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Aside from admonishing us to stop and smell them every once in a while, flowers can actually teach business owners and marketing professionals a great deal about how to promote their products and services.
From utilizing multiple sensory cues to the many meaningful metaphors that exist both above and below the soil, these living testimonies of nature’s brilliance remind us that some of our most rewarding efforts require strategic planning, industry knowledge, audience connection, and above all, patience.
Here are ten ways your company’s marketing materials should be more like flowers.
1. Appeal to emotions through more than one sense.
Flowers not only look good, they smell good, feel good and in some cases, even sound and taste good. (My Syrian grandmother made some sweet Rose Jelly).
The same mentality applies to advertisements, product campaigns or any customer-facing marketing material which seeks to emotionally connect with its target audience to present a feature benefit.
Mark Batey, author of Brand Meaning, states, “Brands that manage to leverage multiple sensory touch points with consumers leave a stronger, more vivid sensorial profile in the minds of those consumers.”
Pringles may have a unique and appealing texture, shape, and taste, but through its consistent communications focusing on the crisp crunch heard when biting into them, the potato chip brand is best known for how it sounds when enjoyed.
2. Have multiple functions and provide multiple benefits, but know the difference and how to use them.
The function of a flower is reproduction, often making its heavenly fragrance and brilliant color a means to draw birds and bugs in for pollination. It can be used in perfumes, teas or décor, and can provide healing, cleansing or comfort.
Similarly, a product’s features are different from its uses and the benefits it provides to the consumer. Explaining how a product was made, how it works, or introducing its latest and greatest components all make for great blog articles and YouTube videos, but those same headlines in an email will unlikely get a click or lead to a direct sale.
Silky soft Victoria’s Secret panties may be made from the lightest, most expensive fabric on the market, but it’s their discreet lines under a tight skirt or the sensuality of them being touched by someone else while you’re wearing them that fulfills an everyday fashion and instinctual sexual need.
Remember: most of our desires and impulses stem from the unconscious mind. Appealing only to the rational mind is like spending 100% of your marketing dollars on the part of the brain that only makes 5% of the decisions.
3. Be universally appealing but specific in context.
If a little girl picks a dandelion and hands it to a veteran on Veterans Day, she will likely get a smile. If the same little girl gives that same veteran a poppy on Memorial Day, she will get a very different response.
Just as slang and gestures can vary by culture, color, emojis and tone can be interpreted as effortlessly on-point or extraordinarily insensitive depending on their delivery causing often unintentional and sometimes irreparable damage to a brand’s identity.
For example, while the harsh nature and shock value of ads focusing on the high mortality rate of smokers is generally accepted, one from Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) depicting two burning cigarettes fashioned to resemble the Twin Towers with a tagline comparing terrorism-related deaths to tobacco-related deaths sparked an awful controversy, according to a 2012 article by Business Insider (These Are The 10 Worst Ads Exploiting The 9/11 Attacks).
If your company is just starting out, defining your brand’s tone guide is extremely important and warrants an incredible amount of research. But even when your business is established, being sensitive to environmental cues is crucial.
4. Be inclusive, cooperative and conscious of the environment.
Flowers are for everyone, regardless of demographic; they need not be reserved for special occasions and can combine to create beautiful bouquets when done intentionally. But selecting a few from a field is quite different from ripping up your neighbor’s entire garden just as picking them without planting them is a recipe for long-term depletion.
A 2022 report from Deloitte on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in North America states, “Many customers want to support and associate themselves with brands that prioritize DEI. Ninety-one percent of millennials and 90% of Gen Z are more likely to purchase from organizations that demonstrate how their products have strong social or environmental benefits.”
According to the results of a joint study from McKinsey and NielsenIQ published in February 2023, “Products making ESG (environmental, social and governance)-related claims averaged 28 percent cumulative growth over the past five-year period, versus 20 percent for products that made no such claims,” and “products making multiple types of claims grew about twice as fast as products that made only one.”
Being honest about your company’s policies is paramount but there is always room to embrace the growing values of the American population through consistent, unbiased representation and authentic, purpose-driven messaging.
One post directed to the LGBTQIA+ community in June and one picture of a Mexican family on Cinco de Mayo will not go over well with anyone.
Ever.
Don’t do it.
5. Stand out and draw in.
Bright flower pedals and sweet-smelling aromas are evolutionary advantages for angiosperms (plants that produce flowers as their reproductive structure) that are pollinated by insects and animals like bees and hummingbirds.
With nearly 30,000 new products introduced each year (according to Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen), a brand’s ability to differentiate itself and successfully communicate its unique selling proposition (USP) is a key, competitive advantage resulting in higher recall and increased sales.
