My first year of growing, half of my plants died. The other half were beautiful and inspiring and I was excited to sell them! The problem is that I didn't have any customers :( I had to learn pretty quickly that marketing is a necessary component of any business, including one selling flowers.
I had always disliked the idea of marketing - I thought of it as trying to trick people into buying things they didn't need. But with a handful of beautiful flowers, I realized that at the very least marketing was a way to tell people these flowers existed, and they could get them if they wanted them. At its essence, marketing is communication and I could do that!
Basic marketing is telling people who you are, what your product is and how they can get it.
Tell people who you are with how you name your business. Try to choose a name that is easy to remember (not too long) and easy to spell and references what you do in some way. Since I am not a florist, I used "field" in my name as a way to subtly highlight my focus on growing.
A simple website can legitimize your business. Always try for a .com extension. Less is more when it comes to having your very fist website. Use 2 or 3 high quality photos, a basic introduction to who you are, where you're located and what you provide.
Make it personal. One of the attractions for people to purchase from you is that you're a real person. Have your real name on your website (last name is not necessary) and in your social media profile. Being too mysterious can discourage people from purchasing from you.
Use social media strategically. Instagram is useful for urban areas and Facebook tends to be used more in rural areas. Remember that these are tools to communicate the information and eventually a sale. If you just want to be funny and gain followers, that's a different business (called 'influencer' or 'content creator') and it won't usually lead to flower sales.
Location, location, location! I often see posts on Instagram of new farmers selling their flowers but the necessary information for a purchase (where & when) is missing or difficult to find. Be clear about your geographical location. Most flower farmers don't ship, so put the city (if you live near a major city, use that) and state in your profile. Put the information in a story AND a post. A post can be shared by people with their friends and saved for later reference. It's so easy to get distracted, perhaps a person sees that you have bouquets but gets interrupted by a toddler. A quick 'save' of a post means they can access the information again. If you ONLY use a story, it will disappear in 24 hours and they'll be left with no information and you'll be left without a sale.
Professional photos are a MUST.
Flowers are an aesthetic product. They are beautiful and many people will purchase them "with their eyes". You can have $300 worth of flowers sit in a bucket unsold or you can invest $300 for a 30 minute photoshoot at sunset that will give you professional photos you can use for years. The photos from my first professional photo-shoot lasted me five years. I used them on my website, for my profile picture, my farmer's market card, in blog posts and sprinkled through-out my feed. One of my best investments in my business.
For the everyday social media photos, learn a few tips to present your flowers in their best light. There are many free photo-taking tutorials online. Find one specifically for flowers or outdoor photography. (Team Flower has some good tips on this) Avoid the use of heavy filters. Check some photography books out from the library. Keep the pretty photos on your main feed and use stories for the grittier, behind-the-scenes stuff.
EXTRAS
If you're not at a farmer's market that can give you an instant audience and are relying mainly on social media then you must learn to use keywords and hashtags. In both your captions and your hashtags, put words describing your product (flower, floral, blooms, etc), your location (your city, state or region). A mix of 5 to 10 hashtags with some general and some more specific, is a good start. For instance, I don't usually use #flowerfarmer because it's really broad and someone searching for that term will see the big accounts first and likely never see mine. But if I use #northtexasflowerfarm, then someone searching for that term is probably in my region and looking for what I have. I will also probably show up in their search results because there's not that many of us out there :) I also sometimes use hashtags with the word "garden" and my zone because gardeners tend to appreciate flowers and maybe I'll gain some new customers from some fellow local gardeners. Think about the people around you that may want your product and then use terms they're likely to be interested in. Instagram also picks up on location terms and will tend to then show your posts to accounts in your area.
I hope you find these tips helpful! I've spent all summer working on a basic marketing course for small flower farmers or beginner entrepreneurs and it's almost ready to be released!! It has everything from basic SEO to tricks for instagram reels to being an introvert and still engage in marketing :D Stay tuned for that exciting development :)
happy growing!
sarah jo
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