The Floral Hustle

 

Hello, flower friends. This is Jen and you are listening to the Floral Hustle Podcast. This time we're really going to focus in on marketing and knowing if something is working from a marketing perspective. And this comes in two layers with Two things that have kind of happened to me recently. Um, the first was I had a, uh, like local kind of bride association that I'm a part of and they want me to renew.

And their, their whole package is like, you're getting exposure in a magazine, you're getting exposure at these events, you're getting exposure in, you know, various other ways, like a directory. And this directory clicks to my website. Me with understanding marketing, understanding analytics, understanding that type of exposure really well, because that was my job for years and years and years, uh, I was like, okay, I'm going to go and look at my website analytics and I am going to go and dig deep and see how many web referrals did I get from this source.

And I went in, And this was just like two weeks ago, um, for right now, so it was like at the end of April. And I put the date range of starting on January of 2023. So, not even like the, since this first of this year, I gave it a really good time frame. And I had had two referrals. from this organization where I have my name listed in a directory and I have like it's like a mini ad pretty much similar to like a not listing similar to a wedding wire listing.

So I was like That's not great. And just really like brought that to the forefront. Like, am I doing something wrong? Am I, is there something that I can prove about this? Because maybe they've seen something work well for somebody else. And I didn't really get a ton of feedback other than like put new pictures up.

And you know, those kinds of things. It's like, I know the pictures that I put up are really great. So I only knew that because I dug into What I was actually getting delivered. And I think a lot of times we make feeling based decisions about marketing, about where we spend money, about like what we should be doing in our business or what we should not be doing in our business.

And so today I want to actually dive into a little bit. Like what you should be looking at and explain something like this is just some basic metrics that are out there for you to understand, um, marketing. But the other layer that I wanted to talk about is like when you're posting on social. That is marketing as well.

Cause you are marketing your business, you showing up to a networking event that is marketing as well. And what often happens. And that was kind of the second layer of what happened was I had a coaching client that's like, I've been, I was so proud of her for posting, but I also could hear when she said, but nothing's happened yet.

Cause I think she'd been posting consistently like a couple of times a week for three weeks. And like, that is not enough length of time to really feel any impact, which I know that is, is, can be a little defeating. But, You need to develop frequency. You need to develop reach. You need to gain followers.

So that strategy, to me, if you're going to be posting, you also have to have a simultaneous strategy of posting things that, you know, are, are going to help drive new eyeballs. You also need to be like doing a strategy of hopefully just reaching and like following new people that are really relevant to you.

So hopefully you're going to get them to reciprocate that ball and it can be frustrating when you're not like knocking it out of the park and you're, you know, you didn't get all these inquiries. You didn't get all these things weren't happening, you know, and she was like. Well, I've been doing it. I was like, yeah, it, it takes a while to do that.

And I've, I've had this, like, I've felt the same way. The, also the part of it that's really important is if you're tracking that kind of growth. Uh, cause I know when you're, you're too close to it and you're watching one or two followers, like that doesn't feel like gain that momentum. And that gain comes from like, When you've gained hundreds of followers or thousands of followers, and that takes time, and if you're just staring at one or two at a time, it's really hard to understand that you've been consistently doing these actions for a consistent amount of time, and that has brought you to consistent growth that has been more impactful.

So, first thing I want to talk about is that, uh, website analytics and really analytics and understanding marketing. So this is something that a lot of people are like, Oh, I don't understand all those numbers. And so most reporting systems that are in a website company, uh, like I have a Wix website and I can log into the reporting or analytics dashboard and I can look at my traffic.

So. There are some websites out there that are not very transparent about this. I, I mean, I personally feel like Bloom Nation has the worst reporting I've seen. And I don't know if that's on purpose, because the numbers don't look right. At least for the several instances that I had seen it. So, if you have a website company that does not have transparency in their analytics, I would try to, to understand why, because that might not be the right place for you.

The first analytic is, um, especially if you're paying for some type of advertising. I am paying for a listing on this webpage directory. Same thing happens with The Knot. Same thing happens with WeddingWire. Same thing could potentially happen with Zola. You are getting exposure of your name, your brand, everything.

So that is normally when actually you're in a list of people, your brand gets an impression and impression means that that person potentially saw your name because it was on the page. This could happen in, if you bought Instagram boosted posts, this could happen if you, um, you know, had, I mean, this even is physical.

