There is MONEY to be made on Small Business Saturday! Estimates are that around 62.7 million people shop in-store and about 63 million people shop online. While this episode was originally shared in 2023, the strategies we share to increase sales during this small business specific holiday are more relevant than ever in 2026. Listen as we share practical planning tips, marketing strategies, and the importance of using data to drive your decisions to maximize success during the holiday season.
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Chapters:
03:05 Understanding Small Business Saturday
08:53 Planning for Small Business Saturday
09:45 Omnichannel Marketing Strategies
16:51 Creating a Seamless Customer Experience
17:51 Preparing Your Marketing Campaign
21:05 Leveraging Email Marketing
24:27 Personalization in Marketing
32:07 Inventory Management for Seasonal Sales
34:04 Competing with Black Friday Sales
40:54 The Power of Gift Cards
44:06 Maximizing Visibility for Small Business Saturday
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All the small business owners that are listening right now, for one, they're probably like, my God, these girls are so weird.
But they're also probably like, Vivian, Chelsea, how do I decide what sales I'm gonna do? Like you're talking about all this stuff, but like what should I do? You should be looking at your data or data.
Hey everyone, welcome to the SOB Marketing Podcast, where we celebrate the SOB that you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet, we mean small owned business. We don't mean SOB.
Vivian (01:23) Listen, we know that as a small business owner, you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other, I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea (01:42) Our commitment here at the SOB Marketing Podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, promoting your business, and then what doesn't really work.
Vivian (01:54) And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
Chelsea, we are back for another episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast. SOB as in small owned business, not son of a bleep bleep bleep.
Chelsea (02:08) Yep, we're back. And before we get started, I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been listening. please subscribe, share this with all of your other SOB friends that might need a little help with their marketing. We are here to help small business owners feel good about their marketing.
Vivian (02:27) Yeah, and listen, if you guys are doing some pretty cool shit out there with your small businesses and you as it relates to marketing and you want to share it with other people, hit us up. Please email us Vivian at the Season Marketer or Chelsea at the Season Marketer. and you guys can come on the podcast and just talk about it and drop little nuggets of information for all of our other listeners. So we're in this together and I feel like, you know, there is ample opportunity for people. And so
You know, no reason to sit on some of that knowledge that you guys are out there acquiring. Yes.
Chelsea (03:02) Absolutely come on. We would love to talk to you guys.
Vivian (03:06) That's right. So Chelsea, today's topic is actually a really interesting one because I think it's one that has gained a lot of notoriety over the last couple of years. Well, I would say maybe, I don't know, maybe the last seven years or so. And but it's not one that a lot of small businesses really take full advantage of. And that is probably one of the newest quote unquote holidays that we celebrate.
Every year, which is small business Saturday.
Chelsea (03:38) Yes, I personally love Small Business Saturday. I do wanna ask you, I don't know if this is a generational thing, that's why I'm gonna ask. For my generation, Small Business Saturday is a lot more popular than Black Friday. I feel like we have started to focus a lot more on small businesses because as Gen Z wants that connection, we'd rather relate than, you know, give money to a corporation.
Is small business Saturday as big with like other generations? I know Black Friday. Now our mom loves Black F we used to go to Black Friday all the time.
Vivian (04:16) Yeah. if there's anyone that can shop on Black Friday, it's definitely Reina Mojica.
Chelsea (04:22) She says,
Vivian (04:22) She's got a game plan for it. Yeah, it's a generational thing, I think, personally, just because for me, I can remember a time before Small Business Saturday. And I can tell you that's why maybe when I introduced the idea just now in my head I said over the last seven years, because it is something that
prior to we really didn't discuss a whole lot about and Chelsea, look this up real quick for me. Okay if you can. Can. I think Small Business Saturday was actually started by American Express.
Chelsea (04:56) I already know that. Yeah. That's true.
Vivian (04:58) Okay. And so it was that's always interesting to me because it was attached to a campaign from a big corporation, right? But the reason they were doing it is because for one, American Express does work really hard to target small businesses and they want to be the, you know, person that you go to for banking, for credit cards, for all of that stuff, funding. and so I think it was brilliant on their part to introduce this as a campaign because now it has kicked off.
Year after year, this entire movement, like you're saying, of people who say, I want to pour my money into the community as opposed to big corporations and so they are going out and supporting small businesses during this dedicated day. But we
Chelsea (05:42) kind
of already passed this already, but I do want to go back and say that the Thanksgiving Black Friday Small Business Saturday, the whole holiday season has really experienced kind of an ebb and flow of people wanting to shop on Thanksgiving. Other people saying that's awful, don't make your employees work on Thanksgiving. So like some people are now closed on Thanksgiving, other places are now open. It's really like a back and forth of what is the correct way to promote consumerism.
