Jenny (00:29)
Imagine showing up to a local bar the night before Valentine's Day and walking out having sold flowers to half of the room and basically selling out your flower subscription for the season. Also imagine flower bombing your city without any ads or discounts or social media and becoming literally famous overnight.
Today, I'm sharing real marketing stories from flower farmers I've worked with or watched closely like these. And this is not theory, these are not trends. These are things flower farmers have done that have actually worked in the real world.
This is a collection of real marketing stories that didn't require fancy funnels or ads or social media posting that I'm gonna be sharing with you today. And I'm really excited for this episode because so many times we feel like marketing is hard and we really struggle with it. And I'm not here to say that it's not hard and difficult because it is. But it doesn't have to be that way. Marketing your business can be creative and amazingly fun.
and you can do it in a way that is memorable and makes you stand out and works to get you more customers. It does not have to feel like this ridiculously hard, drawn out, endless coming up with content ideas to post on social media. It can be super aligned with your business goals and what you wanna do with your business. So let's just dive in to some of these really cool stories. I'm really excited to share them with you and hopefully you can steal them and...
use them in your own flower farm business. So the first one is a Valentine's Day bar takeover. I've actually heard this from a couple of my students that I've worked with, ⁓ which is funny because they didn't know each other, but these students of mine knew exactly who their buyers were. Working men, last minute gifters that have good intentions, basically
these flower farmers went to a local bar that is usually hopping and they went, ⁓ like the night before the week of Valentine's day, and they brought this little like set up with them. Super simple, basically just like went around the bar and sold bouquets and subscriptions face to face, just like walking up to people. And it sounds like in this situation, these people were in a very tight knit community and they sort of knew each other and went up to each other and said like,
hey, did get your wife or your girlfriend or your partner or whoever a gift for Valentine's Day yet? And they were like, no. And they're like, well, would you like to take care of that right now? I can sign your significant other up for a whole season of flowers for 150 bucks and it'll be a hit with your significant other. They will love it. They'll get six weeks of flowers, yada, yada, yada. You can sign up right here, right here, right now and I'll give you a gift certificate to give your.
⁓ significant other tomorrow. I don't know their exact pitch. I'm just making that up right now, but said something along those lines and ended up selling a ton of flower subscriptions and flower bouquets that night sold out their Valentine's day. mean, genius. Why did I never think of this? Like no Instagram post or email would have ever converted that fast. Now I think that this
strategy works because it was the right people, it's the right timing, there's really zero friction and very high emotional motivation. So the takeaway I want you to take from this story is not how do I market my business, it's where are my customers the moment they realize they need flowers? And then go there and talk to them. So simple, so effective. Like really, this is marketing at its finest.
So even if your ideal customer isn't at a local bar before Valentine's Day, you can still use this example to think about where your customers are and go and find them, meet them where they're at and get them to buy your flowers instead of somebody else's. I love this. I just love that story so much. I think it's amazing.
Next genius marketing story I have for you today is a florist friend of mine who when she went into business, she quietly flower bombed our city park. And if you never heard of this term before, it's basically like you put up these amazing floral designs in public places where they are most likely to get noticed. So she went to our local park and she left small bouquets on benches.
installed flowers, like these beautiful floral arrangements on bike racks and trees and little archways into the park in the city. And, ⁓ she added blooms like statues and street signs and stuff
And she just included a simple tag wherever she put flowers. And I don't remember exactly what it said, but something like, know, flowers make everything better or flowers make you happy, something like that with her logo and her like website, maybe her phone number and like so genius. So her work went viral locally, like not online first.
but in real life. Like people walking around the city were like, have you seen what that florist did? It's so amazing. But have you heard of this florist? No, no. It created all this buzz, right? I've got people talking about her. And this is basically how she launched her floral design business, which I just think is so extremely cool and very, very creative. And this landed her on.
