Small Business Saturday—12 Ideas to Increase In-Store and Online Traffic
Women’s Venture Fund
Celebrate your entrepreneurial journey during Small Business Saturday, November 24th. Here are ways to promote your enterprise while showing your appreciation to customers. Start the holiday shopping season with a bang!
- Look festive with balloons, posters, free snacks and giveaways. Not a brick-and-mortar business? Make a splash on your home page with digital coupons and special offers, celebrating the day.
- Send a personalized email to customers, urging them to support small businesses in the community throughout the holiday season; and to visit online and in-store for your specials.
- Spread the word about your specials and discounts on social media; make it easy and obvious how your network can pass your announcement along. Using the hashtag, #SmallBizSaturday, may increase your chances of being seen as people search locally
for sales. - If you’re an online retailer, now’s the time to try sites like Etsy, Shopify, Big Cartel, IndieMade, Square Online Store and Volusion. These are free or very low-priced platforms ($5-15 per month) with reasonable transaction fees. Check out this article of site reviews: https://www.merchantmaverick.com/top-6-etsy-alternatives/
- Does it make sense to extend your hours to accommodate early and/or late shoppers?
- Provide entertainment to increase store traffic, including activities for children like face painting and balloon modeling. Buy a load of used children’s books from your local thrift store and set up a reading corner to keep little ones busy while parents shop. Enlist a family member to provide child care for a few hours.
- Raffles are a fun and easy way to engage store visitors as well as people browsing your website. A scavenger hunt is another way to entertain current and prospective customers.
- If you provide entertainment, ask participants to take pictures and submit them for your website.
- Partnering with your local small businesses is a great way to help promote each other. You can each hand out flyers for the other business or even host an event together.
- Partner up with a local charity so they get a portion of your sales—customers are more motivated to spend their money during the holidays.
- Contact local bloggers and journalists to ask for press coverage of any event you might plan.
- Collect contact information for new visitors and follow-up with them during the holiday shopping period, reminding them of your products, services and specials. Don’t give away anything without capturing a name and email address.