Small Business Saturday Marketing Ideas

Updated for 2022. Looking for some Small Business Saturday marketing ideas for both retail and online businesses?

In case you are not aware, Small Business Saturday (SBS) takes place every year on the Saturday after the US Thanksgiving. Therefore, Small Business Saturday 2022 will be November 26th.

The goal is to drive business to local stores, restaurants and other establishments so that they get their share of local holiday spending dollars.

Here are some ideas to ramp up your marketing efforts for Small Business Saturday:

Table of Contents

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #1: Email Your Local Customers

Hopefully you have been asking your customers and online visitors for email sign ups. If you’re a retail shop, you should be doing this every day in your store, so you can take advantage of opportunities such as these.

One of the best ways for a retail shop to get emails is to ask customers to fill out a ballot for a draw. Read my post, How To Keep Customers Coming Back to Your Retail Store for more of these types of ideas.

If you’re an online store, you should be separating your local customers’ emails from your non-local customers, just for the purpose of SBS. Send just one email (use emojis in the subject line to get their attention) and make a fabulous one-day only offer (it has to be really good, like 40% off) just for them. Give them a code to quote to get the discount and encourage them to share with all of their friends and relatives in the area. Even encourage curb site pickup if possible.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #2: Reach Out to Local Business Reporters

Email the editor of your local newspaper (do it this 2 weeks prior or you’ll be too late!) asking if they are planning any articles on local companies offering special offers or unique in-store attractions for Small Business Saturday. Then be sure to quickly mention a special you will be offering in hopes they will include you as part of the story.

For online stores, ask the editor if they will consider doing a separate article focusing on local businesses selling online. It can’t hurt to put the idea in their head as they will be looking for interesting story ideas on this subject.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #3: Follow the Social Media Pages of Popular Local Sites

Your local market tends to follow social media pages for their local newspapers, sports teams, radio stations, event listings and so forth. So make sure that you are following these pages as well. This way you can comment on their Facebook posts, for example, and now their followers will see the name of your business.

Make sure that you change your Facebook avatar to reflect a Small Business Saturday sale offer. This will help to further get their attention. Your local newspaper might even be posting local businesses with specials and sales on their social media pages. If you can’t get in on this post, at very least you can comment on it and mention your special offers.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #4: Run Localized Google Ads

Consider running a Google ad for your online store, just for the month of November, or last two weeks of November. This will encompass not only Small Business Saturday, but also Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you make it a “localized” ad to just your city, it will be much more affordable. Be sure to include some of the popular SBS search phrases in your keyword list for the ad.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #5: If You Sell On Etsy

If you sell on a marketplace like Etsy, make sure you have entered your city in your profile (if you haven’t already) as customers can search for shops this way. You will also want to mention your city again in your shop title and in your shop description, if only just for Small Business Saturday (you can remove it from here after that). You can also mention it in some of your listing tags, as people do search “Boston Shops”, for example.

For your regular website, you should always have your city in your title tag and on your home page, especially since so many people use “near me” searches. For example:

Designer Pet Collars, Pet Bandanas and Pet Tags | Boston MA

Even change your shop banner just for the day with a graphic that shows a photo of a landmark specific to your city and that you are i.e. “Boston Proud”.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #6: Aline with Other Small Businesses

Pair up with a few other retail and online shops in your city who sell complimentary (but not competing) products and ask if they wish to form some sort of alliance. In other words, they will mention you on their website/online shop if you mention them on yours. Kind of like a blog roll of local shops to check out on Small Business Saturday.

Again, you only have to keep this on your site for the week prior to, and the days after Small Business Saturday. Even use the #s4s hash tag (shoutout for shoutout) on Instagram to help promote your fellow local businesses and vice versa.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #7: Get In Store Support

For online stores, you could take this a step further and approach popular local merchants and see if they will try carrying your products in a small section of their store for just one Saturday, entitled, “Support Local Small Business“. Tell them you will bring all of your friends, family and customers to their shop that day. It could result in press for them as well (local shop supports local business).

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #8: “Localize” Your Marketing Materials

One of my best Small Business Saturday marketing ideas is to add local labels or tags to your products (such as the logo above which you can download at my Etsy shop and use license free) so that customers are influenced by the fact that your products are home-grown. For online stores, you can use these when you sell at local craft shows or local shops. American Express also has free Shop Small marketing templates you can use.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #9: Use Hashtags

Send off some Tweets or Instagram posts using the #hash tags:

- #SmallBusinessSaturday
- #SmallBusinessSaturday2021
- #SmallBusinessSupport
- #SmallBizSaturday
- #ShopSmall
- #ShopLocal
- #SmallBizSat
- #SmallBusiness
- #SmallBusinesses
- #SmallBusinessOwner

Again, add your city at the end to get to your local market i.e. #SmallBusinessSaturdayBoston (make sure your Twitter profile lists your city and change your Twitter Trends box to see what is trending in your city). Also, retweet the tweets of other businesses in your city and they may return the favor.

Small Business Saturday Marketing Idea #10: Business Listings

Furthermore, make sure you have set up a profile on Yelp, Google My Business and Yahoo Local well in advance of Small Business Saturday. These listings are free and they help you to show up in local search results. In the case of Yelp, add a photo/image of any special you are offering for Small Business Saturday.

Need more marketing ideas for your small business? Check out my 12-Month Marketing Strategy Plans for a variety of different types of businesses.

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