Small Business Saturday Tips from Small Business Owners

November 10, 2014

Now entering its fifth year, Small Business Saturday (November 29) encourages people to support local businesses during the busiest shopping season of the year. It’s estimated that in 2013 people spent $5.7 billion at small businesses on Small Business Saturday.

Here are some tried and true tips for Small Business Owners:

1. Form a community

Work with other local businesses to make the event community-wide, rather than store-wide.

a.) Create a local “shop small” community to meet and collaborate with other small business owners in the area. 

b.) Cross-promote each business’s messages with the larger “shop small” message.

Encourage small business to think of the day as a neighborhood event.

2. Tell your story

Brick and mortar shopping connects people to businesses in a personal way. To connect your community to your business before they even step foot into your store, start a Small Business Saturday campaign that tells stories about your business.

3. Offer an experience

Several businesses we spoke with had plans to make Small Business Saturday a special day in their stores. a.) Bring in a local artist to show off your work, or serve appetizers and host giveaways in the store. Offer a discount to people that visit on Small Business Saturday. Take advantage of coupons or sales promotions (See Puzzle game)

b.) Add signs encouraging customers to take pictures at popular areas in your shop and connect with the store on Facebook and Instagram. Great advertising!

4. Get the word out

a.) Reach out to customers via email, newsletters and Facebook Page posts and ads, using age, region and gender targeting. You can even send handwritten notes and place phone calls inviting the best customers to come into the store.

b.) Give people directions to your business right on their phones.

5. Say thank you

There’s nothing as valuable as a face-to-face conversation with a customer, so thank yours for their support. You can take that one step further and hand out gift bags with cookies or some other small gift to thank their customers for visiting, but no matter how you choose to say thank you, be sure you do.