6 Tips to Make the Most of Small Business Saturday

6 Tips to Make the Most of Small Business Saturday

Wondering how to take advantage of Small Business Saturday as an SMB owner or entrepreneur? Consider these tips and tools.

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All over the world, small businesses gear up to celebrate Small Business Saturday every year, a marketing initiative created by American Express to encourage holiday shopping. This annual event takes place after Thanksgiving, between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, encouraging consumers ‌to support almost 32 million independent businesses in the United States (U.S.) alone - helping small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners make a big impact.

According to a survey by American Express, U.S. consumers spent about $17.9 billion at independent retailers and restaurants on Small Business Saturday. This shows the collective influence consumers have when they shop locally.

So, entrepreneurs, startups, and SMB owners, it's time to start planning your weekends. Here are six tips to maximize Small Business Saturday so you can grow fast, starting now.

Six tips to maximize Small Business Saturday

Turn Small Business Saturday into the biggest day for your small business. With sprinkles of creativity, expert tips, and entrepreneurial advice, you can make way for new customers, boost sales, and build lasting relationships. Here's how you can make the most of this exciting shopping day:

1. Convert visibility into sales

Millions of small businesses aim to attract potential customers and bring in more sales during Small Business Saturday. But that doesn't mean the business that's getting the most attention is handling sales processes efficiently.

Be sure to ask these questions:

• How do we convert this foot traffic into sales?
• What can I do with the information I collected?
• How can we close deals from this traffic faster?

David Perrett, VP of Sandy Alexander, one of the most diverse manufacturing platforms, shared how having streamlined sales processes, and organized data with Starter made it easy for them to track sales cycles and manage opportunities.

They saw more visibility on sales outreach: "As we loaded all our accounts in, I noticed a lot of retailers we haven't touched yet. So, all of a sudden, we could assign a salesperson to a retailer we weren't aware of before. These accounts existed, but we didn't have a way to resurface them this easily.

2. Get in front of your customers with a digital storefront

65% of customers want businesses to keep up with their evolving tastes, remember their past purchases, and nail their unique preferences. Sadly, more than six out of ten folks feel like they're just another number to companies these days.

Once you figure out what exactly your customers need, you need to give them a simple process where they can buy and get back to their lives. G. Michael Kenny, President of Chambers Gasket & Manufacturing Co., built a B2B online storefront offering a streamlined experience.

This helped shoppers buy items in just a few steps:

• Finding multiple ways to quickly find the items they want.
• Easily navigate for product details.
• Add it to the cart and check out easily.

"We really tried to tailor the shopping experience with no frills - just in and out and make it as simple as possible. Frictionless." Kenny added, "Now the customer doesn't have to deal with an out-of-office notice or go back and forth to get their order filled. They can be confident their order is in our system, and I can be confident the system is checking raw-material inventory, checking if we can meet their dates, and responding to the customer."

Try out commerce for small business, and see how you can maximize the customer experience.

3. Take care of your customers with AI

If you're participating in Small Business Saturday, you're definitely going to receive service calls. And that's where a positive and efficient customer experience becomes a major need - and where you can lean on artificial intelligence (AI).

Kevin Quigley, senior manager at Wiley - ​​a publisher and ‌trusted leader in research and learning - shared how using Service Cloud helped their business witness a 213% return on investment and $230,000 in savings.

"Piloting Agentforce has made a noticeable difference during one of our busiest periods - back-to-school season. It's been exciting to go live with our first agent thanks to the no-code builder, and we've seen a more than 40% increase in case resolution, outperforming our old bot. Agentforce helps to manage routine responsibilities and free up our service teams for more complex cases."

4. Make full use of marketing and partnerships

Small Business Saturday is full of opportunities. Luckily, our era is blessed with digital platforms to reach a wide range of audiences. You can utilize:

• Co-create or co-host a small business celebration with other businesses
• Utilize email marketing campaigns to spread awareness
• Arrange contests, giveaways, and bring some games to the table
• Organize activities that are kid-friendly or pet-friendly
• Provide samples or demos of your products
• Offer coupons and vouchers as gifts, if you can

PRO TIP: Micro-influencers get 3.86% of engagement on their accounts. Find micro-influencers relevant to your brand and relatable to your audience online. For example, if you are a fitness brand, collaborate with a wellness or health influencer who can help you drive organic reach to your social media accounts.

5. Automate and optimize social promos

You don't always have to rely on traditional marketing tactics. Find new and creative ways to gather a crowd for your business. Get vocal about your small business with a touch of creativity. Here's how you can go about it.

Create social media reels or videos to cross-promote your business. Use hashtags for social collaborations (Pro tip: use trending hashtags like #ShopSmall and #SmallBusinessSaturday)

Build anticipation and create suspense among your audience through teasers, countdown stickers, and polls. Leave your audience wanting more with promo codes, buy one get one (BOGO) offers, or bundle deals that will bring them back.

By using marketing for small business, you can engage across multiple channels, and focus on those small business connections that mean so much. You can influence engagement before Small Business Saturday and have a full house excited for that weekend.

6. Get attention from local media

Customers come from all over the world, and so do small business owners to participate and shop during Small Business Saturday.

You need to find local engagement ‌if you're planning to get eyes on your business. Find local journalists or media houses and see if they can cover your brand's event in print media. For example, Main Street America, NBC Select, etc. You can also work on creative ad campaigns that can get you featured in local media.

For more tips, download the free Small and Medium Business Trends Report and catch up on the latest insights for SMBs and startups.

Celebrate Small Business Saturday every weekend

Maximize the weekend by finding new customers, sealing the deal, and building long-term relationships during Small Business Saturday with Salesforce. Start easy and fast with small business commerce, where you'll find storefront templates, easy-nav product inventory, and AI, built right in. Starter is available for free to take your business beyond the weekend and into the future.

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Caylin White is an Editorial Lead and Growth Manager for Small Business at Salesforce. She has written content for over 15 years for many SaaS industries, like WordPress and BuzzSumo. She specializes in SEO but is sure to add a human-centric angle to every piece.

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