Florists create an floral arrangement that their customer rarely sees, for people that they don’t know and are paid by people thousands of miles away. Do florists really know how vulnerable the customer on the end of the phone or the Internet form feels, when placing an order like that?

Florists also make more money on an order when it comes to them directly, instead of through the floral services, like FDT or 1-800-FLOWERS.

Florists provide a service for the purchaser at either a very high or very low time and for someone they really  care about. When florists get the order, they get the address of the purchaser and usually know the about the occasion, whether it’s a birthday, anniversary, get well, or funeral.

Florists are in a unique position to build a relationship with the purchaser, and they almost never think about it. Florists, think out of the box!

If you added $1.00 to the cost of the arrangement and $1.00 to the delivery charge, which in my opinion would not break a deal, you could cover the cost of a terrific marketing strategy, build referrals and addition business down the road. That is if you use the greeting card service that I use. It’s a no brainer!

For under $2.00, a florist could send a thank you card to the purchaser with a picture of their arrangement on the front of the card. Inside the card they could upload a photo of their quaint shop or a picture of themselves with a bubble saying, “Thank you for the order.”

On the other side of the card they could write a note saying, “I really appreciate your business, because I know that you had many other florists to choose from, and you picked me. I wanted you to see the arrangement that Jennifer received. We did our very best to convey the feelings that you wanted. I hope you are pleased and that you will think of us next time you would like to send an arrangement.” Sign your name;add your phone number.

Chances are that if they ordered through one of those services this time, the next time they’ll call you directly. You will have begun a lengthy relationship with a customer from out of town.

Always, when I receive a floral arrangement, I send the one who sent it to me a greeting card with the photo of the arrangement on the front. It’s a wonderful way to say thank you. Then they get to see what the actual flowers looked like. Below is the greeting card I sent my grandson, Jansen, and granddaughter, Jaya, thanking them for my Mother’s Day arrangement. I’m also going to send the card to the florist.

The card a florist would send out could be similar to this one.

I always wonder what the flower arrangement looks like, when I order one, even when it is from a florist across the county, much less across the country. Don’t you?

A florist wise enough to send a card is bound to get return business by building a lasting relationship. What do you think?

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Are Christmas Greeting Cards on your mind today or are you exhausted after getting up at 3:30 this morning to take advantage of all those great sales at the malls across America? 

Did you take the time last week to get out your Thanksgiving Greeting Cards? Whether you are a business-minded person, in sales or an entrepreneur, if you didn’t take advantage of Thanksgiving holiday to remind your clients or customers how much you really appreciate them, all is not lost, but it is an opportunity that I hope you will take advantage of next year.

I’ll come up with some other ideas as we travel this holiday and 2009, building connections that deepen relationships in your personal and busines life.  Below you will find a custom card that I designed and sent to all the members of my Garden Lane Community Supported Agriculture friends. I promise it isn’t the most beautiful Thanksgiving card ever designed, but it was a meaningful one to me and the farmers. It was my small tribute to their great contributions to me personally, to our neighborhood, and agriculture as a whole.

Thanksgiving and harvest end go together, and this card was meant to celebrate our organic farmers, their hardworking crews, the challenges they faced from Mother Nature and our connection as fellow shareholders from our neighborhood along the southern shores of Lake Michigan.

This is the cover of my custom card:

 Autum leaves, surrounding and a blue IKEA bag…
Probably doesn’t mean much to you, but to members of Garden Lane Community Supported Agriculture, it means anticipation of late Wednesday afternoons full of delicious produce.

That’s the purpose of a custom greeting card. One of the farmers commented, “It is one of a kind!” Don’t think you’ll find one like it at Hallmark. But that really is the purpose of the card store. They create generic cards to meet the needs of people who think generically. That may be fine with medications, but not so with greeting cards. Besides this greeting card cost me a fraction of the cost of one of the generic brands.

Here’s the inside of the card, featuring pictures of the farmers, their crews, farm creatures, and the flood. 

Here’s the crew harvesting or planting garlic, a diversity garden, boats used to harvest squash and pumpkins after the flooding, more crew and farmers, and flooding. Then more pictures of the crews and the beautiful veggies. The labor that it takes to get those blue bags to the shareholders is incomprehensible. They work in sleet, rain, mud, flood, heat, drought and mosquitoes.   How noble and organic!

Then there’s pics of the farm creatures, including the canines, spider, a frog, and praying mantis-an eco-system in action. This is followed by lament that the season is over. Notice this was a campaign I designed so I could send it to all the members & farmers. The system I use has a mail merge feature (FirstName & SpouseName), which personalizes my cards for large mailings. I did go back in and wrote special notes in the cards to the farmers & neighborhood leaders of our CSA.

The front of the card ends with my comment, brought to you by….  So when someone opened this 3 panel card, there are the pictures of our farmers. One shows 4 generations of one family and the other is from a newspaper article, featuring the other farmers.

Custom greeting cards are vitally important, if you want to connect to the people who are important to you. Graphic designers could probably add a lot to my idea, but with the system I use I did this in minutes, from pictures the farmers included in their weekly email newsletters. And it was terrific fun, too!

If you would like more information about the fantastic system that I use, please email me at Patricia@GreetingCardTips.com or visit my site www.RememberChristmasCards.com. Anyone visiting the Remember will receive a FREE gift account and will be able to send a couple greeting cards, using your own photos in the cards, on me for FREE. You will also receive a FREE CD IN THE MAIL from me describing the system, so make sure your mailing information is correct.

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