In our example Marketing Strategy we have used a relatively small florist whose business is in her immediate geographic location. Her business can go from a famine to a feast. Valentine’s Day sees her run off her feet, likewise Melbourne Cup, but at other times she can be very quiet. Ideally she needs to fill in some of these troughs with regular repeat orders.

We have developed an Email Marketing Strategy that addresses this problem in an innovative way that not only is relevant to her existing database, but also aims to grow her database with new members. The strategy can be repeated ad infinitum to keep growing her database with customers that will love her!!

The strategy that is explained does two key things - it builds new business and that business is related to dates that are unique to each customer, thus helping to spread this new business throughout the year one of our major aims.

As you read it through, think about your own business and how you can amend and improve this strategy to suit you. For instance - you might already have a strong part of your business where you deliver fresh flower arrangements every week to offices around your shop. In this case you could hand deliver your invitations to the men in the office (ask the receptionist for their names). For a nice touch - add a fresh rose!!

Identify who is your customer

Men and Women want the flowers and they want the men to buy them. The men tend to forget or aren’t very organized and tend to get flowers at the last minute.

What is the best thing you can do for that customer?

Take the worry out of remembering the dates and choosing a present.

Provide a reminder services and FREE flower/chocolate delivery.

What information do you need to be able to do it?

Get all key dates they want to remember - anniversaries, birthdays, mother’s day etc and their email address.

Now you have this information, how do you create your database?

Send invitation to clubs/corporate businesses close to your business. Offer to send flowers for FREE when they fill out a form with the important dates. Form can be a returned by mail or can enter details on the website and don’t forget to import your existing database.

Don't forget to say Thank You?

You want to thank the customer for registering. You can do this quite easily using the Echoplus software. By setting up a lead capture form which you load onto your website, and an email thank you which is sent automatically when anyone registers, you can look slick and professional.

When to communicate with your members?

Create reminders 5 days and 1 day before their key dates. (triggers and auto responders in the software). Also email to cross-sell other products and services.

Become "The Expert"

Send out regular newsletters on flower arranging, rock gardens, irrigation etc. At traditionally slow times of the year, create classes to teach people how to xyz. Lots of ideas and lots of reasons to contact you database with information that is welcomed and acted upon.

How do you measure success?

It’s important when measuring success, to set a baseline. Set your starting point key information could be:

How many customers did you start within your database?

How many registered for your service compared to how many invitations you send out. You could try a few different ways of sending these and see which one works the best. Similarly you could try different sorts of businesses - white collar and blue collar businesses. They all have women in their lives!

What is your current average spending per customer?

We recommend reviewing these measures and surveying your customers every 6 months to see how you are going. Set some targets and put yourself under some pressure. And do the sums... If you increased your sales by x fresh flower bouquets per week, what would that do for your bottom line? Keep your survey to no more than 10 key questions. These should cover your products, service, personnel, anything you can think of that helps you understand your customer better and improve your business. Email it with a reward for filling it out, to your database. Listen and ACT on the results.

Build Build Build! Continue to build you members by sending regular direct mails to your target market.