Vivian (06:17) Yeah, and how about there is no correct way or incorrect way? How about there just is, right? Yeah. So and and I think really I'm glad you brought that up because if you're a small business owner out there, let me just let's just cut to the chase. At the end of the day, you're gonna catch criticism for for everything. Okay. So no matter what decision you make, you're gonna catch criticism from some party, some group of people for something you're doing. So I think basing your decisions on data, basing your decisions on the type of employer you want to be to your employees, all of that stuff should be factored in. certainly in like you said, Chelsea, at the end of the day, this is a really fruitful and profitable time for a lot of small businesses. So, y'all, if you aren't taking advantage of at least, okay, let's say you close down for Thanksgiving Day and that's just not your jam.
At least take advantage of small business Saturday.
Chelsea (07:18) Yes. Even if you're closed Thursday and Friday, open up for small business Saturday.
Vivian (07:24) Yeah. And so where do you want to kind of kick off this conversation, Chelsea, in regards to planning? Because what we want to talk about today is we want to give you guys some tips on what you can be doing now to prepare because we get it, right? It's not it's not next week, but y'all shouldn't be leaving that stuff till next week to plan.
Chelsea (07:45) No, Absolutely not. So like you're saying, we say, we suggest start planning now. As we discussed in the Halloween episode, the more time you give yourself to prep for this event, for a sale, anything like that, the more thought out, the more successful you're gonna be, the more you can find issues with your ideas that may or may not become a problem before it's a big problem, you know? So go ahead.
Start thinking about it now, start planning now. It's gonna help you minimize your stress and it's gonna help you increase your sales. I think we already kind of touched on this, but again, like we always like to say, your first thing is gonna be get into the mind of your consumer, who your potential customer is, because this is all about reaching them and targeting them. An omnichannel strategy approach would be a great way of going about small business Saturday.
I believe we've talked about omni channel strategy before, but Vivian, if you want to explain it so that people understand what I'm saying.
Vivian (08:53) Yeah, I would love to. Let's Professor Vivian. Okay. Is entering the room, y'all. So typically in marketing, you have probably heard of a multi-channel strategy. Multi-channel strategy is basically where you are taking your idea, your campaign, your messaging, and you're blasting it out to different
channels, right? Different mediums. So that could be you're doing it on billboards, you're doing it on radio, you're doing it on television. At the end of the day, though, at the epicenter of a multi-channel strategy is going to be the messaging, right? So whether that's a promotion or whatever else. With omnichannel strategy, what it is is the way I like to look at it is, you know, when we were in school and we're learning about cells and how you have like the nucleus at the core. At the nucleus,
Of an omnichannel strategy is going to be your target audience or your potential customer. And so what you're doing is instead all of the channels are stemming from them. And the reason you do this is because your messaging, your it's less about your messaging and more about the experience that they're having throughout these channels and making sure that it's consistent, right?
So you're really putting that person at the epicenter of it. so it's an approach now that really over the last gosh, I want to say probably 20 years has really just kind of, you know, snowballed because of technology. It's forced us to do this, right? So in the days before we actually had websites or web pages, which I know Chelsea, you did not know this world.
I I did. I knew about, you know, all those things, life before the interwebs. But they basically, because when the internet came about and everything, now you're having to just be sure that the experience somebody gets on your website is gonna be very similar to the experience that you get when somebody's calling in or, you know, whatever other channel mechanism you're using.
Chelsea (11:02) Exactly. And so I bring this up because if you're going to be creating a sale, following your customer and the path that they would go through when finding this sale is something that you're gonna be re you need to be really cognizant of. So the entire process from a potential customer finding you, looking at and finding a product that they want or a service, making the purchase and all of the aftermath that comes with it.
Each of these steps is going to be something that you're going to have to consider, look at, and make sure everything is running smoothly in preparation for Small Business Saturday. And this can be a long process. That's why we're saying to start now.
Vivian (11:47) Yeah. let me give you an example of this real life example that everybody could probably relate to. You are gonna order a pizza. There are three different ways that you can order a pizza. You can go online and place the order, you can do it on an app, or you can physically call in. Right. Now
Chelsea (12:08) I wanna know who physically calls in.
Vivian (12:11) I would. I do. You do? Yeah.
Chelsea (12:13) Vivian, get out of here. my god.
Vivian (12:16) I do. I like doing my old school. I do. I do. Okay. I'm just now getting to the point where I order, like, you know, sushi online to you know, to go pick up, but I still very much pick up the phone and place orders.
