Simple things.....

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Mikey the Flower Guy

Mikey the Flower Guy

It's a GREAT DAY to live, and love!
Nov 10, 2002
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Dundas, Ontario, Canada
www.hamiltonflorists.com
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Ontario
for those of you that cannot "wrap" your thoughts around wire service "positives" from filling incoming orders!!
We simply inserted OUR BUSINESS CARD with EVERY SINGLE wire order we delivered...since Christmas, we have gained 12 brand new clients...no advertising, no pressure sales, no reminder emails, no cost to us!!
It's a trend that has grown our customer database by 11% over 2 years, with NO EFFORT!!
This past December we had a record outflow of wire orders, and the commissions & rebates to match!
It ALL counts, boys and girls...it ALL counts
 
Mikey the Flower Guy said:
for those of you that cannot "wrap" your thoughts around wire service "positives" from filling incoming orders!!
We simply inserted OUR BUSINESS CARD with EVERY SINGLE wire order we delivered...since Christmas, we have gained 12 brand new clients...no advertising, no pressure sales, no reminder emails, no cost to us!!
It's a trend that has grown our customer database by 11% over 2 years, with NO EFFORT!!
This past December we had a record outflow of wire orders, and the commissions & rebates to match!
It ALL counts, boys and girls...it ALL counts
Click to expand...
Mikey,

GMTA! With my boss' permission, I've been inserting business cards with enclosure cards for a few months now. I told her that if I was the recipient, and I liked the flowers, I'd be happy to have her card.. would put it in my desk and make a mental note to call HER next time I needed flowers. It just makes sense.

Beth :~)
 
Mikey I have to ask

How do you track that growth being contributed to business cards placed within the incoming order? Having done this myself it was very time consuming to look up every order and cross reference to see if the customer recieved an incoming order. Do you have reference numbers on the cards that customers recieve? Or is it the data put together from asking the csutomer how they found you?

The reason why I ask is because since day one we have done this with every single order and sure we do recieve calls from the recipient claiming they recieved an order from us. However I never saw anything close to that with our incoming orders and that data took some serious amount of time to cross reference. I have an easier way now by adding a source code to our system so when we ask how they found us we can choose the appropate code such as recieved an order.

Today our growth has been mostly from our website and we have more repeat customers then ever. But I still see very little from business cards slightly higher then from when we were using our incoming the same way. New customers sales from our incoming orders was less then 3% and that was two years worth of data from 2003 to 2005.

The one thing I did notice from incoming was repeat incoming orders to the same recipient and that was disturbing.
 
NPFloral said:
Huh?? Disturbing? Repeat business ***disturbing***???? :dunno:

Tim - North Port Floral
Click to expand...

I'm with you ...disturbing no! not in the least... I know that when my customer comes in Holiday after holiday to send to the same person I us the same florist I used before unless there was a problem. I like to believe when I see the same recipients over and over again that my staff and myself is doing a great job and the recipient is giving us positive reviews, otherwise the sending florist would be using one of the other 40 something other choices around me.

Knife's Wife
 
Eric S said:
geez you guys.

I am not refering to another florist sending to our shop.

I am talking about .com orders.

I give up.
Click to expand...
Don;t do that!!!

the only .com order I fill are from Smithsflower.com :hug:
 
We have found that by inserting our newsletter and a food packet it also adds to us getting the recips. direct. For Eric... I think it does depend on the location and what the growth is in your area. I have an overwhelming growth in subdivisions here, almost every order that is purchase first out of that home is a .com, then after the florist (me!) delivers the arrangement they then order from me direct. It is because they do not look for a florist when 1st moving in their home and they are very computer savvy, so they click on the flashing banner. That said, on my business cards I also have my web address which leads to my growing on incoming orders off my web page. The answer when asked at time of purchase it has stated received a bouquet in passed as well as answers on phone.
Yes, there are some in a particular zip code that are repeats on .coms usually I have found it is very large corps. that have an acct with .com and a few are repeats b/c of it being an established area of 20+yrs. With the amount that is repeat it is hardly nothing compared to what I have gotten in the new areas I deliver to and gain new loyal repeat customers.
And NO! I am not bashing anyone that has decided to reject or not be in a wire service, b/c that works for you; it is just that I have found this works for me after doing extensive research on it. Now, after the growth is down and the subdivisions are aged then I think I will have to do and look for something else to bring in business like others in aged areas.
Yes, it is just the little things that do help a great deal!
Cyndi
 
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