December 4th sees the return of Small Business Saturday, the one day of the year where customers are encouraged to rebel against the retail chains, overlook the massive online shops, and buy from local stores instead.
This year marks the ninth anniversary of the event, and all small businesses are being encouraged to get involved, from family butchers to online sellers.
Last year’s event was the biggest ever, with around £1.1 billion spent with small businesses across the day, according to figures from American Express, the event’s main UK supporter.
But whereas last year’s event was set against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns, this year’s campaign is more of a celebration and aims to drum up a huge show of support from the public, to celebrate the contribution of small independents across their communities, particularly throughout the pandemic.
“Small businesses work incredibly hard to serve their customers, staff and communities,” said Michelle Ovens CBE, director of Small Business Saturday UK. “They don’t ask for recognition, but they deserve it hugely, particularly for the way they go above and beyond to help people, particularly throughout this pandemic.
“Small Business Saturday is a chance to put the spotlight on amazing small businesses across the UK and celebrate their awesome achievements. Whatever your business, whatever your size and wherever you are in your journey, Small Business Saturday is for you and it is your chance to shine.”
If you want your small business to get involved, or want to nominate a local business, here’s how to get involved.
The first thing you need to do is register your business, you can sign up here.
Go promo
If customers don’t know about Small Business Saturday, they can’t get involved – download logos and banners to put on your website, and request a marketing pack from the Small Business Saturday website.
The marketing pack also includes posters you can print off at home to put in the window of your premises to encourage passers by to pop in and take part by giving you their business.
Free food is always an effective way to get people though the door, and it’s worth checking out the Small Business Saturday cook book, which was released a couple of years ago, but the recipes definitely aren’t past their sell-by date. You can download it here, and tempt people through the door with treats like Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya, Gluten-free Mojito Cupcakes, and Mulled Wine.
Go social
Once your premises has been decked out with posters, take some pictures and share them on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #SmallBizSatUK and geo-tag your local region.
For more ideas, and some good ideas on how to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest to cover the event, check out the Small Business Saturday social media support and advice.
Go local
Next up, speak to other small businesses in your area to see if they’ve signed up and encourage them to spread the word among friends and family – you could print off flyers or cards that could be handed out across the two remaining weekends before the day itself.
You could also leave these flyers in the reception of local schools, community centres, coffee shops and libraries.
Once you know there are a few businesses on board, you should speak to your local authority to see if it is doing anything to support the event – if not, get it on board to help support the local economy.
It might also be writing to your local MP to get them to come down to the event – if they agree you should get in touch with your local newspaper and radio station and get them to help promote the event and cover proceedings on the day.
Go blog about it
If you’re website has a blog – and if it doesn’t have a blog, why doesn’t it?! – then make sure you write as much about the day as possible and promote your blog on social media – this way you can still reach all of your online friends or followers but let them know about the event in much greater detail that you can in a social media post.
You could even run a contest on your blog – maybe offering goods or services as a prize – to generate and maintain interest in the day. If you get together with other businesses this gives you the scope to give away bigger and better prizes.
How conference call can help your small business
If you run a small business, constantly meeting with clients or customers can be a real headache, especially if you need to speak to a number of stakeholders at the same time.
That’s why every small business needs a cost-effective and reliable conference call service. ConferenceCall.co.uk enables you to quickly and easily set up a call for as many as 100 participants. And to make international conference calling simple and cost-effective, we’ve got dial-in numbers for over 70 countries across the globe.
