How to Make Small Business Saturday Sensational

 By Diane Tait

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, I thought I’d take the time to help small business owners take advantage of what’s come to be known as Small Business Saturday.  Started in 2010 by FedEx, the purpose of SBS was to give local businesses who couldn’t hope to compete with the big box stores on Black Friday or the giant online retailers on Cyber Monday a chance to cash in on the holiday shopping season.  Capitalizing on the fact that small businesses are far less crowded than the big retail stores, getting your fair share of SBS shoppers comes down to three things: timing, incentives and marketing.

Accentuate the positive – While your store can’t offer the range of products of larger retailers, what small shops can do to compete is offer things that the big boys don’t.  If you’ve ever spent the better part of an hour trying to find something in a big box store, you know that people don’t like it when they have trouble finding someone on the sales floor who can help them.  If your store offers superior customer service, you have an edge that can help you attract holiday shoppers.  You may even want to hire some extra help to assist customers during the holidays.  Think of other ways to encourage shoppers to choose your store over the big retailers.  If your store offers free gift wrapping or a free gift to every customer that makes a purchase, this is another way to entice shoppers in your door.

Decide on the deals you intend to offer. – While small retailers can’t compete with big box stores when it comes to the variety of deals they offer during the holidays, every small business can benefit by selecting and promoting deals that bigger stores don’t offer.  The trick is to be selective when it comes to offering products at or below cost.  If the only thing that happens is that customers stop by your shop to purchase your loss leader, your holiday sale could kill profits instead of building them. 

Make every customer visit count. – Another way to make the most of Small Business Saturday is to make sure that you give every customer a reason to come back or tell their friends about your business.  One way to do this is to encourage everyone who walks in your door to give you a way to reach out to them.  An easy way to accomplish this is to offer a drawing for a gift basket.  Place the basket in a strategic location near the register along with a pad and pen that gives every customer a chance to participate.  This will also provide you with customer contact information that will come in handy for future marketing purposes.  Other ways to make every customer experience memorable is to offer free samples or treats that personalize the visit.

You aren’t in this alone. – Chances are there are other small retailers nearby that are feeling  pressure from the competition.  As long as their product line doesn’t compete with yours, you might like to consider teaming up with them to help take the marketing burden off your shoulders.  This kind of temporary alliance can also give your store more drawing power by enabling you and your allies to add amusements and additional holiday decorations that can make your space stand out from other small retailers.

Is your store a billboard? – Well, it should be during the holidays.  Not only should you add twinkle lights, fake snow and other holiday touches to your front windows, you should prominently display incentives designed to draw customers in your door.   

What’s the best way to get the word out? – Since traditional advertising is prohibitively expensive, there are several ways to get the word out without breaking the bank:

1.      Boost the gain on social media. – While announcing your holiday sale to your existing social followers will help you get off to a good start, you don’t want to stop there.  There are a number of ways to boost the gain on your social posts.  This includes encouraging customers to like and share your posts, paying to boost your posts, utilizing Instagram and Facebook Stories to reach a bigger audience, not to mention joining online communities like Facebook’s Small Business Saturday to help get the word out.  The other thing you need to do if you want these promotions to succeed is to get creative by shooting videos that entertain as well as explain all about your holiday spirit, as opposed to simply broadcasting your deals.  If you and your employees are decked out like Santa’s elves, this is a plus. 

2.      Time for an email blast? - If you have a database of registered customers, send them an email that looks more like a Christmas, Hannukah or Kwanza card than an advertisement.  One way to bring a smile to every customer’s face is by using services like JibJab.com to create humorous animated holiday greetings that feature you and your staff.   

3.      Don’t waste your money by advertising to prospects who will never visit your store.  One of the beauties of online advertising is that you can use geofencing to make sure the message only goes to people who are likely to visit your establishment.  If you don’t limit an ad’s reach to a limited geographic area, don’t blame the medium when the results are poor.  If you don’t know how to do this, consider hiring a consultant to manage your ads on social sites and search engines.

4.      Consider expanding your business reach by adding ecommerce to the mix. – While it used to be prohibitively expensive to create an online store, today you can add online purchasing to every website, landing page, blog and social site your business uses via PayPal. That’s right, you can add “Buy Now” buttons to every online asset you currently use to promote your business.  What’s even better is that PayPal created a portal designed to help every small business get started with etail.

Diane Tait owns and operates A&B Insurance.  To find out more about how you can save money on boat insurance, go to her site.