5 KEY STEPS
Sowing and Grafting: The process begins with pattern sowing for three weeks, followed by grafting the Freedom variety, which takes 15 days to develop strong roots.
Plant Development: The plants grow for six months, reaching maturity for their first production.
Harvesting and Hydration: Flowers are harvested in two cycles and minimally hydrated for 24 hours before shipping to ensure freshness.
Classification and Bunching: Flowers are classified and grouped into bunches, each labeled with details about the variety, measurements, and harvest dates.
Cold Storage and Distribution: Flowers are transported to cold storage facilities, and then distributed according to fixed orders and pre-sales, ensuring timely delivery.
Every step of the process is designed to maintain the freshness and quality of the flowers from farm to final destination. This way, we ensure that every stem delivered to our valuable customers is a true reflection of excellence!
Start securing your Valentine’s Day product now and save big with Flowerbuyer on our unique holiday live auctions, which run up to six times a week! Visit Flowerbuyer.com or call 877.625.3243 to register.
ASK A FLORIST
How do you prepare shop inventory to accommodate last-minute buyers on Valentine's Day to make their purchases?
Do you offer giveaways or promotions around Valentine's Day? Is there anything that you're considering testing this year?
We prepare for last-minute buyers by looking at our purchases from the 14th last year, as well as the last year that Valentine's Day fell on the same day of the week. This gives us a good trendline or history to plan from. Also, no matter what day the holiday lands on we always have 100 arrangements and all our Teleflora codified designs in stock to refill our reach-in cooler and showroom with. This is the most high-volume walk-in purchase day of the year for us.
We have offered free balloons or chocolates to entice customers to order early. We sent email blasts, put drop ads on deliveries, and even ads in the newspaper. None of these seem to work for Valentine's Day. It is such a last-minute purchase intense day, but we are a welloiled machine and the holiday runs smoothly with good planning, training, and preparation.
Renee
Potter, Fred’s Flowers (Tempe, AZ)
We keep records of what we purchase & sell each holiday. If Valentine’s Day falls on the weekend, we cut down our inventory that we purchased compared to if Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday. We look at last year’s records to see what sold well and what did not. We would purchase a little more of the items that sold well, like a dozen roses, lilies, peonies, orchids, to accommodate last-minute customers. Our last-minute customers seem to like to purchase more premium blooms.
We don’t offer many giveaways or promotions for Valentine's Day. Christmas is about the only time we offer promotions, with our Merry Market Sale & Days of Christmas Savings. The giveaways that we will offer for Valentine’s is if you place your order for early delivery before the 14th. For example, if you place your order on the 12th or 13th, then you would receive a free box of chocolate. We typically start this promotion on the first day of February.
Lenzee + Lacee Bilke, Madeline’s Flowers (Edmond, OK)
A MEDIUM OF LOVE
THE ENGLISH GARDEN, RALEIGH, NC
Cydney started her floral career at the ripe age of five, working in her dad’s flower shop. She was known as the “pom pom” girl and as she grew in the shop, so did her training. She learned to mimic designs from the lead designers all while doing the odd jobs in the shop, which shaped her approach to designing and how she views training today.
Although a third-generation florist, Cydney explored different careers before she came back to her roots in the floral world. Even when she pursued theatre school in New York, she would fly back for Valentine’s Day to help her father with the holiday madness.
After learning invaluable lessons in her other career pursuits, she realized the 9-to-5 office lifestyle wasn’t her calling and she craved the creativity and unpredictability of the floral world. She began working with her father again, but decided she wanted autonomy and to be her own boss and make her own mark on the industry. Opening The English Garden almost 17 years ago has allowed her to be innovative and have her own style.
“There are not many careers where you help navigate life through a medium. Flowers are there for love, loss, anniversaries, babies, everything. Aside from maybe cards, flowers are one of the only things that can be a part of every phase of life.”
The ramp-up for a major holiday can be a lot, and one of the things Cydney has found most successful when it comes to prepping for Valentine’s Day is making sure your team has buy-in.
Cydney schedules staff meals the week leading up to the holiday and makes sure to make things fun, so her team engages in the process and knows how important of a role each member plays in making it successful.
She also stresses the importance of every team member being comfortable. If you’re bringing in staff for the day, have them come in a couple times prior so they have the lay of the land. This removes extra stress and allows the team to run more confidently and efficiently.
Over the years, Cydney and team have found and honed in on their niche. From their social media and the photos on their website you can see the business is a labor of love. Cydney’s husband has a passion for photography and began shooting their arrangements for their site and social media. This has now evolved into having a photography studio in their home to get realistic and beautiful shots of their arrangements.
