So I had the meeting with them and I was surprised. Firstly they never once offered to sell me their product, it was a chat about what we could do different. They told me to work to grow my average sale from $72.90 to $87. They told me 4 ways to do this. 1) Put a better spread of higher and lover value products on each page of the website (thought that was a good point) and offer everybody your $79.99 product when they call. 2) Send 5 postcards a year to existing customers (I never use postcards as my previous experiences have been poor). 3) Work on Adwords, SEO and Constant Contact. Send 2 e mails a month (I send one). 4) Do not push walk in as it is not profitable. He also said there is no cost effective way of bringing new customers so don't bother.
I have to say this is completely different than I was expecting but would love to hear some comments,
I would agree with some of it and not other parts. Modern day marketing platforms do not agree with many of some of these things because serious things can go wrong. One mis-step and you could lose a customer that could have a LCV of 10K or better.
1) I would keep a spread on your website that fits within you demographics (most people don't understand them, so they don't even look at them). In my area I keep a $10 spread except in the funeral area then I jump to a $20 spread. On the High end or customers orders, it's a $30 - $50 spread. reason, being, a person looking at those 2 areas versus everyday have extremely different budgets and want to spend more. that's decision they have made prior to there interaction with you or your website. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the customer, what spread do you prefer or would you tolerate.
I would NOT ATTEMPT to raise you ticket levels because that has a glass ceiling and if it breaks, your out of business in 90 days or so. Example: The average ticket in my area has increased over the last 10 years and it now up to $63 and some change. The range pre-funeral work goes down to $53 (which matches the national average). Recently a store in central Florida bought into this concept sold to them from a different group and in 6 months they had increased their average sale by $20 (wow). On Jan. 30 they realized that there CRR (customer retention rate) had dropped by 10% (WOW). The average florists retention rate is 65% - 68%. I suggested they call customers with history that was active but not within the last 90 - 120 days. They found that 60% moved to a different florist, the reason: They could go elsewhere (another florist or big box) and saved money. Some had been customers for over 20 years. So they (customers) threw out all the good service for many years because of the higher ticket sales. Very dangerous.............
I do use postcards and do about 6 - 8 per year. It takes 26 touches per. year to keep someone firmly in your camp, so I send out 6 - 8 per. year. I do cage the ROI on all of the holidays.
I send out 1 - 2 emails per. month. I would not send out 3 in August, but in December you can do 3 or 4. Customers are OK, as long as it's not abused.
As for adwords and Seo, I leave that to the professionals and pay for that service (florist knowledge only). For website, I drive traffic to my website with in every piece of mail/envelope/van/doors, etc. I can. I buy labels that say, We are only one click away (web address) then 24/7 days a weeks. Sometimes I will send facebook or emails blasts that say only that. I ask in every email, "if you know someone who needs flowers" please send them my email address or web address. Our adwords in Floristware match all of the above.
As for walk ins, they are VERY profitable and we push it all the time. That comment made me want to cry or scream. Today, we had 15 walk ins, our loss leader is roses year round for $24.95 a doz. (even at VD day). Over 50% grab a card, stuffed animal or candy at the register. People know that they can come in for that. Just last week did a $1000 funeral and when the clerk asked, "how did you hear about us?"........he replied, "I buy roses in your store at least once a month". So you can see that walk ins are profitable and if done right can be a trampoline for referrals from others to you. As far as bringing in new customers, we logged 375 new customers last and year 90% of them were handed to us by our customer base with very little cost to us. Our/your sole job in business to get the customers to buy more often (not higher or inflated prices) and then bring you at least one new customer per. year.......If your customer retention rate is 65%, then that means you are losing 35% of your customer every year. Some die, some move, some leave for high prices, some don;t like your location and so on. So doesn't it make sense to you that you that if your losing 1/3 of your customers each year, then how are you replacing them?.......You can't make that up with higher ticket sales, so failure to soon to come.
I test everything in my store first before I recommend it to someone else. So, you be the judge..............
