Small Business Saturday is fast approaching and will take place on November 30^th this year. Thrive Creative Group is helping you plan your most memorable Small Business Saturday Event with a series of posts. Last week we discussed how to get organized about one month out (October 30^th) and that you should start to gather a email distribution list of customers to invite. We also went over what kinds of lists to create to stay on top of planning!

Now that your on your way to being organized for your Small Business Saturday Event, its time to start thinking and creating a design for your event that also incorporates your brand. You will want to use this design on your website, social media accounts, invites, and anyway else you want to advertise your Small Business Saturday Event.

3 weeks out (November 6^th ish)

Create a concept or theme for the event that will help generate a buzz

• Holiday tip: With Thanksgiving in the air and Christmas right around the corner, take the opportunity to use seasonal verbiage on the invitation.
  • Some examples:
  •  “We want to thank our customers for your continued support by throwing an exclusive Small Business Saturday, just for you!”
  • “Looking to Stock up on gifts for the Holidays. You don’t want to miss our Small Business Saturday Event, featuring discounts for our loyal customers like YOU!”

• Social tip: To help capitalize on your event, create a clever hashtag for your event and including it on all collateral that goes out and gets posted about the event.
• If you own a candy shop, how about #sweetsonsaturday?
• Or for a Fashion Boutique gathering, you can play up hashtags such as #saturdayinstyles.
• If you also want to play up the town you are apart of you can use #(insert your town name)shopssmall!

This gets everyone who plans to attend the event involved in the party and they can share in the excitement while driving more awareness to your company. Remember that community is the backbone of small businesses, so make you to emphasis that this event is to honor all of the support your customers have shown you through out the year.

• *Be sure to include who, what, when and where on the invitation.

Using your email distribution list, create an online invitation to send to your guests.

• Format the invitation for your website and social media accounts too, to generate even more buzz for your Small Business Saturday Event.
• Create a Press Release and send out to the local papers as well. More often than not, they will already be creating a article for Small Business Saturday, so getting in front of them will help get your company free exposure!

Once you get the design rolling and you send out your invite and post your event everywhere and anywhere you can, its time to start planning the actually event! Check back next week for our 3^rd and last post in our “How to Make your Small Business Saturday Event Memorable” as we go over planning the event, creating a promotion, and how to keep the buzz going!

Does your business need help Designing or coming up with a Theme for your SBS event!?

Let Thrive Creative Group assist you!

Email  for more information