We’re all using the same marketing theme this year: Shift Your Shopping. When we work together to spread the word, we’ll multiply how many customers we reach.
This week, we’re going to shine a spotlight on another local business near you. You can do this on Facebook or Instagram, or on your store’s own website.
Pick a great local business. You can choose a friend and fellow store owner you know well and want to feature. Or you can reach out to a store you really don’t know much about and get to know them better. Hey, you could even do both.
Stop in during their regular business hours. Look around. Ask them a few questions. You need to be able to write at least three sentences about why they are a great store and how they make the community stronger.
Shoot a photo of at least one gift item they are selling and maybe a photo showing how cute their store is.
Tell them you’ll be sharing it online. Tell them what you local hashtag is or #ShiftYourShopping so they can look for it.
Now, post your mini-story online. Include the photos, tell your three sentence story, and include the hashtag #ShiftYourShopping. Tag the business by name so they’ll be notified about it.
While you’re online, look up your fellow local stores. See if they have posted their mini-stories yet. When you find them, like and share them!
Next week, we’ll talk more about your community at large, and look at what some other communities are doing.
Shift Your Shopping is our group theme for holiday marketing this year. You have my permission to forward these articles to your local retailers, merchants association, chamber of commerce, downtown development group or any one else you think would benefit from them. All you need to do is list the author as Becky McCray of SmallBizSurvival.com and then let me know who you are sharing with.
Shift Your Shopping 2015 series:
- Picking your Holiday 2015 marketing theme
- Set your cover photos
- Spotlight a local business
- Spotlight on community
- Share the causes you care about
- Support your service providers
- Small Business Saturday
- Tell your founding story
- The secret to effective follow up: What NOT to say - April 15, 2019
- How church buildings can do more for the community - April 8, 2019
- Ideas to fill empty display windows - April 2, 2019
- Know your customers: What do they want to be good at? - March 25, 2019
- 99% of the best things you can do for your town don’t require anyone’s permission - March 4, 2019
- Want more public attendance at your events? Make sure your signs include this specific phrase - February 18, 2019
- Know your customer: Who’s asking them questions? - February 11, 2019
- How restaurants can market each other in small towns - February 4, 2019
- SEO for voice search is different for rural small business - January 28, 2019
- What businesses would work in a small town with empty land - January 21, 2019
[…] can improve your local business climate by promoting another local small business. The promotion requires only a few minutes of your time and a photograph you take and posted to […]