Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on August 9th, 2007
This year has been a real roller coaster at Arena already. The first three months of the year for any florist are consumed by Valentine’s day and Mother’s day, with all florists living in mortal terror of getting it wrong and losing a lot of money. In order to get through such mega days, Valentine’s day in particular, the whole business has to be reorganised and made to operate totally differently from normal. That’s a subject for another post and another day.
After the all consuming mega day adventures of the start of the year, our focus shifted to areas of the business that we’d been neglecting. One area to which we were able to give more attention was the conundrum of how to escape the clutches of Google. We spend a lot of money with Google, for clicks, and we’d really rather not. So we dived head first into ideas for getting people to our website without paying for clicks. Consequently, the last few months have been an education for us all in the lesser spotted (and less measurable) tactics of web marketing, including blogging, social bookmarking and, more recently, the internet’s latest hot topic, social networking (mainly Facebook – move over myspace/youtube/eBay, your time in the PR hotseat is over!).
So, in no particular order, here are some of the things that we’ve been up to / thinking about / forgotten to do and / or messed up in the vain hope of uncoupling our business’s fortunes from the whims of Google.
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Filed under: Marketing, Matters Webby on August 9th, 2007 | 7 Comments »
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Posted by: Samwise of the front end on July 27th, 2007
Last night, after an enthusiastic exchange of final amends we launched ‘Flowers & Fun’ the Arena Flowers Facebook application. As with all things Arena, Flowers & Fun had always been there in our ‘to do’ list but it wasn’t until last week that Will’s frantic text messages became too much to ignore – the application just had to be built!
We all sat down to work out what we wanted to do with it. Facebook has lots of applications so this had to stand out and most importantly, it had to be fun. Zach, our lead developer was pulled off another project and urgently pointed in the direction of Facebook. Not unfamiliar with Facebook he was quick to breath life into our little app and within a day we had our flowers on Facebook – what a rush that was!
This was quickly followed by rudimentary exchanges of flowers and messages to and from Arena employees as we got our hands dirty testing the application and importantly the experience. Feedback from the ladies in our customer service team (all of whom are experienced Facebook users) was swift, encouraging refinements as each virtual bouquet was sent. With the addition of each new feature we saw this little app grow and grow and it was not long before we realised its potential. When you look at the sheer size of Facebook, with its 30 million users, you have to consider the awesome prospect of hundreds and possibly thousands of people sending our virtual versions of our flowers. What a way to focus the mind!
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Filed under: Flowers, General, Marketing, Matters Webby on July 27th, 2007 | 3 Comments »
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Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on July 25th, 2007
I received the email below yesterday (no idea why it was written in lurid purple!). Having had a look, I wasn’t initially convinced that Blackle is for real. Both natural and paid search results differ from those returned on conventional Google. It could be that it’s only set up for US searchers. Or a more Machiavellian interpretation is that someone might have made a basic copy of Google with this nice PR story and are now making pots of money off the paid ads. Seems a bit unlikely though.
We like ethical initiatives at Arena Flowers, so we hope this is for real. If it is, it’s pretty cool. You decide!
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Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Marketing, Matters Webby on July 25th, 2007 | 3 Comments »
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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on July 23rd, 2007
Being an online retailer is not easy, especially when it’s such an interconnected world where making the right connections is the key to achieving objectives. At Arena Flowers we mull over the different online advertising channels every day, reviewing their promises to dramatically boost our visitors overnight. It would be easy if we had very few channels to choose from. But the deluge of online advertising media puts businesses like ours in a tricky situation. To complicate this, there is no proven formula to identify what works best and what doesn’t. One thing that works for sure is the ‘holy grail’ of online businesses – Google organic search.
While optimising for Google remains our primary concern to maximise our reach to flower lovers and, consequently, our flower sales, we constantly seek other avenues to promote our online presence. This is to ensure that we don’t lag in a competitive industry. But what are the alternatives to the Google monster?
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Filed under: Big Mistakes, Marketing, Matters Webby on July 23rd, 2007 | 5 Comments »
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Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on July 12th, 2007
Every now and again we get a really ace order through and it makes our day. We reckon we have a particularly brilliant one for delivery tomorrow. It combines the gift buying staples of “going the extra mile” and “buying everything in the shop” with a new attribute – “making Richard [ace Arena driver] sing his little heart out”.