multiple news channels, got her interviewed on the news, got her in front of all these different people, and she got a ton of wedding inquiries just from that one event. And yes, this probably cost her quite a bit of money with all the product that she used, but you know what? It worked probably a hell of a lot better than taking that same amount of money and dumping it into posting on social media or putting it into ad spend or something like that. And so maybe you could think about
what you could do that would be similar to this in your area. I think this worked because it surprised and delighted people. really like interrupted people's everyday norm and that's what got the attention. And obviously it's very beautiful, right? They're flowers, so of course it's beautiful. ⁓ But beauty in unexpected places. Like I've seen people do flower bombing in like New York City and they decorate like trash cans and you know like gross things like that. And that's really
Stunning, right? Because it's beauty at an unexpected place. There was also zero selling pressure here. Like she wasn't saying like, Hey, come buy my flowers. I'm selling wedding packages. I'm booking right now. Blah, blah. Literally just beautiful flowers. Amazing, amazing designs with a little tag with her website and her logo. This probably created a lot of wedding inquiries for her.
I know a lot of people walking around the city who recently got engaged were probably like, my God, those flowers are amazing. I need those at my wedding. Let me call her, right? Or made them think about when I do get married or whatever in the future, I will come back to those flowers. It also makes people feel something, you know? And the lesson and the takeaway from this is that marketing doesn't necessarily have to plead or ask for attention. It can earn it. And that's what this florist did.
You know, beauty is already your competitive advantage. Like the flowers and what we do is already like a leg up from somebody selling like, I don't know, widgets or something. I couldn't think of an example there, but flowers are probably a lot easier to sell than like paper clips or pencils, right? So we should use that to our advantage and really lean into that beauty.
⁓ next example, next story. want to go over of genius marketing ideas. This student that I had in my business program lived in an area where there were a lot of wineries and she decided that instead of competing for attention, she partnered with them. She went to all these different wineries and asked if she could rent a little spot to put a flower stand. And she did this in front of multiple wineries.
And she captured that foot traffic by already being in a sort of like treat myself mindset. Because in her area, people went on these like winery, ⁓ tours or days where they go from winery to winery to winery and they're buying themselves bottles of wine and gift for their friends. And it was an environment where people were already buying and treating themselves. And she just inserted that herself into there and sounds like she is doing really, really well.
Now this works because this is actually a play on one of the classic marketing techniques or strategies that I teach and is basically borrowing other people's audiences or doing what we like to call network marketing by collaborating with other small scale businesses. So it benefits both of you, but you're sort of borrowing trust and traffic from these other more established businesses that have the same sort of customer that you are looking for. You have those aligned audiences.
And quite honestly, super minimal marketing effort. She's just inserting herself to a place where people are already there and buying. And so the takeaway from this is to look for other businesses and other places that already attract your ideal customers. Think about partnerships over platforms. Partnerships over platforms. And I just love this because
I have seen it work in a lot of other industries. Like for example, my sister-in-law's father has a bunch of corn stands. He grows sweet corn and he has like, I don't know how many, let's say like 10 or 15 different stands that he has strategically placed in high traffic roads and high traffic areas that he just rents a little tiny piece of land or like pays a little fee to the land owner.
to place his farm stand there during the summertime and he gets all that road traffic from it. And so that's just another example that I think is like genius marketing idea. Just put yourself where the people are. Just a reminder that marketing doesn't have to be hard. Okay, next story. I love all these stories so much. ⁓ Next story of genius marketing ideas. This is somebody that literally just became the town's flower person.
So this student that did this was in a very, very rural area, very low population of people, but a very small, like tight-knit community. And she fully leaned into that local, hyper-local visibility. So she brought flowers to literally every single place that she went, school fundraisers, community events, graduation days, every party, every road.
what do you call them block party? Like her neighborhood community had these like block parties. She'd bring flowers freaking everywhere with her to the grocery store. She'd give them to her doctor, to the checkout people in line at the stores. And she literally just became as a town's flower person. So anytime people thought that they needed flowers, if they had a party or a funeral, or they were going to a friend's house or they had a wedding, they thought of this person because
She basically built her brand on being the flower person, so they would call her anytime they needed flowers. So this person didn't try to like scale their social media fast or do any like fancy ads or anything like that. They really just focused on becoming known for something. And this works because that repetition builds recognition, the familiarity builds trust, and trust builds sales.
