How to Market for Small Business Saturday 2024

Small Business Saturday, which falls on November 30th this year, presents a golden opportunity for business owners who don’t play in the same league as behemoths like Amazon or legacy brands with long-standing reputations. Year after year, these big businesses have dominated the holiday season, but small businesses are pushing back to earn their share of the traffic.

While the major outlets are getting holiday items on the shelves as early as late October, November 30th is a date with small business written all over it, and patrons will be looking to support and celebrate them.

What is Small Business Saturday?

Beginning as a marketing campaign by American Express in 2010, Small Business Saturday is sandwiched between Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (the Monday following Thanksgiving) and now represents a space carved out for supporting small businesses. Among other things, Small Business Saturday exists to:

• Encourage shopping small and shopping local
• Highlight the importance of small businesses and their contribution to the American economy
• Provide visibility to the efforts small business make alongside massive companies with million-dollar marketing budgets

Since it’s inception, Small Business Saturday has helped to support the backbone of the economy by directing attention to small businesses during the crucial holiday season.

4 Ways To Market On Small Business Saturday

Getting your name out there is the most powerful tool you have during the holiday season. Let’s get creative with ways to market your business for Small Business Saturday.

Use social media

With social media being the primary source of news and advertising, make sure your you make your brand’s presence known there. If you’ve built a following online, or even if you’re still in the process of building your brand, put your best foot forward by posting daily with deals and alluring images of your products. Get creative with short-form videos using your products or showing off the results of your services.

Partner with your community

Since Small Business Saturday has a strong theme of supporting local businesses, try to get in with the locals.

• Community newsletters and other local publications usually love to partner with businesses in their neighborhood, and larger distributions may offer discounts for advertisement slots. Consider connecting with them to see what options you have to get your name out there.
• If there are event centers nearby or public parks with upcoming, city-hosted events, consider asking to leave holiday fliers that customers can take if they please. This is a cheap way to borrow some space and spread your reach.
• Regardless of the size of your city, there’s likely a downtown district or established community business group. Work with these parties to coordinate efforts as a group, and take advantage of the strength in your numbers.

Create an email campaign

If you’ve built an email distribution list, now is the time to get in touch with your subscribers. Utilize enticing subject lines and lead with the benefit the customer can expect if they purchase your products or services through your website. Curate your emails, too, like following up with contacts that have shown interest in your services to see if they would be interested in shopping your wares.

With Northwest’s email and business website hosting services, you can distribute your marketing emails reliably through whatever email platform you prefer, and build a website to host your product and service offerings in time for Small Business Saturday. Reach out to our amazing Corporate Guides® today to chat about the tools to offer to build your business identity.

Lean into the gift factor

Consider the ‘gift factor’ in your offerings. Certain services and products work well as gifts, or can be packaged in a way that does, and you should lean into that.

• If you offer a service, consider gift certificates that can be easy stocking stuffers.
• Offer free gift wrapping services as a way to connect with the community and distribute business cards and sale fliers.
• If you have some smaller products that you can box up, offer prewrapped gifts in cute, eye-catching wrapping.

All of these also work very well as components of a social media campaign, while also providing convenience to busy holiday shoppers.

Celebrate Your Small Business Success

The final step in getting the most out of Small Business Saturday is to celebrate. Revel in your year’s worth of wins and congratulate other businesses in your community for their accomplishments. When you remove your own business owner hat to do your own holiday shopping, try to support other small businesses in your community and network. Spread the love and show the support you hope to receive.