Planning for a Successful Small Business Saturday

With consumers tightening their purse strings, small business across the nation have a much harder job acquiring sales.  Although the general feeling is that this year will be more successful than last, there’s still work to be done.  Small Business Saturday, created by American Express, is all about encouraging consumers to shop locally and support their community.

Small Business Saturday is celebrating it’s fourth year and is truly a salute to the many local small businesses that make this nation great.  This year Small Business Saturday will take place on November 30th.  Retailers are already beginning to prepare for what they hope will be a great start to the holiday shopping season. The tricky part about it, is that Small Business Saturday is only once a year so it’s important that you do it right to keep customers in that “shop local” mindset all year long. Here are a few ways in which you can do just that.

Get the word out!

Due to a late Thanksgiving and early start to Hanukah, retailers are getting a much earlier start to their holiday sales promotions than previous years.  Small Business Saturday may not be as well known as Cyber Monday, but is gaining in popularity as more and more people promote it.  Small business owners are seeing the benefits of joining this initiative to boost the local economy.

There are several ways retailers can get the word out with custom print products.  

Some small business owners may choose to hang banners on their storefronts to announce the coming event. Others use additional marketing tools like save the date magnets or use promotional postcards to encourage holiday shoppers to show their support for the small business owner.

Gifts for all!

Small businesses are not only offering discounts on Small Business Saturday, they are celebrating the season by presenting their customers with small promotional gifts.  Everyone loves a free promo whether it’s a small sample of peppermint hot chocolate or custom notepads featuring your business logo.  

Other small retailers may opt to present their customers with promotional coupons for use at a later date to encourage repeat business.  It’s not about just getting consumers to support your business that one day, but throughout the year.  It’s really about building relationships which is what most small businesses are made of.

Celebrate with the Community

This year American Express has formed a new program asking community stores to band together and create special events for shoppers.  These Neighborhood Champions have arranged events such as parades, treasure hunts through stores and giveaways.  Local community leaders are promoting their town’s Small Business Saturday on Social Media and radio.  Small business owners understand that there is strength in numbers and combining their efforts makes for a more successful shopping event.

And…Don’t forget to:

Deck The Halls!

If you’ve ever been to the mall at Christmas time – and who hasn’t?!- you can’t escape the smells and sounds of the holidays.  Christmas carols play in every store and windows are adorned with wreaths and holiday lights.  It’s a winter wonderland, Santa’s even there to hear your Christmas wish.

Small businesses have to take a note from big business retailers and transform their stores with dazzling seasonal decorations.  Cafes, bakeries and restaurants should take the time to add holiday inspired drinks and pastries to their menu.  Small businesses need to get festive and inspire the mood of the holidays in their customers.

Retailers are optimistic that this holiday shopping season will be more profitable than the last.  With initiatives like Small Business Saturday, small business owners are geared up for a successful season that will drive new traffic to their stores and help them gain new customers that will keep coming back throughout the year.

We know that running a small business is a labor of love.  We wish everyone an amazing holiday season.  Let us know how your business celebrated Small Business Saturday.

Is Print Marketing Still Important?

What we couldn’t have possibly imagined just a decade ago has become a reality: everything has moved online. We shop online, we do our banking online, we play online, and we even socialize online. In addition, research shows that when making buying decisions, the first place people go to for researching their options is the Internet.

Which brings up the question, if everything takes place online these days, and especially if you’re an online business, should you still use printed marketing materials such as brochures as part of your marketing strategy?



Why printed marketing materials are still valuable
The short answer is yes. Marketing is never about just one medium. It’s always a mistake to focus on just one aspect of marketing and to neglect the others. A good marketing campaign utilizes many different mediums to generate many different leads, then nurtures them until they are ready to become customers.
So, while “online” is really hot these days, the physical world still exists, and there are enough potential customers who, after the initial online research, expect to see printed material. These people typically find it difficult to trust a business if it’s completely virtual. They need to know that you have a physical address, a phone number, and that they can see a brochure or other types of printed material before they commit to you.
If you ignore these consumers, you have just lost a segment of the population that could have been interested in your solution.
No doubt, when you plan your marketing budget, you need to pay special attention to online components, including your Web site, your blog and your social media accounts. Ideally, you want to have a great logo, and you want your logo to appear on all online venues (main site, blog header, Twitter background etc.)
To keep your brand highly unique and identifiable, you should also have the same logo appear on your business cards and on any printed marketing materials such as brochures and flyers.