Chelsea (12:34) I
don't think I've ever done that.
Vivian (12:37) Try it sometime. It's a lot of fun. You actually get to talk to people.
Chelsea (12:41) God no.
Vivian (12:43) So the the point being when you're placing an order, if I'm that pizza company, my omni channel strategy is going to ensure that at each one of those three platforms or channels, they are getting the same type of experience, right? So I want it to be a solid experience when they call in. I want it to be a solid experience whenever they are placing an order on the app and a solid experience when they are doing it on the website.
All of that creates the consistency. And so the reason that I'm, you know, I think you're bringing it up is because if you have a gap in any one of those, if you're gonna be doing a big push during a Black Friday or a small business Saturday, it's better that you find those gaps now so that you can address them before you go and invest all of this time and effort.
Yeah. Into putting a campaign that maybe you're gonna be losing sales or just not completing that that cycle because there's a gap somewhere in there, right?
Chelsea (13:46) Yeah. Well, I can give you an example specifically for Small Business Saturday. Let's say you have a coupon code on the website, but the salesperson in store is gonna ring it up automatically. If the coupon code on the website doesn't work, people aren't gonna purchase it because they know that it's supposed to work. People may or may not decide, well I guess I'll go in store because it's supposed to work in store too, but if they're anything like me, I'm not going. I'm just gonna give up.
Also the opposite. I'm being honest. I'm being honest. I'm just
Vivian (14:23) I'm not gonna call it laziness. What's a better word?
Chelsea (14:27) It's not laziness. I just have
Vivian (14:29) apathetic.
Chelsea (14:31) I guess it I. I don't know how to explain it. It's not that I'm lazy, because you know I'm not lazy. I just have like a short attention span. Right. This is taking too long. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to go outside. This is too much effort. I'm just gonna find something else.
Vivian (14:50) I have the opposite problem. Well, I will I will see things through to the point that I spend way too much time on it. And literally then I'm like, What did I spend my entire day doing? Like this is not
Chelsea (15:04) I think it depends on what it is. Like I'm saying if I'm trying to purchase something. Right. And I think it's because, you know, there's so many options now that if you are taking too long, then I'll just go to the next store.
Vivian (15:18) Absolutely. And consumers are like that in general. That is not anything that is particular to you. The thing is, you can't make it hard for people to hit that that purchase button. Let me tell you something interesting today. I was talking to somebody and they were telling me that they went to a festival and we were laughing at how expensive the food is, right? At these festivals. And he said, they made it so easy for me to just buy all this expensive food because what they did is they gave you bracelets and your payment was somehow correlated to the bracelet. So basically you tapped it. And so he's like, I was just tapping away. Just buying buying this food. So that's exactly, you know, the easier you make it, the better.
Chelsea (16:10) Exactly. I think when we went to the Innings Festival they had that but we didn't set it up.
Vivian (16:16) Yes, because otherwise I would have gone broke and we would have spent way too much money.
Chelsea (16:20) Exactly. But the flip side of my example is let's say you're promoting things online, but you haven't told any of your staff members about it. So I can purchase it online, but actually I've decided to go in store and now I'm talking to your staff and they're saying that's not a thing. It could turn into an argument, it could turn into someone just leaving. You need to have the same message, the same flexibility, the same experience for all of your customers.
At all of the channels.
Vivian (16:51) So what I'm hearing is first up.
Chelsea (16:56) Uh-huh.
Vivian (16:57) Decide that you want to participate in small business Saturday. Yes. Come up with a marketing campaign or figure out what your sales are ahead of time. And that way you have a game plan. And then the third step is going to be that you sit down and you write down or put it on your laptop, whatever you guys do, you techie people, use your Apple notes. I don't know. and then write down
Chelsea (17:24) Everything down. I'm sorry.
Vivian (17:27) Well you're the only you're the only one that can read it because you have really crazy can
Chelsea (17:32) You know.
Vivian (17:32) write it on. I'm gonna say atrocious.
Chelsea (17:35) Well, I only I only write in cursive. Yeah. And I write in cursive because I write really fast. I don't want to pick up the pen. So all of my words are just one word 'cause I don't pick up the pen 'cause I'm trying to write really fast.
Vivian (17:51) Lord. Please don't write my obituary because it's just gonna be one long run-on sentence. Then you'd be like, what in the world? so yes. So then the third part is going to be to write down every single channel that you're gonna be promoting these campaigns on for Small Business Saturday. And so whether that be, you know, if you're running Facebook ads.
And it's on Facebook, be sure that you have that channel, you know, that strategy firmed up on there. If it's gonna be something you're posting on the website or you're doing on a online s online store that you have, firm it up there. Mm-hmm.
