Email Marketing That Builds Real Customer Connection

Episode 308: Recorded at peak “end-of-day brain,” Lori and Vonda dive into one of the most overlooked tools in the floral industry: email marketing that feels personal, warm, and human. They break down why florists avoid email marketing, what customers actually want to receive, and how you can write simple newsletters that create loyalty—not pressure.

You’ll learn how to craft subject lines that get opened (“We saw this and thought of you…”), how to balance storytelling with sales, and why emailing once a month is better than not emailing at all. A refreshing, relatable take on marketing from two people who fully admit they’re running on fumes—and yet delivering pure gold.

Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How much do I need to do? What should my content be? What are some suggestions that you, with your experience, both with doing our email and listening to the feedback, what would that be? Welcome to the Business and Pleasure of Flowers. We're your hosts, Vonda LaFever and Lori Wilson.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And we believe that business and fun are a perfect combination. Kind of like us, Vonda.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Lori, I think we need to start by telling our listeners how much of a struggle this is.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yes, I was gonna say, are we going to have a caveat to this podcast? A disclaimer, if you will, that we are recording this at, well, I'm gonna do the Eastern time zone because it sounds worse because I want to be dramatic right now. It is 4:25 Eastern time, which is I'm gonna say much closer to yours and my bedtime than it is our wake-up time. That's exactly what I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

That's way closer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Way, way closer. So we can both safely say the majority of our brain calories have been depleted. They have. And our energy level is very low. It's none. And we pass the point of being able to caffeinate ourselves because then we'll be up all night. Exactly. And we're just gonna start this cycle. So we're in a little bit of a pickle. But I do want the listeners to be aware this was Vonda's idea to put it on the calendar for this time of day.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

So sorry, we had to get it done because we were told we have to quit doing the podcast on Monday and getting it all done because then our marketing team of Ellie and Tyler could not get it pulled together.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

I get that.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

I get that too.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

I get that. I get it, but I want at some point to go back and revisit it because there's something about us starting our Monday morning with the fresh pod, and then at launching the next day is being up and fresh and current. So at some point, I do think we need to revisit that. But right now, our bosses, our pod bosses, say no.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So we have to do say so. Maybe once they hear this one and our voices, maybe they'll go, Oh, we should go back tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Yes. I don't know. Maybe the editing you can change the level of our voice. I wonder if flower shops like other people are like us when at the end of the day, even just your tone of voice gets a little different. And you can tell clearly my enthusiasm has left the building like Elvis. And so when you answer the phone, right? Flower shop, again, you have to be mindful of that.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, yeah. But I do think there's a little bit of difference there because you and I have been sitting at our desk most of the day. I've been working on a spreadsheet, so my eyes are crossed. You're working on email marketing, and so your eyes are crossed. So we're not moving around in and out of the cooler. That really does make a big difference. Yeah, that's true. Maybe we need to go step in a cooler. That would exactly. And we're not gonna have that here in Florida or Texas right now. A couple days ago was kind of cool, yeah, but not now. Speaking of marketing, yes, yes, like I like that good little segue right in there.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah. So I want to talk about marketing a little bit. I know we talked about ideas, marketing ideas for this time of year, but I wanted to talk about email marketing. We do by we, I mean flower click, we do email marketing for our members. We have a program called Click Mail. Shout out to Sherry and Ellie, my partners, that we do and we love it so much and we work really, really hard. But it is a program for Flower Click members only. And so we've been talking the past couple of weeks internally about email marketing, and you and I thought it'd be good to just do a podcast because I come across a lot of florists that absolutely don't do email marketing at all. And and I find that fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I I find that fascinating too. And and I know why. It's a lot of work, Lori. Oh gosh. That's why. I mean, it yeah, they probably would love to do it and they want to do it, but then the time zaps them and they're like, well, I can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yes, the time and where to even start, you know, the starting point and the how do you get the emails, how do you do this? And a lot of people don't know is it is it legal? Can you just randomly send somebody an email? You know, so there's there's all of those kind of things. So what I wanted to talk about today was just kind of give some maybe reasons why in our industry, this and these are just reasons according to Lori and Bonda, right? But a little bit with chat GPT, they were right, and more importantly, my experience with talking to florists and customers with Bible. You have both, yes, you have a lot of experience, a little bit of a mix because I do a lot of yes, I do a lot of talking, but I do a lot of listening about the getting feedback about the program. So I want to just talk about why it's important. Okay, and then you and I are gonna kind of talk about what makes us click on an email. Right, right. And and those are very different things. You and I are different target audiences. We definitely are. So the number one for me, and I tell people this all the time, that are in our program, because I do have shops that constantly are data driven or data driven. And email marketing, like a lot of marketing, is really if you're gonna be just only data driven, you're gonna stop doing email marketing after the first month. Right. You're gonna get really depressed.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Because it's not about the click-through, it's more about like a relationship, isn't it, Lori?