Uh, a grocery store that you are buying a checker, um, at the checkout, there's little, like, ads there. That place could say, we have this much traffic that goes through, they could average out the amount of people that are going through checkouts, and they could say that your ad gets, 500 impressions on a weekly basis, or gets 100 impressions on a weekly basis.

So that is like, your name should be visible. Uh, if you are running a Facebook ad, like, if somebody's scrolling, your ad is there. And there are rules and parameters around, um, that kind of dictate what those standards of when it can be called an impression. Because what if the person doesn't scroll down and your ad is at the bottom?

Like, it has to have some different, like, there's parameters around page scroll for you to get to that impression. So then, from there, you can go in and say, let that consumer saw your ad. Now, they clicked on it. So now you've got a click. So we have now got a impression to a click. So they call that a conversion metric.

So like we have converted the click through rate is a conversion because we have taken that customer. This is like we're at the top of the funnel when somebody just can like see our ad. When they click on it and they're landing wherever that is, and that could be two different places. If this was a direct click to your website, or if this was a direct click to a directory page that you are listed in.

So that conversion, that click through rate. of impression to, uh, let's just say viewing your landing page like on my Minnesota Bride. Then from there, that ended up, let's just say they're going to a directory page, so it's not our website. They got whatever click through rate. Let's just see, just to do round numbers, because click through rates are Very low, like crazy low because we live in this world that there's ads everywhere, things popping up everywhere, screaming at us.

And I mean, some click through rates for ads can be like 0. 05%. We I sold a tool that was on the website, um, that was a pop up blocker and that pop up blocker got like a 5 to 7 percent click through rate. So, your click through rate is, is how intrusive is this ad? How big is it? Is it something that somebody could accidentally click on and so it's not a true authentic click?

Or is it something that, um, you know, it's kind of hidden, kind of small? Or it's really low on the page? You know, there's all these reasons why I click your. There's also a second layer of, like, your copy on your ad wasn't compelling. Um, your audience that this ad was being served to was really not relevant.

And so that's another layer, like, you targeting the right audience. To me, I thought I was targeting the right audience if I'm a wedding and event florist, and these people are on a local bridal association site looking for florists. So, that is pretty, pretty relevant, but if we're just throwing it out and we're not putting any targeted audience on Facebook or Instagram, then that might not be the most targeted piece of, of ad going out there because we could be serving this to 60 year old men that are on Facebook that are already been married for 20 years, 30 years.

So, like, understanding that click through rate is probably being driven by a, a bunch of different factors. So, from there, we have a conversion. They have landed on my directory page. And I'm using these two as separate instances because I really think that they're separate instances in our, our business.

So they've landed on our directory page. They potentially have looked at all of the things that we've written about ourselves. They've potentially maybe looked at the pictures. But what the conversion that really matters, because your phone number usually isn't on there, your email address usually isn't on there, there is usually a way for somebody to click like on the not wedding wire Zola.

There is a lead conversion, so this is another metric from this page that they're on to that they've submitted a lead on that form. I haven't gotten any leads directly from this, this, this company, but on The Knot, Wedding Wire, that's how they are funneling the next connection. So with this other company, I had two web referrals.

That is a conversion because they took somebody that's on that page and they were interested enough to click on my website for more information. That's how they're funneling their lead process. They're going to your website, but for The Knot, Zola, all of those companies, their conversion is what is landing in your inbox because they know that that's a very visible factor because half the time florists don't know how to actually look at their website analytics.

So, Then, let's just say we got that person, that website click in this case, and we can now as to this point say the same thing if we have an ad that's running on Facebook or Google AdWords or wherever, we now have a click to our website. Now there's another set of metrics. So that again had a click through rate of an impression to clicking on our website.

But that next level is when they get there, what are they doing? And the first metric you look at is called a bounce rate. So if that person came to your website and deemed it that it wasn't relevant, or didn't find what they were looking for, and they bounced off without doing anything else, that means that that, that's like a bounce rate.

You could potentially have somebody click from an ad, and depending on the effectiveness of that ad, you could have gotten the click, but you had a very high bounce rate. I have seen different advertising mediums have 50 to 75 percent bounce rates on the first page. They only count bounce rate on the first page that they click to.

And I know this sounds super complicated and I'm really trying to explain it because I want you guys to be educated on how this works and be empowered floral CEOs and not people who let other people know stuff that could have potentially made more sense for us to tweak and mold and shape into bigger, more badass things in our business.

