Exotic Flowers in Boston

At Exotic Flowers in Boston, we are baseball fans. We celebrate the grand old game any chance we get. On Opening Day, we have a company cookout. We have partnered with the Boston Red Sox and sponsored many little league and softball teams over the years. If you're in Roslindale and talk baseball, rest assured your florist in Boston will always 'talk shop,'. 

Baseball and flowers go hand in hand. Glenn Stout tells us, in his book Fenway 1912, that on April 20th, 1912 Fenway Park opened and pots of flowers greeted the fans. Think about it, pots brimming with flowers welcome people. Baseball people knew this 100 years ago. Baseball Hall of Famer Bill Veeck planted the ivy at Wrigley Field in Chicago in 1937 to make patrons feel more welcome. Yes. Baseball, flora and fauna go hand in hand.

 Flowers and baseball provide a spark of nostalgia. Whether you recall Fred Lynn crashing into the Fenway wall in 1975 or the beautiful flowers on your grandmother's dinner table, these images create a bond and experience that your cell phone cannot. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Cooperstown, New York celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. At Exotic Flowers, we have partnered with the Hall of Fame to bring our clientele The Cooperstown Collection. Exotic Flowers will donate twenty percent of the purchase price of specially designed baseball themed floral arrangements and gifts to the Hall of Fame to help raise money and awareness for this valued American Institution. The world needs more museums.

On another note, Exotic Flowers is proud to announce that the team we sponsor in Westwood, Massachusetts won its championship. The Westwood River Bandits had an amazing run of 12 wins, 1 loss and 1 tie as it captured the third grade championship. 

This article was featured in the 6/18/14 The SAF Wednesday Ebrief

By Mary Westbrook

Exotic Flowers in Boston recently launched its “Cooperstown Collection”— a partnership with The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. Owner Rick Canale, who has also been the official florist for the Red Sox, said sports tie-ins, done well, have lots of marketing potential.

Bloggers in the U.K. are giving a red card to a supermarket chain that tried to capitalize on World Cup fever with a special bouquet — but at least one sports-savvy florist in Boston said the idea has the potential to hit plenty of marketing goaaals. 

Calling the “Come On, England” bouquet concept “painful,” several bloggers put the red and white carnation design, sold at Morrisons grocery stores, at the top of their “worst” lists for World Cup tie-ins. 

“Suddenly, a [groveling] apology from the other half for their latest screw-up just isn’t as gratifying as it used to be,” according to EuroSport. “Alternatively, it’s a rather backhanded way for a guy to [apologize] in advance for spending the next month doing nothing but watching football marathons and angrily debating contentious decisions on social media.” 

The chain also rain afoul of customers in Scotland, who successfully petitioned the stores there to stop playing an endless loop of England-related soccer — er, football —songs. 

Good intentions, lousy promotion? Not so fast, said Rick Canale of Exotic Flowers in Boston, who suggested the bloggers and writers are probably overreacting, and misinterpreting the grocers’ intentions. “I bet [Morrisons] did not sell the bouquet as an apology theme,” he said. “That would be floral suicide.” (At press time, EBrief editors had not been able to obtain the original marketing materials.) 

Canale should know. Exotic Flowers was the official florist of the Boston Red Sox from 2007 to 2009 and won SAF’s Floral Management Marketer of the Year title in 2008. He recently partnered with The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., to launch his new “Cooperstown Collection,” which coincides with the museum’s 75th anniversary. 

Canale said hitching your shop to a sports team or event can be marketing gold, but “it’s all about the approach.” In other words, never market a sports-themed design as an apology, but instead, promote it as a party idea or team-spirited host and hostess gift. When you do that well, you turn a non-floral event into an opportunity for your shop. 

“Believe me, if I liked soccer, I would be pitching World Cup bouquets here, too,” Canale said. “You have to capitalize on the success of special events. [For example], every Election Day, we launch an Election Day category on our website and then rebrand the same category for Veteran’s Day.” 

 Growing up 100% Italian is quite rare in Boston. I would never trade my heritage for anything. But growing up in Boston also surrounds you with many Irish people and even more Irish customs. My mother, whose parents came from Italy, even cooks corned beef and cabbage every Saint Patrick's Day. This tradition has even carried over to my own family where my wife Suzie, who is part Irish, looks forward to my boiled dinner of corned beef, cabbage, turnip, potatoes, carrots and pearl onions.

 During Saint Patrick's week at my house, you will hear us reading the chidlren's book Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk or watching the Janeane Garofalo movie The Matchmaker on TV. At Exotic Flowers in Boston, we often speak about tradition and creating your own memories. Saint Patrick's Day is an ideal holiday to start your own tradition. 

I have witnessed many clients at Exotic Flowers who celebrate St. Patrick's Day by buying green carnations in the Boston area. The green carnation reminds of the green shake from McDonalds. You only see them around Saint Patrick's Day. One client in Wellesley has been sending his wife 24 green carnations every year for more than twenty years, while a company on State Street in Boston has bought more than one hundred green carnations every year for the past ten years. They hand a green carnation to each one of their employees to celebrate the holiday. 

So crack open a Guinness, hand your loved one a green carnation and listen to the Irish Rovers belt out my favorite Irish tune, 'The Unicorn,'.