How to create an effective brochure
Now that we’ve established the importance of brochures and of other printed marketing materials, here are a few handy tips for writing and designing an effective brochure:
1. Make it visually appealing. Design is extremely important when it comes to brochures. If the design is boring or cluttered, people won’t bother to read your text. Look for a small business graphic designer who has a lot of experience and can show you samples of their previous work. Better yet, make sure they have positive testimonials on their site, or on a third party site.
2. Focus on benefits rather than on features. Prospects don’t care about your product’s features. They want you to answer the question, “what’s in it for me?” and your brochure needs to be able to answer that question, or it will be tossed!
3. Keep it short. Do you really need a 10-page brochure? Generally, short, catchy brochures with a large font and a clean design are better than long, tiresome, technical brochures.
4. Make it personal. Write your brochure in a direct, conversational tone – as if you are talking with a person face to face. The more personal and direct your tone is, the easier it will be for prospects to connect with your message.
5. Include a call for action. Every marketing material should include a call for action, and this is true for brochures as well. A call for action can be as simple as ending your brochure with the sentence “Need ____? Call today” and your phone number. The idea is to present the pain, your business as the solution, and to encourage the prospect to take immediate action by calling you.
6. Get it printed right. Align yourself with a print partner that understands your needs and goals and that is willing to work with you to help you achieve them by providing with you with professional knowledge and great quality yet cost effective printing options. 
Whether you have a physical location or fully operate online, your small business marketing strategy should include online marketing materials AND printed marketing materials. This combination will make sure you don’t neglect an important segment of your potential market.

If you would like to discuss in more detail your ideas about this or other print marketing materials please call us at 866.245.6723, our team at Marketink is ready to brainstorm with you and help you produce great print collateral to fit within you marketing strategy and budget.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: http://www.designleap.net/blog/2010/04/importance-printed-marketing-material.html

5 Thanksgiving Marketing Tips to Wow Your Clients

Thanksgiving represents one of the most crucial marketing seasons of the year. You’re trying to cash in on the upcoming holiday season by promoting Black Friday sales, Cyber Monday sales, and this year we’ve got Small Business Saturday too. To complicate things, all of your competitors (at least, those worth their weight) are ramping up their own Thanksgiving marketing efforts so you have to anticipate their moves in order to beat them at their own game. Your goal is to craft creative marketing ideas that will help you stand out, get noticed and reel in a hefty return on investment this Turkey Day. Here are five Thanksgiving marketing tips that will help you do just that.

1. Send calendars to your customers

Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the end … of the year. Many people buy calendars for the upcoming New Year while they’re out holiday shopping for friends and family. Head them off at the pass by printing and distributing your calendars before Thanksgiving. If you can design a calendar that strikes a chord with your customer base, you’ll be positioned to market to your customers each and every day all year long. What better investment could you ask for?

2. Launch a cross-promotion with a nearby business

See if complementary and non-competing businesses are interested in partnering with you on a creative cross-promotion. Theaters, restaurants and hotels are all great promo partners; but if you’re creative you can find a way to partner with just about any business there is. A grocer might offer discount Christmas tree print coupons from a tree farm to anyone who purchases a turkey, for example.

3. Bring people together, host a Thanksgiving event

Whether it’s a publicity stunt or a charitable turkey dinner, hosting a Thanksgiving event is one of the best marketing strategies on the planet. If you can show potential customers a good time or give back to the community that gives to you, then you can earn free press and a loyal customer base that will make yours a happy Thanksgiving for years to come. Promote your event by printing postcards, posters, flyers and banners.

4. Start marketing as soon as your finish your Halloween candy

The early bird gets the warm isn’t just an old adage or contemporary cliché, it’s a true statement. When it comes to branding, repetition is key. You can’t simply say you have something on sale once and expect potential customers to remember it weeks down the road (even if your offer is phenomenal). Combine these two concepts and you know that if you want to turn a profit from your Thanksgiving marketing, you have to start early and maintain momentum through the holiday season. Start right after Halloween don’t let up until the eve of Thanksgiving (or morning, if your local paper delivers on Thanksgiving and you can print flyers) for best results.

5. Don’t skimp on marketing materials

Customers equate the quality of your products and services with the quality of your marketing materials. If you print a cheap and flimsy desktop postcard, your products will appear cheap and flimsy. If you print a professional postcard, however, using state-of-the-art printing presses with quality inks on high-quality paper, your postcard will transfer that aura of quality to your products and services, and you’ll yield a higher return on investment. Gobble, gobble! Let us know what creative ways you’re marketing to your clients in a comment below and please do feel free to share, we’re very THANKFUL to have you here!

The Power of a Handwritten Thank You Note and How it Will Help Your Business

Not Just a Thing of the Past

Handwritten thank you notes are not just a thing of the past. While you might not see many these days, the cards you do send or receive will mean more than you’d ever think. Handwritten notes are a powerful way to send a message to a customer to thank them for doing business with your company. They don’t actually take that long to write, and your company will stand out amongst others because of the 5 extra minutes you took to write the note.

Why don’t many companies send handwritten Thank You Notes?