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American Express launched Small Business Saturday (SBS) in order to help small businesses thrive during the busy weekend of Black Friday.
Small Business Saturday gained traction when the U.S. The Senate passed a resolution in support of the day in 2011. It has become a nationwide movement, with more than $120 billion in spending across the country over the last ten years.
American Express offers many helpful resources to help business people plan their Small Business Saturday activities, such as event planning tools, business training programs, SBS 101 resources, checklists, and print and electronic signage such as event flyers, posters, and other custom designs.
Why does Small Business Saturday matter?
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Since time immemorial, businesses that are locally owned and operated have been the heart and soul of America. Small business owners help to bring neighbors together, and help to keep their money local. They help create jobs and keep their communities vibrant. Small business owners pay a local tax, which translates into money that goes back to the communities that they work in, helping to support things like parks and schools.
Small business owners get the chance to earn some extra cash on Small Business Saturday to help them finish their operations in time for the end of the year. Around 110 million people in the U.S. spent their Small Business Saturday shopping locally, with the combined cost of their shopping trip to their local shop or restaurant equaling nearly $19.6 billion.
When is Small Business Saturday Held?
This year, Small Business Saturday is on Nov. 28, the day that runs from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. This is your chance to make money, and you may be recovering from losses you suffered during the COVID-19 outbreak.
As a result, more people are shopping nearby and supporting small businesses this holiday season. You probably know that small businesses were hit especially hard when COVID-19 first hit. If you own a small business, you already know that being affected is a lot more severe than you think. You have a lot of time to capitalize on this holiday by boosting your marketing efforts and targeting your loyal customers.
How to Take Advantage of Small Business Saturday
Do Something Unique and Special.
Small Business Saturday marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, so plan ahead and do some special promotions to tempt more customers to come by. Offer customers deals, offer shoppers coupons, or even offer to donate a portion of a day’s sales to a charity.
Get it across!
When Small Business Saturday is celebrated this year, many Americans are familiar with it; but in many cases, the people that you serve may not be fully informed about what Small Business Saturday is all about.
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Even a store that offers no promotions or events on Small Business Saturday can share with customers what your business is all about. Small Business Saturday is celebrated on many platforms. Just remember to use the hashtag #SBS on all the posts. Let others know that you’ll be there; tell people what you are excited about; and tell people why you are there.
Stockpile things that are likely to become very popular.
Stock up on products that are likely to be very, highly coveted; the one thing you don’t want to do is run out of them well in advance of the holiday shopping season. It’s important to know what your customers want when it comes to holiday merchandise. Look through your purchase records for big sales days to get some idea of what customers are looking for. Identify areas in your store where customers can find the items that they are looking for.
Invest in social media.
When businesses get busy, it is easy for things like posting on Facebook to get tossed to the side. Planning ahead for social media is crucial to achieving your business goals. Plan out how you will use social media to spread the word about your Small Business Saturday promotions several weeks in advance. Plan carefully what you’re going to post and how you hope to promote it. Start posting once a day or two weeks prior to the big event, including your photo and any other important information.
Boost the effectiveness of all your marketing strategies.
In the light of the success of your local marketing campaign, re-evaluate your marketing strategy and expand your advertising efforts. It’s the perfect time to strengthen your strategy and make it stand out from the crowd and help your customers find you by putting more information on your website and in your advertising materials. When you create your store, be specific about what you are selling and why it is different from other stores.
Personalizing your customer experience to get more customers.
You won’t be the first company to list on Small Business Saturday, so it will be difficult to stand out among the crowd. To attract customers and retain them, you’ve got to offer unique ways to personalize your customer experience with you. This includes offering discounts to customers who order several items from you. To stay ahead of competitors, you have to offer things that make shoppers happy.
Why would consumers choose your business over other competitors? Use that information to help customers decide to buy from you. For example, if you want to give extra treats in customer orders, or if you want to offer customers something unique, do that.
Tune up your SEO strategy.
SEO is the easiest way for a small business to be found online. It allows people to easily find your website, which is a big plus for your business. If you don’t have good search engine optimization, people will find you, and they will expect you to be there for them. This can cause you to not make as many sales as you would like. SEO will become very useful this holiday season, since many people will shop online and not in person. In the future, a good chunk of your online sales will depend on your SEO practices.
In order to have better chances in a search engine result, make sure that you choose the best keywords for your business, write blog posts that are interesting, and do things that show Google exactly where you are in the world, in order to attract customers from your local community.
Take advantage of any resources available using American Express.
American Express offers numerous resources to help small businesses get noticed and get more customers. Shop Small Studio provides free tools that you can use to help you design posters, flyers and other promotional products. You’ll also be able to use the graphics to help you market your business on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook, and even on your own website. American Express offers some free resources, including businesses that offer shipping and billing discounts, and a free e-book that offers tips to help customers stay safe in case of a pandemic.