Chelsea (18:34) And that leads into my next point, which is gonna be give your audience, give your target audience as much information as possible. Are you gonna be changing your hours? Let's say you decide to stay open later, you know, you need to let them know as soon as possible. Well
Vivian (18:49) So are people staying open later for small business Saturday or is that more like Black Friday type?
Chelsea (18:55) So great point. I do want to say though, a lot of small businesses close at five. That's
Vivian (19:01) Mm.
Chelsea (19:03) early. So when I say stay open later, I'm saying like maybe seven or eight. So that's not necessarily I don't think that's late. I mean, I usually am in bed at ten, but that's just a me thing. You don't have to say
Vivian (19:17) Well
Chelsea (19:18) I'm not saying stay open as late as corporations do for Black Friday. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying if you decide, you're the decision maker, you're the small business, if you decide that you're going to stay open one or two hours later, you need to let them know that you're gonna be open one or two hours later.
Vivian (19:37) Yeah. You're the boss. I think Tony Danza was the original boss. Do you even know? No, no, no. Okay. It was a it was a show. Let me actually I wanna be sure that I got I think it's Tony Danza that was Who's the Boss is the name of it. And it definitely was Tony Danza. See? I still got it. I know my TV history. Yeah, and I'm gonna reiterate what I said earlier, which is just
Look at your data. If you guys are considering to perhaps extend hours for any of these holiday seasons, remember you're likely going to have to be paying employees or team members to be there for extended hours. so just take all of that into consideration and outweigh it with, you know, how much potentially could you make in that extra hour to two hours that you're staying? you know, you're keeping the shop open or whatnot. Yeah. So
I think that's really yeah, being able to relay and communicate what you're doing for Small Business Saturday is key. And if we haven't reminded you guys enough or hit you over the head with this, I'm gonna remind you again. Email list. Email list. If you know social media platforms are fabulous. I am so glad that you guys are building up your followers on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, all of that stuff. If one day they were to pull the plug.
You need to have a way to be able to communicate to people that are interested in your business. And there's nothing better for doing that than collecting someone's email. So if you have an email list, use it to your advantage. Let them know what types of sales or you know stuff you're going to be doing that's special for small business Saturday. And even at a bare minimum, let's say you guys don't want to do anything fancy, but you could do something easy like, Hey, I'll give people an extra fifteen percent off on small business Saturday just as a thank you for supporting my small business. You could easily just do that over email.
Chelsea (21:44) Yes. Love that. I do want to say definitely if you're gonna do emails, do an email series. That's gonna be so helpful. So I would do at least three emails. An announcement email, maybe two or three weeks beforehand, perfect. Then I would send a reminder email a week beforehand, and then the day of or the day before another like your final reminder.
If you're doing a sale for more than one day, then I would send out another email reminding people that there's also a time cutoff too. Like, it's the final hours for this sale. Mm-hmm.
Vivian (22:25) Right.
Yeah. And there's still enough time because we're not even into November yet for you to set all this stuff up. And you know, doing it, if you only send people emails once a week, you can still incorporate it in your stuff. Even if you don't want to do a completely separate email. Yeah. Let's say you do a regular weekly email at the bottom, you could add information. At the top, you can add information. It doesn't have to be the email doesn't have to be just about that. If
You don't wanna do that, right? You you own the business. You could do whatever you guys want. So there you go. Make it work for you.
Chelsea (23:02) Absolutely. Do whatever you want. That's just an example of an email series that could work really well for Small Business Saturday. I do also want to say we're saying send out emails. You should also be collecting emails as well. With consent. With consent. Collecting everything with emails. Everything with consent. Because during the holiday season, people are more willing to shop at new places because they're trying to find the perfect present, right?
So all those new people that may or may not be experiencing your shop for the first time, you need to put them into your funnel. So go ahead and make sure that you're collecting that you have a system set up, that you're collecting email addresses. It could even just be a paper sign-up form right on like where they check out. That works too. As long as you have a process, a way to collect that information.
Vivian (23:58) Let's talk about leveling up that idea. If you want to level up like you do in Super Mario Bros., the level up version of that is going to be to actually when you're collecting these email addresses, be sure that you're connecting it to data about their purchases. And what I mean by this is this, and most platforms will do this for you. So you're not having to do this manually, okay? the email platform that we utilize on the back end.