Nike, for example, does this through its infamous and action-oriented slogan “Just Do It,” and the design of its iconic swoosh symbol, but also reinforces it through its mission to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world,” adding that “if you have a body, you are an athlete.”
The brand maintains its industry leadership by ensuring that individual campaigns remain congruent with the themes of movement and motivation, from the “Stylish Sets For Every Move” messaging of its sports bra and leggings line to its call for advocacy with the question, “Are You Game for Change?”
6. Grow where you’re planted, but go where you’ll grow.
While best in fertile soil and favorable conditions, nothing seems more inspiring than when a flower blooms through a cement crack or along a gray and rocky hillside.
Broad Google and social media ads, search engine optimization (SEO), trade shows, traditional marketing materials or even billboard ads may seem like necessary evils, but the sensibility of multiple touchpoints and a steady presence is proven and self-evident.
Post-pandemic, predominantly digital purchasing trends of consumers, however, especially among younger age groups, indicate that the expectation is that brands will come to them through targeted placements on their most used platforms or by showing up directly in their inbox.
So it’s good to know that:
Up to 90% of Gen Z respondents to a Facebook study suggested that they would be open to brands posting in their online community group.
61% of consumers say they trust the product recommendations they get from influencers while only 38% trusted branded content (Social Shepard).
Businesses earn $5.78 for every dollar spent on influencers, with some seeing as much as $18 (Digital Marketing Institute).
7. Understand that you’re part of a larger system.
In addition to their innumerable benefits to the human species, flowers play an important role in nature, providing food and shelter for a variety of insects and animals, and removing toxins from the air.
Remember that marketing is just one piece of an overall business strategy – the rest of your brand needs to deliver on what it promises, support and substantiate it in its claims, and incorporate its goals into larger company objectives.
“There’s no doubt the U.S. is a full-fledged service economy, but according to the authors of Keeping Customers For Life (Joan Koob Cannie and Donald Caplin) we’ve done a much better job of selling service than actually delivering it.”
They go on to warn business owners not to “lose sight of the single most important ingredient in the success of [their] venture: the customer,” emphasizing that customer-driven service creates the biggest competitive edge.
8. Being shared by humans is of the highest importance.
Honoring a deceased loved one, expressing your romantic inclinations or encouraging a sick patient to get well soon, the presentation of flowers is always an emotionally evocative gesture that can supplement or supersede other efforts of connection.
Marketing efforts can be as ubiquitous as flowers in a field, but a single post, blog or recommendation shared by an individual through word-of-mouth or via their social media accounts can be much more effective.
According to an RRD survey of 1,000 consumers:
55% learn about products through word of mouth,
40% made purchases based on those recommendations and
28% would rather use word of mouth than any other form of discovery.
Nosto adds that 79% of people say that user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions (Hubspot).
Some ways to increase your business’s Word-of-Mouth Marketing (WOMM) are blogging, press/publicity, promos through referrals/giveaways, or responses to current events and recent news which all have clear calls to action (CTAs), accessible link-backs and easy-to-share functions.
9. Get dirty.
Not all flowers need soil to grow, but they do require things like moisture and minerals and are often best when strategically planted and monitored.
Marketing professionals cannot afford to have a ‘set it and forget it’ mentality when it comes to the content they’re putting out, nor should they ignore opportunities to ‘cross-pollinate’ their material, ‘nurture the newbies,’ or ‘dig deeper’ when certain ideas begin to ‘take root.’
ChatGPT and other efforts powered by artificial intelligence (AI) may assist in brainstorming or developing the initial outline of a piece, but should never, ever replace human interaction and intervention once it is public.
Actively engaging with the inbound inquiries, reviews and comments of outbound marketing efforts is a necessary investment of time that can often determine whether or not a potential customer sticks with your brand or moves on to one that cares.
10. There is a time and season for everything.
Though popular and a favorite of gardeners everywhere, Morning Glories can take months to grow from seed to flower and are often the last annuals to bloom. When they do, they usually open in the morning and only last for one day.
Timing is of the utmost importance in marketing, but be wary of sacrificing quality content for quantity and speed. A brand’s reputation can tank hard and fast if they continuously produce click-bait, bombard inboxes and haphazardly appear in every search result with no perceived solution.
Know and accept that the benefits of most successful marketing efforts are gradual and some may not be measurable at all. Not all conversions are direct hits and rarely do they occur on the first impression.
Over time, brand awareness, recognition and loyalty, customer satisfaction, increased engagement and client retention will all prove to be key indicators of a worthwhile and profitable performance that positively impacts your company’s bottom line.
Convincing your boss of that, however, is easier said than done.
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