Step-By-Step Small Business Saturday Prep

Each year, Small Business Saturday is strategically positioned during Thanksgiving Weekend between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, making it a prime opportunity to engage with your local community, and ultimately increase consumer spending. This year’s Small Business Saturday is Saturday, November 30, 2024. Is your business ready? If you haven’t started preparing yet, now is the perfect time to start and Katava Marketing is here to help with this step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Plan Your Strategy

The most successful Small Business Saturday campaigns start with a well-crafted multi-channel marketing strategy that is engaging and memorable to local customers. Establishing an organized process and content calendar will help your business stay ahead of the curve with timely communication and event promotion. First, determine what you want to accomplish on Small Business Saturday. Increasing foot traffic, promoting a new product or service or reaching a new demographic are all great examples of goals to reach for. However, each of these goals could have a slightly different strategy in terms of messaging and channels. Next, deciding on what exclusive offer(s) you can promote and which marketing channels to use early on will help you maximize your efforts and establish a calendar that will build anticipation leading up to the big day.

Step 2: Prioritize Your Print Marketing

If you decide print marketing is an effective way to promote your exclusive Small Business Saturday offer(s), you must prioritize the print creatives. The holiday season is a busy time of year for printers, and they won’t have time for last-minute print jobs. Factor in at least 10 business days for print production, plus an additional 1-3 business days for mail delivery. You’ll want your print marketing to be delivered at least a week in advance of Small Business Saturday to help bring awareness of your participation. 

When designing your print mailers, you’ll want to include a trackable way to lead customers back to your website for more information. This could be done through a QR code or a unique website URL to an event-specific landing page. ‘

Step 3: Schedule Your Social Media

Another way to stay organized is to schedule your social media posts in advance. Posting teasers, countdowns and announcements for a few weeks leading up to Small Business Saturday will help increase awareness and build anticipation of your participation. Like all social media strategies, the goal is to be visually appealing to stand out in the feed. Your social media content should go beyond standard graphic posts. Carousels and videos increase engagement and reach more than just your current followers on social media. Use official hashtags such as #SmallBizSat, #ShopSmall, and #SmallBusinessSaturday to increase even more visibility with potential new customers. Staying consistent and posting reminders will help your small business stay top-of-mind with your customers, and offer value that will make them engage with your content more. These post types take time, so they should not be left to the last minute. 

Step 4: Organize Your Email Marketing

Timing is everything. Once your print mail is delivered or you schedule your first Small Business Saturday social media post, you’ll want to hit the inbox of your customers. Email marketing is still an effective digital channel that reaches a wide audience on a more personal level. Like social media, e-newsletters can be written, designed and scheduled in advance. Planning your multi-channel content calendar will help you determine how many emails you need and when to send them out. While content can easily be repurposed across all your marketing channels, it’s not as simple copy and paste. You have to keep your audience in mind with each individual channel. Knowing the majority of your email database is most likely returning customers, your email content should add value to the content your customers are seeing in other places. For example, you can offer an exclusive additional or different offer to returning customers on Small Business Saturday. Without personalization, your email marketing will get lost in cluttered inboxes with little to no engagement. 

Step 5: Engage With Your Community

Word-of-mouth is still the best free version of marketing. Engage with your in-store customers and let them know you’ll be participating in Small Business Saturday. Ask them for their email address or to follow you on social media for more details and exclusive Small Business Saturday offers. Many towns and cities promote Small Business Saturday as a whole with town-wide events. Cross-promotion of town-wide events will help increase your reach to new local customers. Tap into your township’s social media audience by sharing and commenting on Small Business Saturday related content. The best way to increase foot traffic is to start building relationships all year long. 

At Katava Marketing, your vision is our mission! Our full-service marketing agency offers search engine marketing, SEO, video and photo services, and everything else your business needs to increase its revenue. We can work with you to create an effective multi-channel strategy that will drive results. Contact us at 973-998-8008 to get started today!