I have these audiences set up. And so what it does is it says, hey, if this person clicks on this link and they want this particular download, put them into this bucket. Okay. And the reason I do that is because then I know in the future what types of interest they have. So Chelsea and I, marketing is very broad. Sometimes we share information that's specific.
for crafters or people that go to these vendor markets. Okay, well, I want to be sure that I can identify those people on my email list so that if I have something that's specific to them, I can target them without sending it to the rest of the people on my email list who might not necessarily be interested in that because they're small business owners that just aren't interested in that. Yeah. Right. And so this will help you in the future if you are really looking to leverage
Email to increase your sales if you have a mechanism and you're using a platform that does track what they're purchasing and you're able to put them into some type of tar into an audience group or a you know particular funnel that then later on you could say, you know, next year in February, you launch something for let's say new bracelets and you're like, hey, I'm gonna pull
my list of everyone that bought jewelry from me last year and let them know because they're gonna be interested in a new bracelet that I've, you know. But I'm not gonna I'm not gonna target the people that bought candles for me because they're, you know, they might not like. So they're just that's a very basic example and it's probably not the best one. But
Chelsea (26:13) I think that's a great example and it's a great example 'cause I do want to say, as a small business owner, you are here to help people with a problem. If you can pinpoint what their problem is, you can help them better.
Vivian (26:25) Sometimes that problem is they got too much cash in their bank account. They they need to get rid of that
Chelsea (26:33) Okay with that, that's fine. Give me money then. That's cool. If that's the problem, target them as well. I don't know. My point was My point was if you can pinpoint what they're looking for and actually show them, Hey, I have what you're looking for, they're more likely to buy from you, of course.
Vivian (26:57) Well, and we talk about personalization so much in marketing. All of these studies that've come out in the last couple of years, the one trend that you've you've seen across the board is that consumers are saying that targeted communication and personalized communication to them really creates a response out of them. So they're way more prone to engage with it than just getting a blanket, you know, statement. I'll give you a weird example.
I used to shop at Express when I was younger. Okay. I don't anymore. But when I was younger, I used to shop at Express. The amount of emails that I would get from Express were insane. Perhaps, and I never opened any of them. Perhaps I would have opened them if I felt like they actually somehow correlated to the stuff that I was interested in, right? So for me at the time, I would go in there and get like suits. Okay. So like they would have like professional wear. Yes. If they somehow found that I liked professional wear and they sent me outfit ideas for stuff I could wear into an office, I probably would have like picked up on that and actually opened it. But the fact that they just blasted me all the time with just regular stuff, I was like, you know, I'd like I'm not gonna open it. So case in point, just if people are saying personalization is where it's at, believe them. The more data you guys collect, The better. We're not telling you to sell that data. We're not telling you to share it with anybody. We're just saying if you have the data to be able to see where your audience is and what that person is actually consuming and wanting from you. And then you're able to create messaging that really targets them, that's, you know, gonna increase your sales.
This episode of the SOB Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the SOB community.
If you're a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted money and time on marketing help that didn't deliver, or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/SOB to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's skool.com/SOB
Chelsea (29:19) Okay, since we're talking about data, I wanna I wanna bring this point up.
Vivian (29:23) The data
or data?
Chelsea (29:28) I say both. I say
Vivian (29:29) You say web okay.
Chelsea (29:30) both. Data, data.
Vivian (29:32) I say data. I think I don't know. I don't know.
Chelsea (29:37) Anyways, all the sm small business owners that are listening right now, for one, they're probably like, my god, these girls are so weird. But they're also probably like, Vivian, Chelsea, how do I decide what sales I'm gonna do? Like you're talking about all this stuff, but like what should I do? You should be looking at your data or data. Look at it. Sorry.
Vivian (30:01) guy off of what's that show dad used to watch Star Trek wasn't his name or Star Trek? Wasn't his name Data?
Chelsea (30:15) Here's the problem. I'm not a good nerd. I've never watched Star Trek or Star Wars.
Vivian (30:21) I don't think you're our our father's daughter then. You did you ever watch MASH?
Chelsea (30:26) and dragon shirt. But
Vivian (30:29) Sicher.
Chelsea (30:29) I've never seen Star Trek or Star Wars make it make sense.
Vivian (30:33) Boo boo.
Chelsea (30:34) I know. I know. I like Lord of the Rings. Does that make up for it?
Vivian (30:41) I don't think you could call yourself a nerd if you haven't watched a dip.
Chelsea (30:44) F
I'm more of a fantasy instead of a sci fi. How's that?
Vivian (30:49) I mean, isn't sci fi and fantasy the same thing? Okay.
Chelsea (30:52) No. my god.
Vivian (30:55) Well they're usually in the same department in like book.
Chelsea (30:58) Sci fi slash fantasy because you put together, but they're not sci-fi is futuristic. Fantasy is like elves.