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, yes, and it is more about top of mind awareness, basically. You don't know how many people read that subject line but keep scrolling, or maybe they didn't click on your email, but they saw that it was from Vonda's flower shop, and they're like, Oh, that's cute. I don't need flowers, but I'm gonna keep scrolling. Doesn't mean they hate you. It just means at that moment in time, they're not interested in flowers.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Right. And they might delete it, which is what I do. I every morning I have like 10 emails I delete. But the interesting thing is I don't unsubscribe because I want to go back. I know that that's where I'm gonna look for my next whatever it is, and right why people, as long as they're not unsubscribing, I mean that's pretty successful, isn't it? To get those things sent out.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yes, and I was gonna talk about it later, but I will say this, and I'll probably talk about it later too, because I'll forget I talked about it already. About unsubscribing, don't get caught up in those people. Yeah, don't worry, don't I remember when we flower click first started and we started our email gen leads and searches up? I would go and look at our dashboard and I would obsess on unsubscribes. Remember, I mean, let's say we got four in a week and I'm like, they hate us. Why? Why should I call? Like, and I'm like, stop it.

unknown 8:18

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

That it's okay because I find I do unsubscribe from people, but I'm still following them on social media. And as a season comes back around, I might subscribe again. Exactly. Because I might want them then, and I'm just cleaning up my emails, and I know on an off season I don't, but maybe around the holidays, I want them again because I want to get their emails. So it's not about you always.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

No, it's right. It it's the mood of the person who's receiving that email, I think.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Exactly. And we have to not worry about that. And I'll get emails from our members saying so-and-so emailed me, wanted to be unsubscribed. I don't know why. And I was like, you don't need to worry about the why. You know, I'll go in, I'll unsubscribe them. That's it. That's done. It's move on, let it go. Let it go. So I think it is really about emails staying top of mind and the balance between letting them know what you're up to in inside your business, yet not annoying them with constant emails.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

So, what would you suggest if someone is just gonna start email? So they're like, okay, Lori says I need to do emails. Um, how many do I need to do? What should my content be? What what are some suggestions that you, with your experience, both with doing our email and listening to the feedback, what would that be? How many times? Let's start with that one. Well, let's talk about not seasonal, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

When it's not a holiday. Yeah, not holiday. I don't think a flower shop needs this in more than one week, right? That's plenty. I even think knowing your audience, knowing your customers, it's okay to do every other week, depending on if you have something to say, every email needs to answer this question. What is it I want them to do with this email? Do I want them to order a flower? Do I want them to pre-order something? Do I want am I sharing something seasonal? Am I building a relationship? Right. Am I showing them a new wedding link? Like, what do I want them to do with this email I'm sending?

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Okay, so I'm looking for a purpose, but also send it. Also, if I'm just starting, if I would set myself up for success by saying, I'm only gonna do it once a month. Yeah, because that's all I can do. And is that enough? Is that getting me started out or well? I think it's better than nothing.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

I think it's better than nothing. And my advice would be like what we do, is I would do a newsletter. Okay. I would just do Vonda's new monthly newsletter, and I would just do highlights of whatever you got going on, and I would keep that same template and I would do it over and over and over once a month.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

Okay, maybe the flower of the month or special things to send flowers for that month, things like that. Okay. Right. So if I did a newsletter now, then what would be the second most important that I would want to do?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Your features, something that's going to draw you in. I feel like smaller town shops almost have it easier, Matt. Well, they do have it easier because they have the local businesses around too, so they can send things out. You can collaborate with other local businesses. I'll call out Jen Lineham from Beautiful Blooms by Jen. She's outside of Toledo, Ohio, and they do this Friday night Main Street, really cute little thing. The whole little town does it, and they put things in their email and they kind of cross, you know, collaborate. It's the cutest, cutest thing. So, but it draws people in. I'm in Texas and I get drawn in, sucked into this, and I'm never going to be able to visit that thing. But I open it because I'm like, wow, it reminds me of a Hallmark town. Like, how cute. Oh, cool. Um, okay, you know, draw them in to building that relationship and making the person go, oh, I have my cousin lives there. What a cute place. I want to send flowers to them. You know, drawing them into your story.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

