Getting Ready for Small Business Saturday : Marketing :: American ...

We hope you?re as excited as we are about Small Business Saturday. Now celebrating its third year, the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend is expected to bring more than a 100 million holiday shoppers flocking to small businesses. Here?s how you can make the most of the day.
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Lay the foundation.?Before you unleash your campaigns, follow these three steps.
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• Set goals. Write down your goals and include metrics for revenue, traffic and new customers.
• Understand your audience.?Take a closer look at what your best customers like and which campaigns inspired them to take action. When you focus on understanding the responses from your most active customers, you?ll create more targeted campaigns that yield stronger results. You?ll also create stronger ties to them.
• Understand your value from the customer?s point of view.?Determine what it is about your products or services that improves your customers? lives and makes you the logical choice over the competition.

Run a great campaign.?Once you?ve set the foundation, your campaign should kick off six weeks in advance. Here are suggested marketing tactics leading up to November 24, 2012 and beyond.

• Announce your participation in Small Business Saturday. Make your participation known by hanging signage in your store and images on your Facebook Business Page, your website, and your blog, for example. Also, you can access loads of free marketing tools by Liking?Small Business Saturday on Facebook.?
• Create specific Small Business Saturday messages. Strike a balance in your frequency of messages and emphasize the benefits of Small Business Saturday for your customers as well as its impact on small businesses in America.?
• Start a weekly e-mail campaign. Consider using special templates specific to the day so your readers will know how they can take advantage of your great offers and will be able to differentiate Small Business Saturday from other marketing messages sent to their inbox. After the event, you?ll also want to send a thank-you e-mail to express your appreciation of their support.
• Present a great offer. Taking what you learned through the three steps outlined above, create a compelling offer that will make your store a must-visit location on Small Business Saturday. Awesome offers can range from free gift wrapping to stocking stuffers or a percentage off future purchases after spending a certain amount.?

To help you brainstorm ideas for terrific offers, answer the following three questions:

• What would ?wow? your best customers based on their interests and needs?
• What type of incentive has inspired them to take action in the past?
• What is it about your business that would prompt them to refer their friends?

To subtly weed out deal seekers, present a dynamite offer to your most loyal customers and include a special incentive when they bring a friend along. The higher the value of the offer, the more inspired your customers will be to return and refer.?
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Beyond Small Business Saturday. Use the day as an opportunity to develop lifetime customer relationships. To do this, make sure customers have a fantastic shopping experience and then ask permission to maintain the connection via e-mail or social media. This will allow you to further engage them throughout the year.

Evaluate your success.Throughout the six-week campaign, you?ll be learning more about your customers to further tailor your messages. Be sure to track your success and look at your results after the event so you?re constantly refining your messages and offers based on customer interests.

And the spirit of helping small businesses succeed, Constant Contacted has created a free Small Business Saturday Toolkit that?s available to any small business. The kit includes a step-by-step marketing guide along with free store signage, e-mail templates, and shareable Facebook images.

Rick Jensen is the senior vice president and chief sales and marketing officer of?Constant Contact.

Stay tuned for more coverage of Small Business Saturday.

Photo: Thinkstock

Source: http://www.openforum.com/articles/getting-ready-for-small-business-saturday

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