Okay.
Vivian (31:10) Thank you for clearing that up now. Back to the market.
Chelsea (31:12) yes, okay, back to the marketing. Point was look at your data. So go ahead, go back two or three years, look at 2022, 2021. What were your top sellers during the holiday season? What sold the quickest or the slowest? What sales did you do during the holiday season? And how productive were they? Like which ones did well, which ones weren't that much that big of a hit?
Vivian (31:39) Yeah. Relying on previous data to to kind of navigate and decide what you're wanting to do as far as, you know, specials or just offerings in general, right? Because there are there are some industries that what you're offering during this time of year in November is going to be very different than what you're offering you know, in in April. Is that
The other thing too is inventory, right? So looking at what you have in stock and if there's anything that you want to push to to kind of get off of your shelf because you do know that it is somewhat seasonal. So these would be the times, whether it's the Black Friday or the small business Saturday to kind of start moving that product out. And so that way you're not carrying it into January.
Chelsea (32:34) Absolutely. I do want to say focus on what exactly your goals are with these sales. So are you trying to push some product that you don't want on your sell shelves anymore? Do you want to offer a discount on a popular item so that you can move inventory and move it real quickly? Whatever you are trying to do is going to reflect in the type of sales that you do.
Vivian (33:05) And also too, to your point, there's also this idea of like you said, during that time frame, people are way more open to doing business with somebody they haven't done business before, right? Because you're buying gifts, you're do you're gearing up for that Christmas holiday time. potentially you could actually put together some type of campaign or a sale really that is more geared towards
What would it what would it look like? What product or service can I offer a discount on that would bring somebody new that hasn't experienced my business through the door because it's kind of generic enough? And then once they're in, I get them on an email list, I can, you know, sell them upgrades, do whatever else. But so sometimes that low-hanging fruit offer would be great during this time because people are already starting to gear up and get in that shopping mood.
Yeah. And then in in Chelsea, I mean the thing is, what is it? Thursday, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and then Saturday, Small Business Saturday, all of those are are back to back. And so the other thing to remember is if you are participating in Small Business Saturday, but you're not doing like Black Friday, then or even like Thanksgiving sales, then you need to just be sure that you're, you know, on point
Because you're going to be competing against those types of sales.
Chelsea (34:36) Yes.
Vivian (34:36) Which is why we recommend the sooner you get this information out there, the better. Yeah.
Chelsea (34:43) I do want to go back and say a couple of ideas of examples of how the data or data is going to change the type of sales that you do. So great example. If you only have maybe like three or four left of a specific product, maybe you want to do like a limited quantity flash sale. So you don't even have to do like a big discount. You could do maybe like 10%. But it's the fact that there's only a couple left.
that you're creating that scarcity and you're saying, Hey, this is it. Once it's gone, it's gone. So if you want it, you better come get it now.
Vivian (35:20) And I'm not gonna ruin, I'm not I'm gonna maintain their privacy. We have a client who actually we did this for, we helped with their email marketing. And we had done this for they had a product that they had a limited quantity of that they were discontinuing. And so basically they did this thing where it was like, Hey, if you purchase X amount, we're gonna throw this in for free. This is the value of the product that typically sales for, sells for.
And we only have X amount left. So sharing that you have limited quantity is not a bad thing, right? So if you only have twenty of something and you wanna tell people these are the last twenty left, then certainly it does kind of get them to it motivates them to move a lot quicker because they don't want to miss out. They know once it's gone, it's gone.
Chelsea (36:11) Yes. Great point. And also my next one is if you have a higher end ticket item, like something that would make a really great present, you don't have to do a discount on it. Maybe you just do a bundle. Like a bundle price. Or even like what you were talking about now. Maybe they buy the higher ticket item and you throw in a smaller surprise gift or something like that, like you were just talking about.
Vivian (36:39) Like a bonus gift or something. The other yeah. And here's brownie points. If you figure out a way to make it all cohesive. So let's say Le Cruset. Okay. That's like the frou fru, like really nice, what do you call it? Cookware, all that, right?
Chelsea (36:59) I've never heard it out loud. You said that very eloquently.
Vivian (37:05) very nice. so they if you were them and you did a bundled type of deal, you could even let's say you toss in two additional items. they're known for their cookware, their bakeware, their Dutch ovens, but they also sell other utensils in there. So if they were to bundle it, then they could even give it some type of special name, right? So maybe it's like the
The I don't know, I'm making this up, baker's bundle. And so basically what you do is you set aside you're selling a pan that they can bake bread in, and you're selling the the rolling pin and you're selling some other thing that bakers need. And so that way it's your baker's bundle, and you could get all three of these items for X amount. And the the cool thing about pricing.
