Fun Way to Promote

Written by Rebecca Jordan
For each holiday, we try to increase our walk in traffic. We have come up with some crazy ways to bring in our customers that so far have worked.First off...I cannot tell you enough the importance of how your shop looks. Cleanliness, organization, and decoration are always a must. People still window shop so be sure your windows will draw thier attention.Each year just before Halloween we have the Nevada Day parade. We luckily not only live in our state capital our shop is located on the street where the parade goes though. We bought several different colors of wooden roses(they cost about 6 cents each) tied a bussiness card to them and handed each one out. We reached 600+ people. Over half of those came in because they got something so nice.For Halloween we stayed open until 10pm. We offered candy of course! We also had adult trick or treat bags for sale. They were full of candy, coupons, flowers, and fun Halloween type things. We had several made up and sold every last one. Also each employee was dressed to the nines that night to help get into the halloween spirit. Nothin gory, and as floral related as possible. A fairy, swamp thing, and poison ivy showed up!! Our windows were full. We put in a large downed tree branch some crows and mucky colored flowers in a cauldron and such.For Valentine's day we got a teenager to stand on our corner in a bright red zoot suit and wave at traffic. We had put into the newspaper we were doing this. We said" come meet Mr. Valentine." We had many women comeinto the shop because of it. They took picutres with him and all bought stuff. We also offered drive up service. It was very cold that day so it worked out better than ever. We had everything from candy, stuffed animals, and flowers for people to choose from. They were greeted carside. Our window dripped with love, romance, and flowers!!Easter we made a huge paper mache rabbit. He sat in our window along with easterish items. People came in just to see him. Once they were in they could buy an adult eater basket. It had a spring plant, candy, martinelles, stuffed animals, and much more.Now for Mother's Day, we have a whole new plan. Our window will add to our new shop character...our plan is "Mama never forgets, so don't forget Mama." Ever wtch the tv show Mamas Family? Well our owner will be out on the corner waving traffic down dressed as mama holding a sign drawing our customers once again in.Keep in mind the happier your customers the more they give. ABC'S Extreme Makeover Home Edition came to our area. We never knew they sought our local florists to do their flowers. Our customers love us so much they bombarded ABC to choose us to do the designing. We of course were more than happy.So always be nice to customers. Keep a smile on your face and remember that your working with flowers, not sewage. Have fun, your selling beauty!!