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.
Christmas is this week. Customers are busy beyond belief. Rather than talk about your business, put the focus on you as a person.
Tell about one of your family’s Christmas or holiday traditions.
It will help your customers see you as a whole person and to see you as like themselves. So even if your family traditions aren’t anything unusual, that’s ok. It will make it easier to empathize with you.
Having trouble thinking about your family’s holiday traditions? Here are some starter ideas to kick off your thinking:
- Do you have special Christmas ornaments you always use at home?
- Do you have decorations or items handed down to you from family members? Something you remember as a child?
- What are your favorite foods at Christmas dinner? Me, I can’t wait for some pumpkin pie. Pecan pie would be a bonus!
- Are there special holiday items you get from another local store? In my town, Whittet’s Meat Market always carries special candy around Christmas, a tradition Doug Whittet picked up from his father.
- Do you open presents Christmas eve or Christmas morning?
- Do you have a favorite Christmas movie or show you watch as a family?
Remember, even if these sound normal to you, that’s all the more reason to share them. You’re not just a faceless business owner; you’re a real person that customers can understand. No big box can ever be so human.
Share a photo, too. Maybe a photo of your family during a previous Christmas.
End by saying, “Together, we’re making a better community. When you shift just a little more of your shopping to local stores, you help us all. #ShiftYourShopping.” You can do this on Facebook or Instagram, or in print ads you’re planning to run.
Check your fellow local businesses online. Look for their holiday stories and cheer them on with likes, shares and comments.
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.
Shift Your Shopping 2015 series:
- Picking your Holiday 2015 marketing theme
- Set your cover photos
- Spotlight a local business
- Spotlight on community
- Share the causes you care about
- Support your service providers
- Small Business Saturday
- Tell your founding story
- Tell your customers’ stories
- Introduce your people
- Share your family traditions
- Thank your customers
- Community engagement planning: old way vs. Idea Friendly way - October 3, 2021
- Boost your maker economy with a “Made in” day - September 17, 2021
- How a ghost town made something from nothing with a folk festival - September 3, 2021
- Rural business idea: sell foraged fruits and more - August 3, 2021
- Best practices for rural housing - July 19, 2021
- How to be more open to new ideas #IdeaFriendly - July 3, 2021
- Market your small town as a movie filming location, attract movie and game fan tourists - June 28, 2021
- Survey of Rural Challenges 2021 results, analysis of themes from 2015 through today - June 7, 2021
- What makes a small town a micropolitan or nanopolitan? - May 22, 2021
- Improving Rural Housing: turning blighted dilapidated houses into new homes - May 7, 2021
Love this post Becky! It’s about being SOCIAL in all forms of social media!
Yes! And in your old media and all your media. We’re small businesses. We do best when we remember that our personal connection is our biggest advantage.