It’s all about preparing and promoting
It’s all about preparation and promotion when it comes to gathering interest for an event. Everybody who has been alive for more than a few years knows about Black Friday; it’s a national campaign. Black Friday deals are advertised on television, newspapers and magazines long before you cross off the last day in October. Storerooms are packed with merchandise weeks before, just waiting for the day and when the time arrives; the crowds are unbelievable.
If you’re a small business owner and want to not only be able to survive but thrive then you need to advertise and get your company into the mainstream and gobble up the market share.
Expanding your reach in order to get your company or event in front of the consumers during a prime time is critical.
Companies and organizations are relying more on internet advertising than anything else these days and why not; everyone is on either a cell phone or computer; but is internet only enough?
Carol Kolson and Allory Smith, greet guests as they arrive for their passports to begin the Shop Small Saturday Event on Nov. 30.
Mesquite. Photo by Teri Nehrenz
Another national campaign, much newer than Black Friday, is Shop Small Business Saturday (SSBS).
SSBS is a movement that was founded by American Express in 2010, during the recession, to encourage holiday shopping at small businesses. American Express believes, “Making a difference in your community is as easy as shopping small. Because when you support your favorite small businesses throughout the year, you help your neighborhood thrive. See how you can make a big impact in your community today and every day.”
For those who wish to participate in SSBS, American Express offers a wide array of activities, events and promotions for those hosting it to help raise awareness and set it in motion. As far as anyone could tell Mesquite residents got Facebook advertising and flyers that were put in the windows of only the participating businesses a week before the event. Comparatively speaking, only a handful of residents participated in the event because not many knew about it.
A passport game was initiated for those who did participate but less than two dozen passports were turned in for the win, which went to Quinn Ellis. Ellis took home $720 worth of gift cards donated by chamber members and local businesses.
Seventeen business participated in SSBS, each offering their own deal for shoppers, participants had to stop in each one to receive a stamp on the passport. Passports had to be stamped by every business to be eligible for the drawing to receive the $720 in prizes. Chambers members didn’t know how many passports they handed out or printed for the event but there were only two on the table after 11:30 a.m.
Two small business owners kept track of the number of passports stamped on Saturday, one business stamped 13 passports, the other stamped 12.
One of those business owners only made one sale from those who came in for the stamps but both said that there was one or two people who didn’t know they existed before that day, so some awareness was raised.
Several of the participating businesses and a host of residents felt that the event could have been much better had there been more promotion of it; many shoppers, especially those in Mesquite, don’t do Facebook and a large portion of people didn’t even know about it. Some businesses didn’t participate because they didn’t have enough notice of the event to properly prepare.
When trying to keep things balanced and everyone happy, is under promoting any better for shoppers and businesses than over-promoting?
When shoppers walked into the local Walmart on Thanksgiving Day before 6 p.m. they could hardly get to the regular merchandise. Black Friday deals were wrapped, stacked and waiting for the evening rush of holiday shoppers. Regular merchandise was shoved into tight cubicles and most of it partitioned off making it nearly impossible for the shoppers who didn’t want the deals to shop for everyday items; not the best way to treat everyday customers but Walmart has the monopoly in Mesquite being one of the only places to shop departments and angry customers “put up with the inconvenience.”
Some shoppers even felt as if they were intruding on the store before the 6 p.m. hour with displays being guarded by employees. One fairly angry shopper said, “Sure, they get an army to keep you from getting the deals one minute early but on a regular day they can’t afford more than two cashiers…and forget getting help in the paint department; you’ll turn gray waiting. If this wasn’t the only game in town, I’d never shop here, it’s horribly mismanaged. Hell, they’ve had Christmas stuff on the shelves before the Halloween candy was even bought. They can rush the crap outta selling that but on a normal day, you’ll wait in line forever for one item; I don’t do self-checkout, I’m the one making them their paychecks, not getting one.”
People were lined up with carts waiting next to a coveted item for hours before the plastic wrap was finally torn off pallets upon pallets of amazing deals. There was plenty of most everything to go around with only a few shoppers unhappy about missing an opportunity to snatch the newest electronic device, tool or toy but the frenzy lasted for hours, a little over 24 to be exact.
