Black Friday is a big consumer buying day whether you’re a large national brand or a small local business. While local businesses do have Small Business Saturday to help drive holiday sales, Black Friday overshadows it with its media attention and mass consumer appeal.
While you should still promote your business for Small Business Saturday, but you can also take advantage of the mass amount of consumer shopping traffic on Black Friday.
Keep reading for an organized, last minute prep list that you can use for your small business Black Friday preparations. Plan accordingly and you can take home a piece of the pie on the biggest shopping day of the year, too. We’ll walk you through how to prepare — and have even included a free downloadable prep list for your small business Black Friday efforts — so you won’t miss any opportunity.
Define your promotion strategy
Before you can start checking off your prep list, you need to know what you’re prepping for. A big shopping day, yes, but what specifically do you need to include on your small business Black Friday plan?
41% of consumers prefer storewide discounts vs. other types of holiday promotions.The first place to start is with your promotion — what will bring consumers into your store that day? You want an irresistible offer to make each customer feel like they are getting the maximum value for their dollar.
Here’s some ideas to get your creative juices flowing:
- A gift guide to help customers decide on gifts for family, friends and co-workers
- Bundled offers for your most popular items (tip: you might want to bundle with products that didn’t sell throughout the year to reduce inventory)
- Reward early-birds with special discounts and giveaways
- Value-add to certain products or purchase amounts
Once you decide on the businesses promotion that works best for your business, you can start designing and planning your marketing plan so that all goes smoothly on Black Friday.
Check your inventory
Before you start a marketing strategy for your promotion, double-check the inventory of any product you feature or highlight. Nothing would put a damper on your Black Friday sales like running out of your featured product.
If you need to order more, make sure your new stock will be in-store with ample time for you to organize it and get it ready for sale on Black Friday.
Check mobile
Consumers are increasingly using their mobile devices to shop, whether it’s to get directions to a location, compare prices or reference a promotion email.
Guarantee mobile consumers can find your business by running our free SEO report and updating your directory listings on top directories (especially Google My Business).
After fixing any errors, make sure your website and emails are both responsively designed so that consumers can read them on any device.
Don’t have time to update your website? LocalVox can create a responsively designed modern website for your business — in time for the holiday shopping rush!
Build anticipation
Once you’ve established your promotion and double-checked that your inventory is ready, you need to start generating momentum that leads up to Black Friday. There’s a lot of noise about Black Friday, so use multiple platforms to reach consumers and stand out from the crowd.
A few ways to do this are:
- Create a social media campaign that counts down to Black Friday — and shares your local business’s irresistible offer
- Send an a few email blasts out with messaging from your social media campaign
- Share your small business Black Friday offer on coupon sites (take advantage of “Deals” in LocalVox and push your offer out to many different sources simultaneously)
- Write a couple articles for your blog:
- Promote your business’s offer
- Share how excited you are for Black Friday and why people should visit your business vs. others
Not only will this small business Black Friday strategy build anticipation and interest, it will make consumers feel as if they are missing out if they don’t make it to your local business on Black Friday. The earlier you start teasing out your Black Friday offers and deals, the more interest you’ll receive.
Check on staffing
While staffing doesn’t fall under digital marketing (unless Siri is your assistant), it can affect how smoothly Black Friday goes overall. Make sure your location is adequately staffed for the busier hours and be prepared to restock, check out customers and answer questions.
A team that is prepared for this notoriously hectic shopping day will make your business stand out in the minds of customers.
Don’t leave your Black Friday planning to the last minute, but do start now! It’s not too late to get a small business Black Friday promotion in place and in the marketplace with consumers.
Ready to get an offer out to consumers and your location prepped? Download our free Black Friday Prep List so you don’t miss an opportunity to connect with consumers online or in store this Black Friday!
The post Last Minute Small Business Black Friday Prep List [+ Free Download] appeared first on LocalVox.
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