So we have, let's just say a high bounce rate. from a referral source or an ad source. There could be several reasons. They could have maybe not found what they were looking for on that home page. Your navigation wasn't easy enough for them to figure. The home page image, what I call the hero image on your website, did not have them go, Oh yes, that is amazing.

Like I want to be in this space. So some of those things could have happened. Or if you have a lower bounce rate, that usually means that they're going and digging deeper on your website. So, you can track With different ways and one way is some people go and I would recommend this if I were you they go install a Google Analytics pixel or the code for Google Analytics because that is the most comprehensive source of reporting that you will have most sources like especially if you're doing Google AdWords, there's just a synergy between their reporting and understanding what your ads are doing at a higher level.

But let's just say that you are using your Wix analytics. So you get somebody to your site. Now you can tell like different metrics that I dig into is. Okay, where are my clicks coming from? So where's my traffic? Where are people coming to my website coming from? So that's how I found out. That's where I actually dug in and found that they didn't re, you know, give me any reporting.

I went in and found this reporting. So I went in, dug in and found the two referrals. And a referral is. that referral is coming from another website. So when you go in, you can actually search referral sources. And in my referral sources, I found Google, I found direct. Was a referral. So somebody went in and typed my website name.

I found, um, there was a couple other ones that were kind of interesting. They were blogs that I had been listed in from a photographer. Uh, I, like, I'm on a preferred venue list and that had some referrals from different preferred venue lists that I was on. So I get to see, like. Okay, what is Instagram is a referral source, so you can see, like, what traffic Instagram is potentially sending you.

Because the same thing happens with a referral from Instagram. You could be getting a referral, but they're not getting wherever you're sending them isn't paying off what they thought they wanted or were getting when they came to your website so they bounced on out. And a lot of this is like. You're going to have a lower bounce rate, the more relevant whatever experience or page or content that you're delivering when they click there, depending on where they entered from.

If you're talking about, like, for me, if I'm talking about, like, doing cultural weddings, and I bounce them to my homepage, And I didn't easily have in the navigation something that talked about like, you know, cultural weddings page, they're going to bounce on out. Like that makes sense because it's not relevant to them.

They're like, I don't even see this cultural wedding page. Same thing would be like, if you're a sustainable florist and you're talking about that, you have a link for sustainable florists and it went to your homepage instead of a custom landing page or a sub page in your navigation. that says, Hey, here is our sustainability page, all about sustainability practices in our business.

So if you don't have that payoff, it's not going to make as much sense for them. And they're likely going to bounce on out of there. Just think like when you're throwing a bouncy ball and you're throwing that bouncy ball against the wall, and it comes right back at you. Think of that as you're sending a click.

So you're throwing that ball against the wall. That person Going and clicking on that, they're the ball, and then if it makes sense and it's going to the right target, it's going to come back to you. If you just hail Mary that ball, and it like, goes five feet over, you're probably going to be running and chasing that ball.

Well, people are not going to run and chase the ball, they are just going to bounce on out of there. So delivering a relevant experience, which sometimes requires extra work, is top priority. Okay, so now There are other metrics that we can look at. We've talked about like web referrals, looking at where all of our web referrals are coming from.

Then there are often where are your top like paths that someone comes into your site and looks at. So somebody comes into homepage, then they go to shop, then they go to the about us, then they go to maybe another page. So you can see like where are people falling off that they're not getting to a lead page.

Or you can see that like these web referrals potentially on the website company that you have are resulting in higher conversions to send a site lead. You need to make sure that your site lead form is very visible, very easy to find, and not buried in a page that you have to scroll down a million miles for.

Then, this, these analytics you can take and go, okay, I'm spending 250 on whatever thing that you're spending it on. Um, let's just say it's, it's Instagram ads. You're getting a good chunk of people to click on it. So you're getting a good amount of web referrals, but the time on site that that person spends is 45 seconds.

So they're not even really looking at your website and then they're bouncing on out of here. So something with that ad isn't going right, or you're paying for a directory to be listed in a directory that is driving web referrals to your website. And that is kind of the point or purpose of that, that whole marketing plan that you're doing.

If those people are coming and potentially are high lead conversion, spending five minutes on your site. viewing five to seven pages on your site. Like I would be like, how can I dig deeper with that marketing source? Because that is high quality traffic that they are sending your way. And if they are sending high quality traffic your way, like that probably is helping you book weddings.