Nobody knows what you guys are getting this stuff at wholesale for or what you're purchasing it for. So you may not even have to come off of the price. It just is going to be a little, you know, discounted compared to, you know, what you typically offer it. So you know, make it work for you. Come up with creative ways that you can kind of create these bundles.
Chelsea (38:22) Yes. Also another great one that I feel like we all think about as consumers but then never think about as small business owners gift cards.
Vivian (38:35) Hells yeah.
Chelsea (38:36) Yes, gift cards, which I okay. Vivian, do you like getting gift cards?
Vivian (38:41) I do. It's cash. It's cash to me. That's what I that's the way. Especially if it's some place that I frequent or whatnot. I will one hundred percent use it.
Chelsea (38:52) Do you like giving gift cards?
Vivian (38:55) I do. I know that people don't like receiving them, so if I give them then sometimes you know
Chelsea (39:03) See, I don't I don't care what someone gives me because you're giving me something that's so kind of you. So I'll I'm okay with receiving gift cards. I don't like giving gift cards. Because I like putting in the effort of finding something that I know you'll love.
Vivian (39:19) Yeah.
Chelsea (39:20) It's like the a I want you to know that I put in the effort. Tim hates that though. Tim would rather have a gift card.
Vivian (39:27) Well, and to me, I guess maybe my love language is I'm giving you money to do what you want with that you can pick out the perfect gift for you. Yeah. Because sometimes sometimes I'm really good at getting thoughtful gifts. Sometimes I really suck at it. And so I don't know, you know, some years I'm on point with certain people, other years I just don't know. But I can tell you right now I'm gonna give mom and dad a gift card.
as part of their present for one particular thing. But
Chelsea (40:01) Okay. Well, great example. Having gift cards as an option is always a good idea. Just make sure that you're keeping track of it well so that you know what you've sold. Because it can kinda it can get a little finicky if you don't have a system set in place to track that.
Vivian (40:25) Yeah, and the good thing about gift cards is from a small business perspective, it gives you an influx of revenue or of cash, right? Which I mean, you're gonna get up front and then people are gonna come in and you're ha they're they're spending it right at a different month in a different month, all of that stuff. But these can be really great during the holiday season because that's when people are out there actively looking and
Like Chelsea said, there are two groups of people, the people that don't want to do the gift card route. And then the people like me, they're like, I don't know, I don't know what else to get you. So like I'm gonna get you a gift card because I know you can use it in this particular store. And so you could really play up those campaigns where you're kind of tapping into that, right? Especially if it's let's say you're doing small business Saturday and you're like, Hey, get ahead.
Of your Christmas shopping right now and get a gift card for X, Y, and Z, right? But yeah, package it in a way where it's like compelling enough where someone's like, you know what? Let me just go ahead and get this done with.
Chelsea (41:35) Yeah,
well you know, a lot of stores do buy this amount of gift cards and get another gift card for free.
Vivian (41:42) Right, that's
Chelsea (41:44) Or a gift. Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Vivian (41:46) Yeah, I think that's those are all definitely great ideas. So Chelsea, what else do you think we're missing for Small Business Saturday? Hmm.
Chelsea (41:56) Small business Saturday.
I want to emphasize creating hype because think about how insane Black Friday is, right? Some people are out there f at like four in the morning. Okay. Not me, I've never done that, but some people are.
Vivian (42:19) I used to do that with mom. No, when we were young.
Chelsea (42:21) We used to do that.
We would go out at like seven ay
Vivian (42:27) No, we'd get up early. Okay.
Chelsea (42:30) Well, I mean, we'd be at the store at seven. Okay. Well, anyway, create a hype so that you can grow anticipation for your sale for small business Saturdays. So great example is saying, I'm gonna have this and this sale going on this day, and I'm also gonna have a surprise event or a surprise sale that you'll only know about if you actually come in the store.
Saying stuff like that, verbiage like that, I mean, you have to actually do that also. If you're promoting that, then you have to do it as well. But using that kind of verbiage is going to create an interest in what you have going on. However, you have to give people time to see that. And again, that is why we are talking about Small Business Saturday now. If this is something that you want to do, you need to start thinking about it now, you need to start planning it now so that you can release it at a time where someone can see it and be like, dang, they're gonna have like a a surprise gift. I wanna go.
Vivian (43:39) This is the case where you do not want to be the best kept secret. You don't. I mean, if you're gonna put forth the effort to participate in small business Saturday, please sing it from the rooftops. Please let everybody and their mama know because it really is the last thing you wanna do is to invest energy and then not increase your sales because it's just, you know.
