Holiday Marketing 7: Small Business Saturday

We’re all using the same marketing theme this year: Shift Your Shopping. When we work together to spread the word, we’ll multiply how many customers we reach.

In the USA, this weekend is Small Business Saturday. (Canada celebrated last month, and the UK is holding out for Dec 5. Australia is taking the whole month of November, which is smart.)

Expect a lot of media attention in the US for #ShopSmall events, so this is a big chance to piggyback on that. You can do this on any of your social media channels and in ads you run.

Since weekends are usually a time when folks shop in big cities and at big box stores, it’s up to us to remind them that this Saturday is different. Tell customers that they’ll want to make plans to stay and shop in your community this weekend. Give them good reasons, by mentioning any local events that will be happening that day. Point out special activities. Make a big deal about the variety of local stores in your community.

When you write your social media posts this week include the #ShopSmall and #ShiftYourShopping hashtags. For your print ads and in-store displays, use the ShopSmall logo from ShopSmall.com as well as the Shift Your Shopping logo.

Watch for your fellow local stores. More of them may be online this week gearing up for the rush of activity. Make sure you find, like and share their stuff.

Shift Your Shopping is our group theme for holiday marketing this year. You have my permission to forward these articles to your local retailers, merchants association, chamber of commerce, downtown development group or any one else you think would benefit from them. All you need to do is list the author as Becky McCray of SmallBizSurvival.com and then let me know who you are sharing with.

About Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.