But using a story basically using storytelling for that copy really makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I think so. Personalizing the email. Okay. As humanizing the email, I think that's that's a big thing. Just the more generic the email is, I think the more likely all of us are to unsubscribe. I subscribe to a lot of flower shop emails, a lot because I'm constantly looking what makes me want to open this. Right. The ones that are the worst are just the basic, just just you know, they all look exactly the same. Nothing, there's no character to it.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah. One little thing that my list says, and this I think really does make a difference. Write to one person, not to your list. Yeah. I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my friend, oh, I thought of you. It instantly changes the tone. That makes you want to be sucked in. And I'm like, well, that's what you do when you're writing those emails, is that you're like sucking them in because you're like, hey, friend, or whatever you're addressing them. I'm like, oh, oh, they like me. I I think I want to open this.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Ellie and I have this Google Doc that we we've had it for years since we've started email marketing, and it has just like our favorite subject lines on it. And anytime we get a subject line or create one in our head, we'll like put it on there. And we we used to use it a lot more before chat GPT came on board. These used to actually come from our brains, believe it or not. But still to this day, pre-Chat GPT, one of my favorite subject lines ever is the subject line that says we saw this and thought of you. Yeah. I love that. I will open that email every damn day. Whether it's true or not, because it speaks to me. I'm like, ooh, what is it? They thought of me. What made them think of me? And it's this pretty arrangement. It makes me feel so good. Even though I know it's a big fat lie. I don't care. I believe the lie. I will stick into the lie because I want to.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah, and that's one like I usually open too. It's like, we found something you might like.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Same type of thing. It's like, yes. How do you know me? And then you look at it and you're like, then the next time it puts something you didn't like, you're like, I'm not gonna open from that person again.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Exactly. Exactly. But something like that, we saw this and thought of you. I'm like, there is no better subject line for someone like me, my personality. Remember, you're playing a game, right? It depends on the personality types. One of the ones, number four, that I put for my bullet points here, and maybe different customers respond to urgency and relevance. For example, seasonal blooms available for a limited time only. Okay. Holidays approaching, specials or gift occasions, behind the scenes story, like tie your content into something timely because it will usually drive action. So I was reading that, and just for curiosity, I went to my not my work email, but my personal Gmail account. Okay. And I was like, okay, I have 59 unopened emails right now, which is pretty good for me because I usually have like 200 and some and they're all junk. Out of 59, 23 subject lines had words that created urgency in the subject line. For example, just dropped new merch. Run, don't walk. Okay, that's one. Don't forget set to claim 70% off. Get your early access now. Score now. Like when you look at it that way, I'm like, oh my gosh. Subliminally, I don't notice it. Yeah. And I'm reading through here, I'm like, holy crap. Wow. One of these, hurry, on sale now. Lori, unwrap 20% today from Sir Latab. I mean, like everything.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

That's crazy. Yeah, limited time, free gift, holiday rap for your style.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

I mean, so your exclusive invitation ends tomorrow. Ooh. Ooh, what's my exclusive? What is what's exclusive? I don't think I didn't know it was exclusive. I mean, so little things like that. So urgency is a big one. Hey clickers, it's me, Lori. Hey, did you know that FlowerClick has an email marketing program that their members can add to their existing membership? It's called Clickmail, and it's your ultimate email marketing solution. For just $199 a month, we can deliver beautifully designed seasonal emails that are tailored to your shop's personality, keeping your customers engaged year-round. During peak seasons, like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, FlowerClick will send between six to eight emails per month. Plus, every email features clickable links that drive traffic directly to your website, making shopping effortless for your customers. If you need special occasion reminders, FlowerClick's got you covered. For a one-time setup fee, we can send personalized birthday and anniversary reminders to your customers. Here's the best part of the whole program: there is a geo-exclusive feature that ensures no other shop in your area can join this program once you have it. Remember, click mails for FlowerClick members only. So if you've been thinking about becoming a member, go to flowerclick.com today and schedule a time to make that happen.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Okay, back to the pod. This is one, and I always get surveys, and I probably get them because I usually fill out 50% of them that show up in my yeah. This one was a new one, and I thought, golly, I'm gonna do this one. Help Delta shape your future onboard experience. Ooh, ooh, they want me.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

