Small Business Saturday is a shopping holiday created by American Express to encourage consumers to support local small businesses by shopping local. The movement, launched by the company in 2010 was designed to help stimulate the economy and provide much needed revenue for the small business sector during the recession the country was experiencing at that time.
Since then, though the economy has experienced great recovery, the shop local movement continues to grow and each year Small Business Saturday expands with it as a way to encourage retailers to go out into their communities and support the businesses that live there. In a city like Frederick where, in our downtown area alone, we have over 280 small, individually owned businesses, shopping local on Small Business Saturday, and every day is integral to the vibrancy of our thriving downtown area and, in fact, our entire county of business owners.
For consumers, we encourage you to venture out into our local community, eat your meals, do your shopping, and get your services taken care of by local businesses whenever possible. Your dollars are what allow Frederick to enjoy such a robust economy.
If you own a business, we would like to support you this holiday season in any way we can. Here are some tips to help you prepare for the holiday shopping season starting with Small Business Saturday on November 30th.
Small Business Saturday: How Your Business Can Make It a Success
Use American Express’s free resources for promoting and preparing for the day. You can find those here: Small Business Saturday Resources
Think about extending your hours. Then shoppers have more time to take advantage of the day.
Plan incentives. Giveaways and hourly contests are common ways to attract and engage customers. Band with neighboring businesses to offer a larger prize opportunity or to co-host bigger events.
Have entertainment. Hot cocoa for shoppers, visits from Santa, carolers, and other festive experiences encourage shoppers to spend time in and around your location.
Invite a special guest. Frederick happens to be full of local celebrities, online influencers, and elected officials who are willing to support small businesses and use their notoriety and platforms to encourage shoppers to come out. Reach out and ask some to stop by, at least a little coverage on their social media might help in the long run.
Don’t slash your prices. Forget trying to compete with the pricing of local box stores. Instead, focus on the quality and uniqueness of your product, customer service, and community building opportunity shoppers get when they choose to spend their time and money in your location.
Support a local charity. It’s not a great idea to slash your prices to encourage shoppers to choose you, but pairing with a local charity you’re passionate about might. Consider giving a percentage of the day’s sales to the charity you choose. Not only will it allow you a tax break, but it will also incentivize shoppers who are also passionate about the charity to stop by, humanize your brand in a way that will make you more relatable, and potentially allow for a great, mutually beneficial partnership with you and the charity.
Use social media. The efforts surrounding Small Business Saturday happening online create a trending environment where all those engaging are able to benefit. Use your social platforms to amplify your product, location, services, and offerings, and use it to support other local retailers and the mission of Small Business Saturday. To get in on the action, be sure you use these hashtags when you share about Small Business Saturday on social media: #SmallBizSat, #ShopSmall and #SmallBusinessSaturday
Encourage in-store social media. You may even want to run a social media contest to celebrate Small Business Saturday. For example, you might ask shoppers to take in-store selfies and tag your business in the photos, then select one participant to win a gift card to your store. You can also ask people to “check-in” online and reward their efforts. Like, comment, and share their social posts on your own platforms and offer incentives—like additional discounts or giveaways—to those who do.
Don’t feel like you can’t benefit just because you don’t sell a “holiday item”. Small Business Saturday is about promoting the idea that local communities benefit when they patronize local businesses. That means plumbers, painters, insurance brokers, and mortgage lenders too. If you’re competing with large companies in your space, Small Business Saturday is about you too, you just have to get creative about how you spread awareness about what you do. Consider offering promotions leading up to the day and scheduling social media announcements for Saturday if it’s not a normal work day for you.
Figure out how to keep these customers. Small Business Saturday is meant to get people into your store, but it’s your job to keep them. You can do things like collect email addresses of customers who visit that day and use them to start an email newsletter where you share ongoing info, updates, and promotions you offer throughout the year. And, keep your social media strategy up and running. If you encourage all of this online participation from potential customers and then drop away, you lose an easy opportunity to get them back in the door.
Frederick Chamber Insights is a news outlet of the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce. For more information about membership, programs and initiatives, please visit our website.
Member events featured here are taken directly from our member calendar.To be sure your events are included, please submit them into the calendar at least 10 days before the event day.