Segmenting your event business from your retail business helps focus your marketing, leading to better exposure online — which is where the current generation of brides and grooms does its research.
Tucson, Arizona florist Don Coleman, AAF, knows what phrase newly engaged couples in his community type when scouting for a florist: “Tucson wedding flowers.” To capture their attention, he created a wedding-specific website, which appears second in Google search results — five spots higher than his main shop site.
Segmenting your event business from your retail business helps focus your marketing, leading to better exposure online — which is where the current generation of brides and grooms does its research, Renato Cruz Sogueco, AAF, PFCI, vice president of digital strategy at BloomNet, explains in the latest issue of Floral Management.
Unlike Coleman’s main site, his wedding site does not offer e-commerce, but rather it features categorized photo albums, such as bouquets, boutonnieres, ceremony, reception, tall centerpieces, and low centerpieces. He also includes a submission form for serious couples inquiring about budget, venue, guest count, and floral decor vision.
“You will always have to have a conversation with the bride,” Coleman says. “It’s important your website captures their information for consultation. They’ll never pick their wedding flowers from your website. Whatever site they visit, it’s more of a brochure for them to give them ideas.”
Once you have established your wedding site, carry the strategy through social media, setting up wedding accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Not only are these platforms couples use in their research, but they also link back to your wedding website, “which boosts the site’s search engine optimization,” Sogueco says.
For more on how to build a wedding site and promote it via social media, read “Market Weddings with a Unique Digital Space” in the May/June issue of Floral Management.
Katie Vincent is a senior contributing editor for the Society of American Florists.