Dear Friends, 

Boston You're My Home

New Children's Book by Suzie Canale  Order Your Copy Here Boston, You're My Home is the story of a young girl named Sweet Caroline who is nervous about her family moving to Boston. Her mother and father attempt to soothe her fears by telling her a bedtime tale inspired by Boston's strengths. From its education to the arts and its heroes, Caroline learns about the wonderful benefits about calling Boston her new home.   Exotic Flowers on TV   Click Here to Watch Aired in February   If you ever visited the shop, you know our story is better than most reality television. We even turned down a reality show opportunity this past year. This winter however, we had the TV cameras from Comcast rolling and we were able to tell a wonderful piece of our story without the drama.

"The true harbinger of spring is not crocuses or swallows returning to Capistrano, but the sound of the bat on the ball."

Bill Veeck

 

Sincerely,

 

Rick Canale

Did you ever play the game padiddle/perdiddle ? The beauty of the night time car game is a way to compete with friends during long or short drives. The Christmas tree car game is very similar but you can play both day and night. 

Start your own holiday tradition with the Christmas tree car game. I had never heard of the game or even played before last year. My son and wife introduced me to this fun and festive game. 

During the holidays Christmas trees can be found from Boston to Belchertown. On my twenty minute commute to work at Exotic Flowers in Roslindale, I pass by five places who sell Christmas trees; including Louie the Florist, Exotic Flowers, Walk Hill Florist, Allandale Farm and Flowerland. 

The Christmas Tree Car Game can be played with two or more players. All one needs to do is see a car on the road with a Christmas tree on its roof and call out 'tree,'. A running tally can be kept all month long. Right now I have four points, my son has nine and my wife has six. What a great way to start your own Christmas tradition. 

You can even have a point system if you know your Christmas trees. You could offer bonus points for living Christmas trees or snow flocked trees. Like padiddle where a police car is huge bonus points, how about huge points for a double Christmas tree car or a game ender if you see the Griswold family Christmas tree. 

Larry Lucchino Cares About Red Sox Fans One at a Time

a few months ago my 8 year old son came home and said I should be a Yankees fans. He is a huge fan of Fenway Park, but the Red Sox recent woes had made him look elsewhere. He argued that the Yankees had Babe Ruth, the greatest of all time.
Being a lifelong Red Sox fan, I was stumped. I wrote a letter to Sox chief Larry Lucchino asking for advice.
Here is the letter he wrote back.

At Exotic Flowers in Boston, we actively contribute to floral associations. We are members of FTD, Teleflora and the Society of American Florists, (SAF). We exchance ideas with our colleagues and are always looking to learn so that we may remain Boston's Premier Florist.

Recently, Exotic Flowers and myself were featured in Bloomnet Magazine floriology. Below is the article in its entirety written by Fred Russell in April 2012 edition.

From Facebook to Twitter and everything in between Rick Canale is LinkedIn to everything social.

Rick of Exotic Flowers inBostonis a third generation florist and an industry leader in using social media to help promote his business. Growing up in theBostonarea Rick would help out his parents Sonny and Marie doing a little bit of everything. After attendingBostonCollegeas Liberal Arts major in the early 90’s, Rick went to work full time at the family business that started over 50 years ago.

“Most of our marketing is reinforcing our current clientele”, says Rick. “We combine an aggressive direct mail marketing plan and mix in social media to remain relevant and top of mind”, he adds. Rick sees his new customers result mostly from referral business and a lot from local search engines like Google, Yelp and Foursquare. Because Rick looks at his current customers as an avenue for getting new ones he consistently targets them on different platforms to stay relevant and keep people talking about them.

When it comes to social media Rick was an early adapter and could foresee the movement coming quickly. “You have to collect ‘likes’ on your Facebook page like baseball cards”, says Rick. Between his Facebook friends and Twitter followers Rick has well over 1,000 contacts. This is a lot of potential consumers at your fingertips that can be easily reached at a moments notice. Rick is also very active on his blog (http://blog.exoticflowers.com/) which attracts 6,000 unique visitors a month and tries to reach out to his customers via a social avenue three to five times a week. “I write about everything; from social issues, what’s going on inBoston, baseball or top five movies of the week”, says Rick. “You don’t always want to make it about you and be to self serving, you just want to be out there so people see your name”. Rick likens it to a Presidential Campaign, “it’s all about shaking hands and kissing babies!”

Rick also monitors closely what people are saying about his shop. He uses Hubspot (www.hubspot) to monitor activity. He gets a notification that his shop name is being mentioned somewhere. “I jump right in and answer questions, talk about the shop and they’re floored to get that quick reaction”. He also monitors what his contemporaries are blogging and follows them on Twitter. “You can always learn from what other people are doing and see if I’m missing anything. I also find a lot of inspiration by looking at what my peers are doing”.

One of the things Rick has asked himself is how do you keep your website and social customer’s loyal? “When we get a first time order on a website order we send the customer a hand written note thanking them for our business”. Rick also sends a personal business card, not just one with the store name to give it a more personal touch. Rick also stays away from discounting and feels it’s unnecessary because they always have great products and are always competitively priced and once you discount your customers will expect it. “There’s no way I’m going to compete with someone selling $9.99 rose and that’s not what we’re about.

Rick plans on continuing to use social media in his marketing plan and thinks Twitter is still in its beginning is about to boom. Rick suggests the Twitter community is just another form of blogging and a great way to catch a customer’s attention with a quick, catchy message. As far as another recent social phenomena—Pinterest, Rick compares it to a coffee table book. “Everybody loves coffee table books, but how often do you read them?” With the recent fascination Rick will observe it’s progress and develop a presence down the road.

Be sure to follow Rick on Twitter @RickCanale!

Owner: Rick Canale

Shop: Exotic Flowers

Location:Boston,Mass.

Employees: 10 full time

Established: 1957