9 Easy Ways Franchise Business Owners can Celebrate Small Business Saturday 2022
Local mom-and-pop shops may come to mind when you think about small businesses, but franchises are small businesses, too. Franchisees are indeed small business owners, but they have the added benefit of support and training from their franchisor.
Franchise small business owners operate independently and improve their communities by creating jobs and generating economic growth. Consumers can give back to these local businesses by “shopping small” the day after Black Friday (aka Small Business Saturday or SBS).
What is Small Business Saturday?
The history of SBS goes back to 2010 when American Express sponsored the event to give locally-owned businesses a chance to make extra profits following Black Friday. A year later, Congress agreed that SBS should be official, and the annual event has been supported by the U.S. government ever since.
SBS became prominent when American Express trademarked SBS and promoted it across its social media in 2014. It has been a national sensation since then and shows no signs of stopping. In 2021, a survey showed that 42% of Americans planned to shop small during SBS.
If you’re a small business owner, you can benefit by participating in Small Business Saturday 2022. And it doesn’t have to be complicated. Below, we’ve outlined nine easy ways to celebrate the day.
9 Ways to Celebrate Small Business Saturday
1. Extend Your Hours
If you own and operate a brick-and-mortar business, you can celebrate SBS by extending your hours of operation. By doing this, you can increase your sales by allowing customers to have more time to come in and shop. And don’t be shy about it. Post on social media to tell customers that you’ll have special hours.
2. Offer Deals and Promotions
Black Friday is successful because of its great deals. To ensure SBS boosts your business, offer discounts and promotions to entice customers to visit your store. This can include limited-time offers or bonus cards with the purchase of a gift card. The possibilities are endless on SBS.
3. Connect with Your Community
As a small business owner, you must connect with your community to be successful and generate interest in your product or service. To do this, you can tell your story on your franchise website or through blog posts. You can also use your social media channels to promote your business’ community service efforts. This can be a charitable holiday donation or a special fundraising event, for example.
4. Use Different Marketing Strategies
If you don’t effectively use marketing strategies, then nobody will know that your business is participating in SBS. To do this, you can put signage outside of your location, launch an ad campaign, and create promotional emails for subscribers. By investing in ads, customers can become aware of your business and potentially visit your store. Try using location-targeted ads to ensure your key demographics see them.
5. Get Customers Involved
SBS is for customers, so get them involved as much as possible. You can hold a contest and raffles and award prizes – like gift cards – to incentivize customer participation. The more customer participation, the better!
6. Partner with Another Business
In addition to getting customers involved, you can also partner with another small business that has complimentary services and products. If you run a gym franchise, for example, a way to boost awareness and sales would be to partner with a local vitamin shop. The vitamin shop could promote membership discounts at your gym, and you could sell the vitamin shop’s supplements at your gym. This is a win-win for everyone.
7. Boost Your SEO Strategy
One of the best ways to get traffic for your business’ website is to have strong search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. With strong SEO strategies, your company’s website will rank higher on Google, which increases the reach and visibility of your business. To increase your franchise business’ SEO, use the correct keywords on your website copy and blogs, post relevant content, and make sure that your business shows up on Google Maps so the community knows where to find you.
8. Focus on Customer Service
If there’s one thing you need to know about Black Friday or SBS, it is that you will be busy. Customers cannot wait to see all the great deals and fun contests businesses offer. But the experience can be ruined because of bad customer service. To ensure the best customer service experience possible, schedule enough staff to meet demand. SBS comes with strong online demand, as well. If your business offers online services or products, use artificial intelligence like a chatbot so customers can quickly get answers to their questions. In an increasingly digital world, this could benefit your business beyond SBS.
9. Stock Up on Inventory
In anticipation of the demand you will likely have on SBS, stock up on products you know will be big sellers. As a business owner, you should be aware of your biggest shopping days and look at the inventory for those times. This will allow you to better understand your customers’ behavior, which can help you order the products that have the most demand.
Why is Small Business Saturday Important?
Small business owners are an important part of the U.S. economy. They bring the community together and offer great products and services. With SBS, small business owners can bring in new customers for the holiday season and beyond. By implementing these ideas, your business will likely have a successful Small Business Saturday 2022. Enjoy!