The first I knew about the order was when Jozsef started yelling from the warehouse earlier. I was confused. I had thought that only myself and Jackie, one of the DulcetTones who answers the ArenaFlowerPhone, were left in the office. I panicked. What was going on? Was Joseph on fire? Had the delivery of triffids escaped? Perhaps a very, very romantic man had come to steal 1,000 red grand prix roses?!
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Filed under: Customers, General, Mega Days on July 12th, 2007 | No Comments yet. Be the First! »
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Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on July 9th, 2007
For those that don’t know, sesame snaps are these sort of stick confectionery type things made by coating sesame seeds with caramelised sugar and letting the whole thing set (at least as far as I can tell). They’re probably not that healthy (though sesame seeds are pretty good for you) but by jove they’re tasty! In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s what the packets of sesame tastiness look like:
“What the heck has this got to do with selling flowers on the internet?”, you may well ask. Good question. Bear with me and I’ll get there – honest. It all begins with a tale of woe. A few years ago, I picked up a packet and was looking forward to the four sweet snacky sticks within. I opened the packet up and, to my horror, I saw this:
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Filed under: Floristry, General, Marketing on July 9th, 2007 | 8 Comments »
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Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on July 6th, 2007
We’ve been trying to work out which of these two “wonders of the natural world” is the most bizarre and/or disgusting. We can’t decide, so over to you! Let us know what you think in the comments section.
1. The Raffelsia, the world’s largest flower: Whoever has been lucky and seen the humungous flower knows that it is simply breathtaking. Of a vivid to velvety deep red it is normally spotted white, giving it the appearance of a slab of meat. Together with this appearance come one or more gallons of nectar of a sweet-foul smell reminiscent of rotting flesh to attract flies which pollinate the flower.
Or…
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Filed under: Flowers, General on July 6th, 2007 | 2 Comments »
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Posted by: Adarsh – Search engine battler on July 5th, 2007
This June in the UK was recorded as having the highest rainfall level of the last fifty years (ie since records began!). Surprisingly, last year The Met Office issued warnings of high temperatures and continued hot weather during the same period. We had the hottest April on record ever this year. All very odd.
It is tempting to say that we’re seeing the environmental impact of our lifestyles from preceding years. Issues related to environment and climate change have grabbed headlines in the media recently. It is imperative for businesses such as ours to respond proactively to environmental concerns.
The last few years have seen a spate of initiatives to encourage environmental responsibility in business. And while the environment remains a central theme, it is equally important for businesses to be ethically aware. In the prequel to this blog, Samwise detailed Arena’s recent choice in Server Space, a decision in the ethical trade arena that we’re proud of. But as a business offering fresh cut flowers, we have to be well equipped to counter even tougher challenges to protect the environment. But if you want to see how I ended up holding this shiny new certificate, read on!
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Filed under: Ethics & Environment on July 5th, 2007 | 1 Comment »
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Posted by: Samwise of the front end on July 2nd, 2007
A couple of weeks ago we moved our website to greener pastures; RackSpace. Moving ISPs is not something you want to do on a regular basis and is often associated with fear. The fear of losing something along the way (our website and thus livelihood, for instance!).
This time the process of migration was done with a certain elegance (aka Fanatical Support). This is the red carpet of support where you get thanked by a techie for letting them help you. Alright a little Americanised but a welcome break from the level of support we were used to.
The move was also significant as we were moving from one server to two and splitting our bespoke application to suit. After another weekend of testing and code releases (and early mornings for Zach our lead developer) we have completed the final stage and are now fully operational across the two boxes.
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Filed under: Ethics & Environment, Matters Webby on July 2nd, 2007 | 3 Comments »
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Posted by: Will Wynne – Priority Juggler on June 29th, 2007
Went back to collect my bike yesterday, after my unfortunate handlebars vaulting exercise of two weeks ago, wondering how it had been treated in the interim. Having left it in chained up in perfect condition and right next door to a tube exit, surely it couldn’t have attracted too much abuse in my absence, could it?
Well, yes, it could. :D
If people sent get well soon flowers to bikes, this bike would certainly be a worthy recipient!
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Filed under: General on June 29th, 2007 | 6 Comments »
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