Topic = Flower Club Promotion (August 2024)

‘Flower Club Promotion’ – Sylvie Mellersh, member of Walton & Weybridge Flower Club, Surrey Area

Many clubs around the country are suffering severe falls in membership. I joined my Club Committee in 2018 as Publicity Officer and have managed to grow our membership.  I would like to share all the things I have tried, some have succeeded and some have failed, and no single suggestion is going to work for every club. The main thing is that you have to be bolder about promoting your club, if no-one knows you exist, no-one will come to a meeting!

The first place to start is with your own members –  How welcoming is your club? How many members can you greet by name? Do you see members sitting alone at a meeting? Imagine you are welcoming members into your own home, a smile and greeting at the door goes a very long way towards creating a happy and buzzy ambience – and a smile is free!  If the atmosphere at a club meeting is not friendly and welcoming it does not encourage people to come back or to continue their subscription. Walking into a room full of strangers may fill a visitor with fear – make the effort to ensure that they are greeted warmly with a smile, and seat them with a member who will be happy to chat.

Remember the ethos of ‘friendship and flowers’ and make it key to how your members are treated – if you want people to keep coming back it has to be an enjoyable experience that they feel is good value for money and brings joy into their life.

Make your membership inclusive –  ask them if they can help with putting up any posters or sharing flyers with friends and neighbours. They will be able to spread the word as well as you can and it helps them feel engaged with the club.

During lockdown I started writing a monthly newsletter (as did many other clubs and Areas) as a way of keeping in touch with our members, and this has continued. Each issue contains a précis of club activities in the last month, information about what’s happening in the next few months, and a calendar of events around Surrey (not all of them are NAFAS events). Not all members or visitors will be able to attend every meeting so it’s a good way for them to mark their diaries. It is emailed out about a week before the next club meeting and serves as a reminder of the next club date as well as keeping them informed of anything else. Email addresses are garnered with annual subscriptions as well as from every visitor who attends, (of course permission must be given for this) so we have now built a reasonably good distribution list.  Initially there were some members not on email so some copies were printed, but now we find that printed copies are only needed for first time visitors, hence this is a very cheap form of promotion. 

Promotion on the Surrey Area website enables people who are already in the flower arranging world to learn about upcoming events they may wish to participate in, it’s an easy tool to use and should not be ignored. 

For a special event it is worth an email direct to the secretary of other local clubs, their members may be free at the time of your event, so always worth putting in the extra effort, but do it well in advance to ensure you’ve caught their club meeting dates.

However, with declining club membership levels it’s vital to look for new members OUTSIDE of this circle – these people will only learn about the existence of floral art if someone in your club makes the effort to try and reach them.  These are a few suggestions for things I have tried, some have worked well and some have been a waste of time.

Local magazines community pages – all successful and reach a very wide audience with very little effort needed.  Please note most have quite a long lead time so you can expect to work three months in advance of your event in order to meet their deadlines.

E.G  ‘Your Elmbridge’ published bi monthly, free distribution around the borough, with a circulation of 26,000 doors, also has a digital version. Find out if your borough has anything similar, look on the borough website or ask neighbours. Contact the editor and submit the club programme, they then enter the details at the appropriate place in their calendar of events. If even a tiny percentage of these people come along to a meeting/event it’s worth doing. 

I also use another one called ‘Life’ which covers Cobham, Hersham, Walton on Thames. Also free to enter on community pages, 15,000 copies delivered by Royal Mail at no charge to delivery address with bi-monthly calendar (other areas in Surrey are covered).

‘Go To Local’ describes itself as the community magazine and business directory, paper copies delivered by post as well as a website to post events and programmes. No distribution figures available, bi-monthly delivered by post through your door.

Posters/flyers – in today’s competitive world it’s important to look professional – vistaprint.co.uk and banana-print.co.uk are just two examples of online printing companies but all offer competitive services.

Supermarkets – many  have community boards which are covered in flyers and posters for all kinds of clubs, societies and events locally. Needs to have someone willing to drive around all the relevant supermarkets in your area and physically put them up. Take your own pins and be prepared to juggle things around to make space for yourself. But that’s the only cost to it!

Florist and other local shops/cafes – explain you are a ‘not for profit’ organisation looking for people to come along to your event/ club. Local florists might benefit from the support of flower club members helping them sell more flowers.

Day care centres and residential homes – go to the venue with flyers/posters and speak to someone in the office. Some will take flyers and posters some only want one or the other, be polite and flexible. Some of the residents/attendees  are former flower club members and may enjoy coming to a special event but don’t expect them to re-join.

Local libraries – this hasn’t really worked for us. I’ve taken in flyers to go onto their racks for community events, then gone back a few weeks later to find that none of the flyers have been taken. Worth a try but don’t expect too much.

Local Theatre /Cinemas – especially if they are community based. Take a poster/flyers and ask if they would help.

Borough owned noticeboards – Elmbridge Borough will accept flyers which they have their own team who will distribute flyers for free to their borough owned noticeboards. During an election period all event posters must be taken down as only political ones are allowed a this time. Not very successful, I don’t think many people actually look at them but it is free and only requires one drop of the flyers for the work to be done for you.

Churches – all have community boards. Ask your members if they can put up a flyer on their own church noticeboard. Otherwise it requires visiting the church secretary at a time when the office is open, not always convenient and a low success rate.

Local adult education venues – check if the venue  has any flower arranging classes and take flyers to the office for distribution. Don’t bother if they don’t run flower arranging classes there.

Garden Centres – some have community boards and are happy to put up a poster, difficult to judge success but if you don’t try there will definitely be no success.

Local horticultural associations – allotment owners tend not to be aware of floral art, and may not have any interest in it, but they may want to have a nice afternoon out chatting with friends so you never know. Most associations have some sort of trading hut for members to buy discounted seeds/compost etc – find out when these are open to be able to take flyers and posters.

Social Media – look for local Facebook groups and make a posting to promote your event. Keep a check on it and respond to any questions asap – leaving a post hanging without updating it puts people off.  If you have an Instagram account with a good number of followers this is the perfect place to get people to come along for a real experience rather than a virtual one. I know social media is supposed to be the ‘best thing’ for promotion, and am not against it, but it is a very busy marketplace and your posting can easily disappear without trace.”