The tech- and social-savvy English Garden team have also amassed a robust following on social media, having over 10,000 followers on Instagram. Cydney attributes her success on social media to using it as a tool for storytelling and to connect with her community.
Cydney is also very strategic with the content she posts; she is mindful of what people want to see and what they engage with, and she sticks with it.
DRIVE ENGAGEMENT AND RAPPORT WITH CUSTOMERS THROUGH SEASONAL SOCIAL MEDIA GIVEAWAYS!
Social media is a great tool to create a relationship between your shop and new or existing customers. During the holiday season, however, it can be hard to stand out amongst seasonal advertising clutter. We have you covered though!
In just 4 easy steps, we’ll show you how to create seasonal social media giveaways that will
Increase engagement with your business, Drive awareness of your seasonal offerings, and Provide new and existing customers with a firsthand experience of ordering with your shop, inevitably driving repeat purchases!
SELECT YOUR PHOTOS FOR THE GIVEAWAY POST
Focus on seasonal bouquets that showcase what your shop offers.
Ensure that photos are high-resolution, and if possible, add a human element like a hand or a person holding the flowers to showcase the relative size and scale.
Use photos that reflect bouquets in styled setups that feel inspirational.
Limit yourself to five photos to raise engagement.
2:
SELECT YOUR PRIZES
We suggest providing shop gift cards so that customers can choose what and when they want to order without restrictions.
Consider awarding a winner per platform, for example, one winner for Facebook, one winner for Instagram, etc.
CREATE YOUR GIVEAWAY POST COPY
Make the barrier to entry simple so that customers are more likely to engage.
For example: “What’s your favorite love song?”
Create simple steps to engage customers while making sure your shop gets long-term benefits.
For example: like this post, follow us, tag a friend in the comments, etc.
Provide a clear deadline for when customers need to enter. Make the entry windows short to create a sense of urgency, for example, 3 days maximum from the post date.
STEP 4:
LAUNCH/SCHEDULE YOUR GIVEAWAY POST
Set up your post and get ready to launch!
If you need a refresher on how to schedule your posts in advance with Meta’s Business Suite, click here.
POST
Giveaway Alert: Enter for a chance to win two $100 gift cards with (insert your shop name)!
How to enter: Like this post. Follow us @(insert shop handle). Tell us in the comments below: What’s your favorite love song? Tag a friend in your comment.
We’ll randomly choose and contact a winner via direct message to win two $100 gift cards on Tuesday, February 4, after 5 p.m. (PT)!
U.S. only, 21+. All comments must be posted in this post by 5 p.m. (PT) on February 4.
BLOGGING FOR SEO SUCCESS
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can sound like scary business, but it’s simple at its core: making sure the content of your site (visible and invisible to your customers) tells search engines where to rank your website for keywords. Given that eFlorist websites are built with SEO at the forefront, you only need to periodically review the content on site to make sure Google is recognizing your relevance to target searches.
Blogs are a great way to build consumer engagement and boost your site’s rankings. Whether your blog is focused on the expertise of your shop to advise your customers best or on providing extra content around the services your shop provides, posting informative and relevant content for your ideal consumer can increase your website’s overall visibility in search.
This holiday, be sure to take advantage of our Blog feature, built into your eFlorist website! It's easy to use, so add a few key entries in the coming months that can help your shop stand out at Valentine's Day! Just take note of some common conversations that you have with your customers leading up to the holiday. They can easily serve as content for your blog.
BE SURE TO LEVERAGE YOUR EFLORIST TEAM FOR SUPPORT AND FOR ANY ASSISTANCE
Don’t forget, we are here to help! To start managing a blog on your eFlorist site, log in to eSAT and select “Blog” under the “Content Management” menu.
Call eFlorist Web Support Services at 1-866-983-3932 (option 2) or eflorist@teleflora.com. To learn more about how blogging can improve the performance of your site or for input on a blogging strategy, email emarketing@teleflora.com for assistance in booking a consultation with one of our eMarketing Counselors.
ONLINE BILL PAY
Teleflora’s POS systems and eFlorist continue to be better together with online bill pay!
POS provides your customers with the ability to view their statement and invoice, and pay their account balance online using your shop’s Teleflora eFlorist site.
Simple, fast, and safe payment methods, like online bill pay, help to improve your customer’s experience and grow your business!
HELPFUL CONTACT NUMBERS
