Have you heard of the Marketing Rule of 7? Basically, it takes seven times to capture a potential customer’s attention and convert their initial interest into a sale. The Marketing Rule of 7 is believed to have originated in the 1930s in the early days of Hollywood. Supposedly movie studios found that potential audiences needed to hear about a film at least seven times before deciding to see it.
While the exact origins are a bit anecdotal, the concept matches up with research on consumer behavior, which suggests repeated exposure increases brand recognition and trustworthiness. The rule has been widely applied in traditional advertising like radio and TV. In this day of digital content overload, the Rule of 7 may be more relevant than ever—it often takes many touchpoints across multiple platforms (social media, email, ads, etc.) before a customer actually notices what you’re pitching and takes action.
So let’s apply this rule to your floral sales. Easter weekend is a little less than a month away. Rather than waiting until the week before to post about your Easter offerings, get the ball rolling now so you have plenty of time to tap your potential customers seven times before Easter orders are due. Here are examples of how to market Easter blooms so you’ll get those seven touchpoints and more with your customers:
- Send a Newsletter: Put together an email with lots of beautiful photos, a little descriptive text, and a couple calls to action like “Click Here to Order Now” and “See Our Spring Portfolio”.
- Write a Blog Post: Make sure it has at least 300 words and includes key words like “Easter Bouquets in Philadelphia” enough times to optimize the post for search engine results. Include delivery zip codes too if you deliver. Add beautiful photos to the post and make sure the Alt Text includes your chosen key words. Don’t forget to include links to purchase.
- Post to Pinterest: After you publish your blog post, pin photos from the post and keep the key words consistent in the caption. This will boost your website when someone Googles something like “Easter Flowers Near Me”
- Post on Social: Announce your pre-orders are open and offer a small discount or bonus for early birds.
- Run an Ad: Chose the platform that’s most likely to hit your target audience and run a targeted ad with a beautiful photo and a clear call to action.
- Post to Stories: As the holiday edges closer, make sure to put reminders in your Stories with direct links to purchase. Do this every few days.
- Show Up in the Neighborhood: Be it online or in person, find a way to show up in front of your immediate neighbors. Post to local Facebook groups or on Next Door. Place a sample bouquet with business cards in your local coffee shop. If you’ve got kids on a little league team or another community connection, make sure to mention what you’ve got going on for Easter blooms. Most neighbors love supporting local!
- Run a Giveaway: A week before, do a giveaway on socials to encourage followers to share your brand with their friends. “Get a Bouquet & Give a Bouquet” is a popular format where followers tag friends in comments to be entered to win a bouquet themselves and another for the friend they tagged. These bouquets can be small and not your premium offering.
- Send Another Email: Hop back on that mailing list and send out a reminder email to gather in last minute orders. Keep it short and sweet with a big bold linked button to place an order.
These same ideas can be tweaked for any type of floral sales. The goal is to get in front of potential customers at least seven times. Like so many things in life, marketing is not instant gratification. One Instagram post is not enough to earn customer trust and make a sale. Thoughtful repetition over multiple marketing tools is where it’s at!
For more tips on marketing and business as it relates to floristry, be sure to listen to our podcast, Floral Guild Radio. And check out this past blog post.