5 things you absolutely need to promote your Small Business Saturday offer
When you decide to create a Small Business Saturday offer, or any other type of offer, for your business, a really important part is to work out how to promote it. Let’s face it, if you don’t tell people about your fantastic offer, how will they take it up?
So, spending some time upfront on working out your promotional plan will pay dividends later on. I think there are 5 things that you absolutely need to promote your offer, and I’m going to take you through each one, telling you why it’s so important.
1. A small business marketing platform
First of all, you need a great small business marketing platform. This will let you do a number of things, such as creating promotional emails. Email marketing helps you reach your existing customers to let them know about your offer. Because who doesn’t want repeat business from their customers? They already know you and like what you do, and will see the offer as a lovely surprise from you. You never know, your emails may prompt them to buy more than just what’s covered by the offer. So, now you can see why it’s important to have a small business marketing platform that helps you to create professional-looking emails.
Your email schedule doesn’t have to be complicated either. Let’s look at this simple three-email series.
With your first email, you’re telling your email list that you have a special offer that you don’t want them to miss out on.
The second email is a reminder. Send this just before your offer ends and let your email list know that your offer is coming to a close.
The third email is a thank you to all those who used your offer and shopped with you.
With a simple email plan, like this, you can very easily communicate your offer to your existing customers.
2. Social media
Where email marketing is going to help you tell your existing customers about your offer, social media is going to help you spread the word to your prospects. That’s people who aren’t your customers but could be. So, sharing your offer on social media will help you to reach potential new customers.
Again, you don’t have to have a massively complex posting schedule. Nor do you have to use all the social media channels. Figure out where most of your customers hang out and then use that social media channel to promote your offer. As with your email schedule, you might have a simple, three-post social media schedule.
Remember that social media is just that – social. So, take the time to interact with your followers so they will be more willing to share your content, making it visible to their friends and family. This is how you’re going to reach new, potential customers.
3. Design skills
OK, you don’t really need outstanding design skills. But if you can’t afford the services of a graphic designer, you do need basic design skills. This is going to help you stand out in people’s inboxes (your newsletter) and on social media, where most social networks prioritise images over lots of text. So, brush up on those skills.
There are lots of great tools out there to help you. I love Canva. They help me design graphics for my emails, social media, and blog. Canva even has lots of free templates that you can use and adapt.
The other thing to do is think about the graphics you will need and get them done now. If they’re ready, you’ll be able to use them in an instant when you’re busy. Believe me, preparing your graphics will make it all so much easier.
4. Automation
Here’s the clever bit. If you’ve figured out your offer and worked out your promotional plan, then you have everything you need to get things done in advance. Every email tool has a feature that will allow you to schedule emails ahead of time. Use this feature to get your emails set up and scheduled before you get too busy. Want to know more about email automation? Read this post.
The same goes for social media. There are many posting platforms that let you schedule your social media posts in advance. Twitter and Facebook even have their own built-in scheduling tools. Or you could use Hootsuite, Planoly or Buffer. Having all your social media scheduled in advance means you won’t be worried about promoting your offer on the day. It gets done automatically and you can focus on your customers.
5. A plan
I love it when a plan comes together (I may be showing my age here!) But Hannibal never spoke a truer word! The final thing you’ll need is a plan so you don’t have to think about what you have to do. Make sure it’s all plotted out for you in a calendar, so all you have to do is the doing! I can guarantee that this will save you loads of time, leaving you free to promote your offer effectively.
I hope you feel more confident about putting together your promotional plan. The beauty of it is that this doesn’t just work for Small Business Saturday, it will work for any other offer you decide to do for your business.
Ready to make your mark?
Do you want to leverage Small Business Saturday to boost your sales? You need a Small Business Saturday offer!
If you’re not sure where to start, create an irresistible offer with my new eBook. At only £9.99, it’s the recipe you need for a stellar Small Business Saturday offer.
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