Mother's Day Marketing and Sales Tips
Fourteen days out from Mother's Day, is it too late to market? Not according to Jennifer Barnard of Tillie's Flower Shop in Wichita, Kansas — back for what has become the annual "sales shop talk" episode after last year's visit became one of the show's most downloaded. Vonda and Lori pick Jen's brain for everything a shop can still do in the home stretch, and the tips come fast.
Never ask "how much did you want to spend?"
The episode opens with Vonda's pet peeve, fresh from ordering sympathy flowers by phone: shops that lead with "and how much did you want to spend?" You never know who's on the other end of the line — as Jen puts it, you could be talking to Taylor Swift and selling her a $25 bouquet without ever offering the $300 "queen for a day." Now is the time to follow up on your sales training so every caller hears the full range. One Shop Talk member in the DC area starts her suggestions at $60; another shop in the south averages in the high $90s. The lesson: lead with confidence, not with the bottom.
Email marketing: draft, double-check, and don't be shy
Your first Mother's Day email should already be out, but there's plenty of runway left. Jen keeps campaigns in draft until she's certain the product actually arrived — florists learned from COVID that pivoting is part of the job, and a swapped image often means a forgotten link, name, or price. Her trick: draft the email, walk away, and recheck it hours later with fresh eyes. Lori adds a hard-won rule — send test emails to two or three people before anything goes out. She'd just received a shop's email with a typo in the subject line ("order flows now"), and once it's sent, it's gone.
Come Mother's Day week, Jen sends two emails a day: one showcase email with ten or so images, and a later one featuring a single grabby image — sent at different times, because everyone checks their inbox on a different schedule. Update your list first (upload those Valentine's Day captures), expect some unsubscribes, and if you need inspiration, follow shops with big marketing budgets like Scott's NYC.
Social and Google: show the big stuff
Post daily starting now — stories, a post, and a video. On your Google profile, think SEO: don't just advertise "Mother's Day bouquet," use search phrases like "Mother's Day delivery in Phoenix, Arizona" so your profile surfaces when people Google.
Videos are the hardest part, but they out-reach everything else, and the formula is simple: feature your biggest, most impressive work. At Valentine's Day, Jen's videos of hundred-rose and $500 bouquets being arranged drove real sales — people are mesmerized watching arrangements come together. Lori saw a fast-forward reel of a delivery driver carrying one huge arrangement after another out the front door; customers literally called asking to buy "the third one." Jen's standing advice: post your hundred-rose or queen-for-a-day bouquet once a month, because it's always the most-shared post. Film design videos now and hold them for the final week — or reuse last year's content. And try Instagram's AI background tool in stories for quick, fun product shots.
Pre-calling, bundles, and the value-meal principle
Front-of-house prep starts with a sales meeting: review your scripts (Sales Prep members have a whole pre-calling module), nail your product descriptions — color, container, size — and start pre-calling last year's Mother's Day customers now, before the rush. It's mostly voicemails, customers genuinely appreciate the reminder, and it's a low-pressure way to build a nervous new hire's phone confidence. Pull up last year's order and offer the upgrade: if they bought the $75, offer the $200. The worst they can say is no.
Then build bundles — flowers, chocolates, balloon, greeting card in one price. People hate being nickeled and dimed, and as Lori says, everybody loves a value meal. Bundles can come together genuinely last-minute: one Flower Clique member threw together a romantic package with leftover rose petals at Valentine's Day and it became her top-selling bundle. Deals convert in this economy, but a deal doesn't have to mean cheap — Jen's family's shop offered free delivery on bundles of $150 and up, and showing a full-price-then-slashed bouquet (while keeping your full markup) creates the value story customers are looking for. Vonda's sibling angle: get three siblings to chip in $50 each and send mom the queen-for-a-day.
Don't forget: plants, Sunday hours, DoorDash, and May 10
Mother's Day is the number one plant holiday — sell hydrangeas and outdoor plants hard, video your plant floor, and pull sold plants off the sales floor immediately so you don't oversell. If you're open Sunday when you normally aren't, say so everywhere: social graphics, daily stories, and your Google profile hours. Jen's family's business cleared three to four thousand dollars by 10 a.m. last Mother's Day on DoorDash alone, from all the people who woke up and remembered — though she's emphatic that a holiday is not the time to start DoorDash.
And circle Friday, May 10: Mexican Mother's Day. If you have a Hispanic community near your shop, it's massive — especially in years like this one when it falls before American Mother's Day. Merchandise red and white and sunflowers, and get it on your website. There's still time.
Key takeaways
- Train staff out of "how much did you want to spend?" — always offer the high end.
- Keep emails in draft until product confirms, test-send before launch, and go to twice daily during Mother's Day week.
- Video your biggest arrangements being made — wow-factor content earns the reach and the phone calls.
- Pre-call last year's customers with an upsell offer, and package bundles so buying is one easy decision.
- Publicize Sunday hours on Google and social, prep DoorDash hours if you already use it, and plan for Mexican Mother's Day on May 10.