Not something that you told enough people or you, you know, you didn't really get the communication out there. So just take advantage of time and the fact that you do have ample time now to push out that messaging and to let people know. Adding on to what Chelsea was just stating about the way that you can frame these type of exclusive deals or sales, another thing you can do is
If you plan on having something deeply discounted for small business Saturday, but you're not going to to offer this discount discount again, then say that, right? Say like, hey, this is a one and done deal. Like if you come in small business Saturday, you're gonna get X, Y, and Z. And then we are never doing this again. We're not doing this, you know, for Christmas time. Once it's gone, it's gone. So you could also take that approach. But the key there being don't be a liar. If
You're only offering it you know, one time or you say you are, then don't turn around and do a Christmas special. That's the same thing.
Chelsea (45:11) Exactly. I'm not gonna call out any business, but a popular box of the month sort of thing does this all the time. Where they're like, this is like the only time you'll ever get this deal, it's so good, blah blah blah. And then their favorite thing to do is like two months later, they're like, you guys loved it so much that we brought it back. Don't do that. You can or if you do you can do it once and it's fine.
Vivian (45:40) Right.
Chelsea (45:40) But after that
Vivian (45:42) Don't be doing it every two months.
Chelsea (45:44) Yeah, no one's gonna believe you anymore. Nobody No.
Vivian (45:47) And I think the the other thing is w people have gotten so forward, aggressive about using salesy words like, you know, exclusive, one time offer, blah, blah, blah. But then, like you said, they're not sticking to it. So it's like at the end of the day, you it's important to be sure that you are being
transparent about that. Don't there's no need for you to say this is a one time, you know, miss it and it's never coming back offer if it's not. Yeah. Right. If you if you plan on doing this every two months, then just think of different wording.
Chelsea (46:24) Well, Vivian, what is your key takeaway from this episode?
Vivian (46:28) Key takeaway from Small Business Saturday is take advantage of the momentum that is building from Thursday into Black Friday, into that Saturday, which is now known as Small Business Saturday. You guys, people more than ever want to reinvest in their community and they want to support small businesses. If you are not leveraging that right now, you're leaving money on the table. Yes.
Yeah. And you're leaving money on the table, you can just mail it to me. I mean, you know, if you don't want it, that's fine. Someone else will take it. But it's it's very I think it's just low-hanging fruit. If you have the capacity to do it, if you're not in a place where you can, then perhaps think of what that might look like next year going into 2024. But if you have the capacity to do it now.
It's still early enough that you can plan for it. And even if you just want to dip your toe and do a very simple, you know, trial this year, you can easily do that. Chelsea, what's your takeaway?
Chelsea (47:36) My takeaway is start now. Start now. Start right now. I want you guys to be like Charlie from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I don't know if you know the movie where he has the pinboard with all the lines and he looks like The red wire, everyone. Yes, I want to I want you to be mapping out your small business Saturday plans. Now. Start now. So you can have it all figured out and you're not gonna look crazy when it comes time for small business Saturday.
Vivian (48:06) Yes, definitely be I don't want to say methodical, but be obsessive about it right now, right? Get all your ducks in a row and do that. I love
Chelsea (48:15) Burrow.
Vivian (48:17) Yes, be very thorough. There you go. Yes, there we go. Well, I think we have covered Small Business Saturday. Yes. If you guys were not planning on it, I hope that at least this has provided this is a seed for you to kind of
you know, just think about a mole over, like we said, even maybe into twenty twenty four, but definitely leverage it. Chelsea, do you want to remind the peeps where they can find us?
Chelsea (48:47) Yes, we are on social media at the Season Marketer. If you want to watch us, if you're listening right now and not watching, you can go ahead and watch our podcast at the SOB Marketing Podcast on YouTube. There you can see my eye rolls. They're very well done. Or you can listen to the SOB Marketing Podcast wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. It's up to you. We are on all of the things.
Make sure you subscribe or you follow, leave us a five star review, only five stars. I we won't accept anything less.
Vivian (49:26) I mean, I mean, no, I don't I don't even want like a four and a half star, but and let me encourage you guys if you're a small business owner out there that is just looking for marketing resources and free information, let Chelsea and I help you. We are under the season marketer across the board, but we also have an email list.
That you can sign up for where we will send you weekly information and updates and news on all things marketing. We do the research so that you don't have to spend your time doing it because we know that you guys have families, you have fun, exciting things, weird hobbies you want to go do, and you have small businesses to run.
Chelsea (50:10) Go out there, start planning your small business Saturday, and just be the best SOB you can be.