6 Digital Marketing Tips for Small Business Saturday

This year, Small Business Saturday is on November 30th. Read here for digital marketing tips small businesses should start doing now to capitalize on the SBS buzz.

I was watching football this past weekend when I saw a commercial promoting Small Business Saturday, which this year will be on Saturday, November 30, 2024.

For those who don’t know, Small Business Saturday is a marketing initiative created by American Express to help small businesses get a piece of the profits from consumer spending during the holidays. It has gained momentum since its incarnation, with entities like the Small Business Administration and local governments jumping in to bolster the campaign. Even big companies like Google have created tools to help small businesses capitalize on the campaign to #shopsmall.

You’re going to hear a lot about Small Business Saturday in the coming weeks, which means free marketing for small business owners. If you’re a small business owner that sells retail goods, retail services, or even runs an independent restaurant, you should take advantage of the buzz. In this article, I give 6 tips on how small businesses can use digital marketing tools and tactics to increase their sales on Small Business Saturday and throughout the holiday shopping season.

Jump to:

Tip #1: Get Your Products Listed in Google Merchant Center & Add the Small Business label
Tip #2: Get Your Products Listed on Your Website ASAP
Tip #3: Get Your Products Listed on Your Google Business Profile
Tip #4: Create buzz NOW using social media and email marketing
Tip #5: Register Your Business with Local Governments for Small Business Saturday Promos
Tip #6: Service-based businesses can leverage Small Business Saturday, too!

If you’re a small business that sells products, you need to be using Google Merchant Center to drive online purchases. It’s a free tool that helps show your products when users are clearly trying to make a purchase with searches like “shop boho curtains” or “buy custom wood furniture.”

You can also invest more money to have your products appear in the shopping carousel, which shows at the top of results.

In Google Merchant Center, you can add annotations to your products, like the number of reviews, item availability, and if your store is a small business:

You enable the Small Business annotation by doing the following:

1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner
2. Select Business Information
3. Scroll down and toggle Small Business
4. And enable “Include my business in promotions for the attributes I turned on”

Another benefit of having this feature enabled is the “small business search” filter on Google Mobile:

Because people will be reminded to shop small business, they may filter for only small business in Google Search – and you want to make sure your business shows up when they do.

Need help getting your products on Google Merchant Center? Contact us, we can help!

It might sound obvious that any retail business would have a website that lists their products for sale, but many small businesses don’t. It may be because of lack of budget to invest in a website; it may be because the business is relying on social media or Amazon to sell their wares. Whatever the case, you NEED to have a website, owned by you, where your products are listed with all their attributes, and available for purchase from your site.

The reason you want your products listed on your site is because:

• People trying to shop small business are not going to Amazon to buy
• When people modify their search with “near me” – typical of anyone wanting to shop small AND local – you have a better chance of showing up in search if the products are on a website with a local authority

I’m not saying you shouldn’t list your products on Amazon or Etsy, but you should also have your products on a platform that you fully control and own, and signals that you are local.

Need help setting up an e-commerce website? Contact us to set-up a free consultation.

I’m going to assume every business owner reading this has a Google Business Profile (GBP) for their business. If not, contact us and we can help get you one. If so, then keep reading.

Your Google Business Profile is one of the most powerful platforms you have when it concerns local SEO. You’ll want to add your products to your GBP, and fill-out all the attributes of those products like:

• Product name
• Product category
• Price
• Product description
• Photo
• Page for the product on your website

In addition to getting your products in Google Merchant Center, adding products to your GBP will help them show in search results for any geo-modified queries like “shop jewelry stores near me.”

Small Business Saturday is November 30, 2024. As soon as Halloween is over, you should start creating social media posts and send 2 emails to your list, alerting customers to any promotions you’re doing that day.

The content can center on the beauty and quality of your wares. It can also focus on any kind of discount or freebie you’re offering that day. Some in-store promotions we have seen work well are:

• 30% discount. Anything less than a 30% discount hardly moves the needle. But 30% or more will get people’s attention.
• Flash Sales: A limited-time discount during specific hours on Small Business Saturday creates urgency that will get butts in the door.
• Bonus Gift Cards: These things are great sellers. You offer customers a $10 bonus gift card when they buy a $50 gift card when bought in-store. This also encourages future visits and larger purchases.
• Free gift for the first XX people in the store. A free gift not tied to a purchase entices more people to venture to see you. This type of promotion doesn’t always have a great ROI, but the right promo that targets the right clientele can be profitable.
• A Whisper Campaign with a Secret Coupon Code. This campaign can be tricky to pull off, requires planning, and is not straightforward. The key is to use surrogates who go on social media, into groups where your clientele congregate, and talk of a secret discount code that they got from their friend Bonny’s friend’s sister who works for the business, and can only be used in-store. People love to feel like they got a secret deal, and the whisper campaign can also create low-key buzz.

Many county and city governments run campaigns for Small Business Saturday. In Lafayette, CO where Digital Dynamo is located, the city government is running a Small Business Saturday campaign for all the businesses located there.  They are creating an interactive map that lists where all the businesses are located and running promotions to encourage people to shop local on November 30^th.

Find your local city or county government’s website and see if they are running a Shop Small initiative that you can be a part of. More than likely, it will cost nothing for you to join, and you can get free marketing out of it.

Small Business Saturday seems to largely help businesses that sell physical products, but service-based businesses can take advantage, too. They can use many of the tactics I’ve listed in this article, and they will benefit the most by offering a freebie or discount in their promotion. Some of my friends are doing just that, for example:

• Baltazar Villanueva is the owner of Relentless Spirit Fitness and Nutrition, which serves the Denver metro region. For Small Business Saturday, he’s offering a sizable discount on personal training and nutrition packages for 2025. If you buy between November 30 and December 24, 2024 and mention “Small Business Saturday” at the time of purchase, he’s offering:
  • A 25% discount on 12 training sessions a month (a savings of $225.00 monthly) + nutrition coaching or
  • A 15% discount on 8 training sessions a month (a savings of $90.00 monthly) + nutrition coaching

These discounts will be honored for the entirety of 2025. To purchase, contact him at his website or call (303) 917-6386.

• Shawn Holbrook is the owner of Blue Sky Tint in Lafayette, CO. He’s doing a Small Business Saturday promotion where customers can get 15% off any clear bra installation between December 1, 2024 and February 28, 2025. Just mention Small Business Saturday at the time of purchase to receive the discount. To purchase, you can contact Blue Sky Tint via their website or call (303) 635-6251.

• Katie Lambert, owner of Clean Queen House Cleaning based in Arvada, CO is doing a 25% off discount for the first clean on recurring cleaning services. You can contact them at Cleanqueendenver@gmail.com and mention Small Business Saturday to get the discount.

Small businesses should take advantage of all the free marketing the big brands are devoting to Small Business Saturday and use the tactics outlined in this article to get into the black this holiday season.

If you’re interested in harnessing the power of tactics like SEO for business, Google Ads, and social media marketing for your business this holiday season, contact Digital Dynamo for a free consultation.