They want you, but you left Delta, uh, so you feel even more part of them.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Yeah, help help shape your future services. I mean, you could do that on with a flower shop, help us decide what's best for you or something. I'm just like, wow, see, those are the ones that draw me in.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, no, I think that's really good. Another thing to do when you email is we talked about personalized the experience using words like hey, flower friends, sharing your designer favorites. We do that a lot in our email marketing, and it's some of our designers' favorites, or we'll do our salespeople favorites, customer favorites, our top faves, all of those, because everybody wants to know what was the most popular, right? It's so true. Yeah. So we'll do at the beginning of every new year. A lot of times we'll have Cammy and her web team pull like what were the top three best sellers for mix one and mix two. Like we truly get the data. We do. And Ellie and Ellie will make a graphic for like first, second, third, like stars of the show. It's kind of cute. One year she did it, it looked kind of like Olympics prizes. It was super cute. And we sent it out in the email, and it got a really good response because they were things that were still on the website because they were best sellers.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

I love that because everybody does want to know what is selling, because even if you're not part of it, then you're like, oh, maybe I need to do something similar to that because it is something that would be good.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Exactly. Another piece of content is to educate lightly. I love the way they worded that. Don't send an hour-long YouTube video on how to design. Educate lightly. Like, how do you care for the flowers they get? What are some trending color combinations that they may not be aware of? I loved that idea because some of us don't really know how to put color combo together. Someone in our members only Facebook group was putting in some wedding bouquets recently, and I'm like, I would have never put those colors together. I didn't know you could because I'm not a designer. And a lot of the customers aren't, right? So they wouldn't show us. Yeah. What can be done because that's what makes you guys special.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

Well, I love the idea about educating lightly. The one that we know as designers is don't put it in front of a window. Things like that could be a simple education like plan on where you put your flowers once they arrive. Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Well, with winter coming up, especially in the northeast, like near a heating vent. Yeah, don't put them neat near the heating vent. That's right. Right. Those kind of little cli I almost said click tips. Don't sit call it a click tip, but call it whatever kind of tip you want to do. So and then one of the last ones, I mean, I have 10, then this was eight. And this is where we at Flower Click can get tripped up. I know Ellie and I and you, we can get tripped up here. Is consistency is more important than perfection. It's hard. And I think floral designers probably get caught up in this too, because they're probably all perfectionists. They want everything to look just absolutely perfect. It's okay if the design or you know, whatever the graphic maybe isn't as perfect as you dreamed, envisioned it to be. Just get the emails out. As long as they're font and there's no typo and they're readable, yeah, they're okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Consistency. Yeah, mine says don't let imperfection be keep you from doing it. A slightly messy work table, a half-finished wreath. Feel authentic and build that friendship. I mean, it's the same type of thing you do on social. That's what we always suggest, but it's just an extension of that. Get it in their email box because we've talked about my boyfriend Pat. Yes. He suggests that you own your email list, you don't own your social, right? So social, you try to get everybody in, everybody in, and get them those email addresses. But once you get the email address, you're in their email box. So, you know, even if there's like you said, you're gonna maybe you're gonna delete it, maybe you're gonna save it for later. It's that top of mind awareness, which yeah, huge.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Yeah. I'll tell you one more thing that we learned in our email marketing that uh I do differently this year is we used to do longer text, but I learned less is more in the text, focus more on the pictures. Of course, put your text in there to humanize yourself, but you don't need a lot of words in these emails. You're you're trying to show your beautiful products, yeah. Unless you're sending a letter to your customers to share a heartfelt message about something specific, you don't need that.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Just a little paragraph is is plenty. Well, think of ourselves, right? Each one of you who are listening today, think of yourselves. I mean, you open it and you see all those words, you go, oh right.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

We're skimmers, right? We skim, especially you you are the queen of skimming. I am, I am. You're like, paraphrase it for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So give me some pictures and then I'll read a little bit and then I'll skim through and see what it is. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah. And I think just start. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Just start sending them out. That's the key. Just say, I'm gonna do it. I'm just gonna do it. So pull the list out of your point of sale, and some of you have capabilities to do it right through your point of sale to be able to do it email marketing. But if not, there's constant contact. There's so many out there. Just look for an email marketing program. There are so many of them. Some of them are free. Just make yourself do it.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. We hope you enjoyed spending time with us because we enjoy spending time with you. If you did, make sure you hit that subscribe button or add the business and pleasure of flowers to your Google morning routine or your flash briefing on Alexa.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

We look forward to seeing you next week. So please come back and join us and discover how a bit of knowledge and one small change in your mindset can take you to new levels in your life and business.