Like you don't need to be everywhere. You don't necessarily even need to be online that much. Like I do think being online and having social media presence and a website helps a ton and I highly recommend it, but you don't have to focus on like that kind of digital marketing when you could just focus on being everywhere that matters locally in your community. Like that is the key here. People get known in your community. So I love that. And I think anybody anywhere.
can do what that person did, just simply become your town's flower person.
All right, now one last story for you. And all of these stories I'm sharing today, I think, are just genius marketing ideas. And this one does not disappoint as well. And I've actually seen this next ⁓ story or marketing method used in a bunch of different places. ⁓ But this flower farmer in particular, I thought, did it really, really well. And what this person did was they made their customers do the marketing.
for them. And this is what I mean by that.
This person went and popped up at different fairs, festivals, markets. They also did like little pop-ups at, I think like little boutiques, like community shops in their area. And they installed a flower wall. So they basically just had like an installation design where they set up this beautiful wall of flowers. So it was like a backdrop.
for a photo and they kind of had it framed. So if you imagine a wall of flowers, but then there was a different color for like a little flower frame, like a picture frame. And she made it as a photo backdrop. So people would stand in front of it with their friends and their family, take pictures, and she would give a free stem of flowers to anybody who posted it on their social media and tagged them. And this was such a genius thing because the farm basically became like the thing to
do, like get in front of the flower wall and take a picture. And so I think I might be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure this person also ended up opening a you pick flower farm where they kind of just made this idea like a permanent staple at their farm and did different designs with it. I've seen other agritourism farms when they do like big Dahlia you picks, they'll take a lot of like spent Dahlia's that, ⁓ you know, still look good, but aren't quite saleable. And they'll make these giant installations with them.
and make them look like butterflies and hearts and you name it, I don't know, all kinds of different designs for people to basically just come and gawk at and take pictures of, but then they put those pictures online, tag them in it, talk about them, and it really helps spread the word about that flower farm. So this works because that social proof of people sharing about your flower farm, it just works so, so well.
Actually, there's a stat out there and I'm not sure exactly what it is, but something like 80 % of marketing is word of mouth marketing. And so this is how you can take that and really lean into it to make it highly effective for your business. It also is the power of shared experiences because people love to do fun things together. They love having those experiences together and that's what creates that super positive.
and viral word of mouth. And so the takeaway here is to simply design moments people want to talk about and they will do the marketing for you.
Now every single one of these stories that I have shared with you today, once again, I think they are genius marketing ideas and they all have the same pattern. They are hyper local, super hyper local within their communities. They are human, they are simple, and they start with paying attention. The best marketing ideas
probably don't come from just copying what you see other people doing on social media. They come from understanding your people, your customers, and your place, your community. And all this to say, like good marketing is less about being clever, even though these are very clever and very genius ideas. It's more about being very present in your local community and starting with
real intention for your marketing.
So I highly recommend that you sit down and start to think about some ideas where you can be really intentional about this. And you don't have to do like all of these things or use all of these ideas I talked about today. In fact, I don't think you should do that, but I think you should come up with a marketing strategy or at least generate some ideas to test out and try that will have the same effect as these flower farmers and what they tried in their businesses and in their communities.
If this idea sparked ideas for you and you want even more ideas that can move your business forward like this one, I recently gave our email newsletter a huge overhaul to include a lot more actionable stuff like this. The weekly field note delivers proven actionable strategies and tools right to your inbox because business owners like you need things that bring you results, not just like flowery fluff and random ideas.
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