When you’re the only game in town, perhaps the early promotions don’t do a business in a small town much justice, you anger loyal customers for the sake of the temporary sale. Smaller businesses and less known events need as much exposure as they can get to maximize the amount of people they reach within a certain demographic.
Bottom line, get to know, cater to and care about your audience because it truly is all about preparing and promoting that makes a difference.
While I agree that WalMart was nuts, that is not unusual for “Black Friday” sales on Thanksgiving. For us at Danielle’s Chocolates and Popcorn our experience with Small Business Saturday was completely different from what your portrayed in your article. We had a total of 28 passports that were stamped and turned into the Chamber. We also had several people that come in with the passport but were not interested in having it stamped. Instead they were using it to find different shops in Mesquite that they were not familiar with and wanted it for reference purposes later.
The Chamber itself was amazing to work with. The approached us the beginning of October to ask if we were interested in participating this year. They then followed up repeatedly and went out of their way to help us take care of things around our busy schedule.
With the lateness of Thanksgiving and the weather we were not surprised that it was slower then the previous year. This was expected! We had several people that came in specifically due to Small Business Saturday that did not know about us previously.
Like our friends at Danielle Chocolates and Popcorn, Hole Foods Bakery had a pleasant experience with Shop Small Saturday. We were introduced to new customers who had never visited our shop before and stamped many passports.
The Chamber was very proactive in getting information to us early and following up with us several times to make sure we were involved if that was our desire.
Of course the big box stores had better advertising and busy stores , they have an almost unlimited marketing budget and their bottom line isn’t touched by practically giving away items to get people in their store.
Marketing and promoting is expensive, Shop Small Saturday was promoted locally and nationally from Facebook & flyers to tv ads.
Shop Small Business Saturday was an absolute success for The Front Porch Flowers & Gifts! I agree with and support the comments made by Danielle’s Chocolates and Hole Foods Bakery. We were approached by the Chamber well in advance of the event and I was impressed by the care taken to follow up in the days preceding the event. My favorite part was the new customers it brought to The Front Porch. We also had many of our frequent Front Porch friends excited to shop our Small Business Saturday Specials. The article above reports that “preparing and promoting makes the difference” …. and it did! Thank you Mesquite! Thank you Chamber! Thank you American Express! After all, this is not a “Community Campaign” that didn’t “blossom,” it’s a nationwide initiative that was a success for my business. I love being a small business in the Mesquite community. The Chamber of Commerce is an inexpensive way to promote my business and a positive place to find support for it.
My continued membership shows I value what the Chamber does for businesses.
It is disheartening to see a newspaper support and print an opinion piece aiming such negativity at the organization created to support and help the business community. You included information from only two small business owners out of the 17 who participated and kept track of the passports and sales. Upon meeting the MLN reporter personally that day, I don’t recall being asked how many passports we stamped, or how many sales we had. It seems unfair that two business owners noted in the above article were enough for the reporter to form an opinion of the event, and then report that it wasn’t successful. So let me share some valuable, positive, honest feedback with readers, as well as my fellow Chamber of Commerce members, aka small business owners in Mesquite: The Front Porch stamped well over 30 passports and we had 38 in store sales. Teri, you said it well: “get to know, cater to, and care about the audience” you are reporting to, because it does make a difference.
Engaging in honest conversation is obviously important to me. In addition to the importance of factual reporting –
“ You said yourself that day that most of the sales were made to already established customers. How many sales did you make off of the 30 visitors?”
We stamped well over 30 passports. After that we stopped tracking. It was more important to just enjoy the visitors, provide excellent customer service, and the event that brought them in. I also never stated that “most” of our sales were established customers. Finally, I was very transparent with my response by saying that we had 38 carry out sales that day. For my business, yes, I measure that a success. I find that I tend to stay on the glass is half full side of the line. It brings me peace. And at the end of the day, I’m just super honored to be one small business among countless others that contributed to a very small percentage of success for a Nationally run campaign by American Express and community supported by our Chamber of Commerce.