Exotic Flowers in Boston

Exotic Flowers in Boston is a long standing member of The Society of American Florists (SAF). Every week, SAF offers sales advice to those in the floral industry via their Sales Wake Up email on Saturdays. This week, Exotic Flowers is honored to be featured by writer Katie Hendrick.

Five Focus Points for Success

by Katie Hendrick
Ever wish you had a report card to measure the impression your shop makes? Consider this blog post the cheat sheet you’ve been craving. It comes courtesy of Rick Canale, owner of Exotic Flowers, the 2008 Floral Management Marketer of the Year winner.  

Here are a few highlights he insists his staff executes:

• A thorough customer experience: email confirmations for orders and delivery, logoed polo shirts, logoed vans, “please” and “thank you” in every conversation, courtesy phone calls, personal handwritten notes
• An emphasis on special occasions: employees should teach customers that flowers make all occasions more special — not just Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day and anniversaries
• Upscale packaging: tissue, gift boxes and ribbon improves presentation immensely
• A dynamic storefront: the shop strives to have something exceptional to create buzz, be it new or exclusive variety of flowers in the window or a celebrity arranging flowers (Baywatch star Traci Bingham helped out during Valentine’s Day 2013)
• A strong social life: the shop regularly updates its blog, Facebook page and Twitter account with three objectives: entertain, educate and engage. Equally important is what happens when employees leave the store. Running errands in a logoed shirt and a logoed van is outstanding advertising.

Sponsored by Telelfora, National Make Someone Smile Week 2012 (July 22 thru 28), is all about making others happy with the gift of flowers. Throughout the country thousands of local florists will deliver more than 30,000 smiley face mug arrangements. Scientific studies guarantee that flowers make people happy.

Of these 30,000 bright colored fresh flower arrangements, some will go to hospital patients, foster care children, Meals on Wheels residents and nursing home residents. As a National Account in good standing with Teleflora, the staff at Exotic Flowers is honored to be associated with this humanitarian program.

The 2005 Rutgers University study: 

Research Findings

A team of researchers explored the link between flowers and life satisfaction in a 10-month study of participants' behavioral and emotional responses to receiving flowers. The results show that flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods.

1. Flowers have an immediate impact on happiness. All study participants expressed "true" or "excited" smiles upon receiving flowers, demonstrating extraordinary delight and gratitude. This reaction was universal, occurring in all age groups.
2. Flowers have a long-term positive effect on moods. Specifically, study participants reported feeling less depressed, anxious and agitated after receiving flowers, and demonstrated a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction.
3. Flowers make intimate connections. The presence of flowers led to increased contact with family and friends.

"Common sense tells us that flowers make us happy," said Dr. Haviland-Jones. "Now, science shows that not only do flowers make us happier than we know, they have strong positive effects on our emotional well being."

It's summer time and we are fortunate to live on the east coast where trips to the beach are regular. Some of our favorite beaches include Old Silver Beach, Long Beach and Minot. When our floral designers make beach trips, they cannot help but be inspired by the awesome beauty of the ocean. Why go to Pinterest when inspiration can be had on the beaches of Cape Cod ?

This beach like inspiration is catching fire with floral designers throughout the United States. As a long standing member of The Society of American Florists (SAF), Exotic Flowers in Boston is offering its full support to SAF's latest public relations program. The latest installment of The VaseOff! Challenge, Society of American Florist's (SAF) online floral design  competition series, went live to the public this week, flaunting florists’ talent for matching flowers to recipients’ personalities. The Challenge: Design an arrangement sure to delight a friend who loves the beach and can't get enough of the sun, surf and sand.

The VaseOff! Challenge is SAF’s latest public relations program designed to drive traffic to the blog and promote positive floral messages to consumers and the media.

“In this world that revolves so much around social media, consumers like interaction,” said Jennifer Sparks, SAF Vice President of Marketing. “This challenge provides a fun, interactive way to spread the good news about the benefits of flowers and the expertise of florists, with the capability of going viral very quickly.”

VaseOff! is part of SAF’s 2012 Consumer Marketing Program, which uses public relations and social media to promote positive messages about flowers, plants and florists. SAF marketing programs are possible thanks to the SAF PR Fund, made up of retail member dues and voluntary contributions by wholesalers, suppliers, importers and growers. Since its inception in 2001, PR Fund programs have generated more than 1 billion consumer impressions, according to Ogilvy’s measurements.

#1 Holidays: Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas; most guys in Boston need to cover the bases on Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. These two holidays are the Super Bowl and World Series of flowers. Holidays are great for men, they get lots of national advertising and are always on a guy's radar. Holiday flowers are often the most memorable and can be tied into creating your own memories and traditions.

 #2 Funeral Flowers - You may not expect funeral flowers to be the number 2 reason guys send flowers in Boston. Funeral flowers have been scientifically proven to ease the grieving process. Funeral flowers are the backbone of our business at Exotic Flowers. Funeral flowers represent more than 30% of our sales.

#3 Anniversaries - Wedding anniversaries, first date anniversaries, anniversaries of your engagement; these special days are often commemorated with rose purchases. Although not a huge delivery item, most men will walk into our flower shop to grab roses for their anniversary.

#4 Adoration - Guys send flowers to men and women they adore. No mystery there. Some of our top clients order flowers for their favorite person more than twenty times per year. Of course adoration can be viewed in many ways. We also have a handful of clients who will woo love interests with flowers. We often have guys come in who only know the first name of the recipient and they will often include their cell # on the card message in hopes of getting that first date. 

#5 Apology Flowers - perhaps the greatest billboard ever created for the floral industry by the Society of American Florists (SAF), 'Exactly how mad is she ?' tells a story in three images. One of the reasons florists have stood the test of time is because guys screw up a lot and flowers are the peace pipe of our generation.

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

The following notification has been taken from the Society of American Florists (SAF) Member Wake Up email on 12/31/11

Best of Floral Management’s Hands On. If you think Sales Wake-Up is the only place where SAF members can get innovative ideas for increasing sales, then you likely are not reading the monthly Hands On column in SAF’s Floral Management magazine. It’s a treasure trove of best practices, management tips and, yes, sales ideas. As we bid 2011 farewell and get ready to ring in another year of Sales Wake-Ups, we want to pay tribute to you, our loyal readers, by gifting you with our top five sales-boosting stories from Hands On: 

No-Fail NeW Year’s
resolutioNs
> Resolved to start 2012 on the right foot? Take a step forward
with these practical changes, culled from a review of New Year’s
resolutions for florists and small retailers.
Invest a higher percentage of your marketing budget in
packaging. One year ago, florist Rick Canale resolved to shift
Yellow Pages ad dollars into monogramed bags and cellophane,
as well as interior and exterior signage for Boston-based Exotic
Flowers. The exterior signage, in development now to replace
two illuminated “relics,” “will pay for itself the first year,” he said.
“The new signs are grabbers.”
Canale also updated the staff uniforms: “The polished look
has made a huge difference in the psyche and approach of staff
when we all dress in the same color” (maroon), he said. Even
seasonal personnel will sport matching, logoed jackets for
Valentine’s Day deliveries.
******

Exotic Flowers in Boston remains an active marketer in the floral industry. We are proud to share our ideas. Honored that our ideas are shared with our colleagues. And Exotic Flowers in Boston is confident that our business ideas not only benefit our growth as a Boston Florist but benfit the entire floral industry.

Stay tuned for more exciting marketing ideas from Boston's Premier Florist as we start planning a new entry for the Floral Management Marketer of the Year.