Today’s question came from a busy entrepreneur the same week of Small Business Saturday:

Small Business Saturday: How can I take full advantage?

I have a small business on the side and I want to take full advantage of small business Saturday. My business is a retail mom and pop type store, but I do have budget for advertising.

I applaud that you want to take the most advantage of the Small Business Saturday event.  The mistake that most small business owners make is to look at each event (such as the Small Business Saturday) as a “single entity” or single opportunity.  Unfortunately, by taking each event as they come (as in this question arriving the week of Small Business Saturday) – you are actually too late to actually do something meaningful for and with it.

The key to taking full advantage of Small Business Saturday – is to recognize that it’s just one of many business opportunities to take advantage and leverage.

Here are some ideas to implement in your current marketing plan:

• If you haven’t already, take the time to create your “attracting Client marketing plan” and use the Small Business Saturday as one type of campaign in your marketing strategy.
  • Outline your entire marketing calendar of business opportunities
  • Proactively plan for each opportunity months in advance (versus just days)
• Design a well thought out brand, vision, mission statement and tag line for your business. Then carry that consistent message throughout your different seasonal campaigns.
  • Use these consistent message in all your campaigns
  • This enables you to re-use templates and methods for the same categories of events
• Categorize different types of marketing assets such as:
  • Logos, digital graphics, banners and letterheads
  • Flyer and brochures
  • Local radio and cable spots
  • Streaming video spots
  • Promotional offers
  • Up-sale offers, discounts, coupons
  • Charity events and sponsorships
  • Affiliated partner events and advertisements
  • Retail Block Party events – where your business neighbors collaborate to provide bundle packages of cross-promotional products and services.
• Taking the best advantage of Small Business Saturday is leveraging all your marketing strategies forward.
  • Use Black Friday to position for a more successful Small Business Saturday. Position your SBS event to setup a successful Christmas etc.
  • Don’t see your Small Business Saturday as a single entity, but as a piece in your progressive and aggressive business and marketing strategy.
  • Investigate leveraging complementary small businesses to both your advantages – creating more with few staff.
• Take the time to make all the pieces fit in a cohesive and consistent marketing and branding message (which starts with your vision and mission statements).
• Then you can continually leverage toward your next up-sale or promotion.

Conclusion:

As you can see, to take full advantage of anything – you need up-front planning.  For example – creating a Retail Block Party Sale for Small Business Saturday will take lots of time and collaboration.  Defining cross-promotional service bundles or packages (to lure more people to your block)  takes planning.  This is not something you can turn around in few days.  But is you mapped out all your business opportunities a year in advance – you would have the time to take full advantage of these single dates.

If you need more information on this or help, just let me know.

I know your situation is different.  If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally.  It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ

With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.