I know it's the same thing with, with people. If I get a referral from a couple different planners that I know, it's a high probability I'm going to be booking that wedding. Because they've already teed me up. So if you're, if you're wanting to be teed up with whatever marketing that you're doing, make sure that your ad speaks to exactly what you want that person to be, what you want them to know, and make sure it's clicking to the most relevant spot that you possibly could that would help that person want to engage in an interaction with you.

If you're not, if you're not really drilling down and you're sending a very wide net out there, let's just say you're fishing, and you put a net out there, but the fish that you want are in a different lake. You can pull up all the fish in the world, but they're not going to be the fish that you were fishing for.

Maybe they're bullheads. Like, we have bullheads like crazy here. My dad used to eat them when I was young. It was so gross. Ugh. But, if that's what's happening Like, if you're catching bullheads and you, or carp, and you're wanting bass or sunnies, like you need to make sure you're in the most relevant lake that those fish are in.

That's why I say talk to wetting professionals, because that's a, that's a pond with all of the right bass in there and is going to pay off big time. All right. Let's just say that you are, uh, Analyzing a marketing tactic like networking. So you have been working really hard at networking. I think that is a harder one to gauge, because unless somebody says, and that's why I do have a source field on my form, unless somebody says that they were referred from wherever source, it makes that so much harder to, to track.

But, Often, wedding planners will be the one that facilitate that communication, and it makes it so much easier to then know that I network with this person, I've started a relationship with this person, and it's built this. And that's the place that I want to be, because I would love to understand and know, like, of those direct connections, what is paying off from my time standpoint.

I know, I was actually talking about this the other day, so I, I try to do periodic things of networking because I think they're important. And I had, um, I think it was like four, five, five years ago, probably five years ago. So it's right before COVID. I went to this Twin Cities Wedding Professionals. So it's like a subgroup, but I didn't just, I didn't have like the energy for one.

I had to go in there and like, literally was like, had to do an introduction with standing up in front of everybody, my first meeting. And I just wasn't prepared for that. I should have been. Cause I, you know, but I'd never went to something like that. So I was like, okay, whatever. But that day I met a cultural decorator that I didn't have a relationship with and I've had a bunch of weddings with her.

She does work with a couple other floors as well, of course, but, um, she's wonderful. Like, I, I love working with her. Her clients always have good budgets and her understanding of costs and, um, I have a wedding with her in a few weeks and it's going to be beautiful. She has really interesting, um. Mundups and wood structures and things like that.

So, like, um. Going to that marketing event, even though I never went back because I just didn't feel like my people. I booked this. I booked so many weddings with her that are absolutely stunning. So this could happen to you too. You never know because that was 5 years ago. It's still paying dividends today.

You never know when investing in that relationship is going to pay off. That's why you always got to keep planting seeds. And those seeds will hopefully grow into something bigger. that you will just have this business that you're like, I've invested so much time. I have all these relationships and everything is so good.

There are new marketing tactics, new marketing, everything that are coming all the time. So when you have that opportunity, just ask the person, like, how would you gauge success for this type of marketing or for this program? How would you gain success or gauge success? Because There could be new metrics, new connections, new whatever that are emerging.

I mean, AI is emerging like gangbusters. And so that could definitely be something that is interesting. So I think it's always worth Asking questions, and if you ever need to dive in one on one and be like, I don't know what my website traffic is. I would love to do a power hour session, um, which is available on my website because it could be so insightful.

on money you were spending, because I know with my one on one clients, we're usually getting an axe out and cutting some things, because some things are like, holy crap, not making sense. But if you don't know how to look at it, how would you have any idea if this is making any sense? They almost want to keep you dumb for a reason, because they want to keep taking your money.

Especially some of these website companies that are just like charging two to four hundred dollars for a package that you can get with Wix for, for forty dollars. I'm just still a little salty about some of those instances that I found, because I'm just disappointed in humanity after I go and they're, they're okay with you spending this and these are the results they're delivering.

Like, how can they sleep at night? Just saying. Marketing can be simplified and you just need to really just take some time. Take your CEO day, like have a CEO day that you can dig in and really understand what's going on in your business because that's how your business is going to grow.

Thank you so much for listening flower friends and you have an amazing flower filled day.