Did you know that it in Australia, World Teachers' Day is celebrated on the last Friday of October? In 2015 this falls on Friday, October 30th.
What a great opportunity to promote a flower giving occassion! According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2011, female teaching staff (FTE) comprised 70% of all teaching staff in Australia, while male teaching staff (FTE) comprised 30%. In primary schools this ratio is 80% female to 20% male teachers. By the way, there is no reason why a male teacher cannot receive flowers; be it natives, or a lucky bamboo, or a potted plant, or even balloons.
As an industry we have not taken up this excellent opportunity to sell our perfect gifts for this occasion. A quick Google image search of "Teachers' Day" brings up about 30% of all images that contain flowers, the rest show apples, books, pencils, blackboards etc. If you specify "Teachers' Day Australia", the percentage of images showing flowers falls down to 3% !!!!
Our websites do not mention Teachers' Day at all! By the way, there are around 290,000 teachers in Australia and over 3.5 million students!
So, what can we do about this? Lets promote, promote, promote! We can make Teachers' Day compliment Valentines' Day and Mothers' Day as a premier flower gifting occassion. Lets' all use social media to promote the occassion. Post it on your facebook status, instagram, twitter etc. They are all immediate and most importantly free. Mention Teachers' Day on your website, email marketing, or on your shop window, we do it for Valentines' Day and Mothers' Day - we can do it for Teachers' Day.
If you have any other suggestions let us know and we will share them around. The more we work together, the more flowers we sell.