Shop Small This Season

We’re in the midst of the holiday shopping season. Streets and stores are filled with customers finishing their last minute shopping. Small business owners across the country are sharing with one another their tactics to keep the momentum going through the busiest season of the year.

Shop Small Veteran and owner of Distinctive Gardens, Lisa has been a huge part of the Shop Small movement happening in Dixon, Illinois. She is the co-coordinator of Sauk Valley Shop Small, an organization that encourages customers to support the community by keeping their purchasing local.

Here are some of Lisa’s tips for creating Shop Small success throughout the year, not just during the holiday season:

•   Set up a place online for the small business owners in your community to connect. Everyone is short on time, so make it easy for people to collaborate, chat and share plans for cross-promotional events throughout the year.

•  Learn from each other. Beyond just planning events, share best practices. For example, the Sauk Valley Shop Small group often shares resources for how to best utilize different social media channels to reach their customers.

•  Organize meetups with other members, even if they only happen twice a year. In person meetups are the best way to get everyone motivated about participating in events like Shop Small Saturday.

•   Reach out to as many people as you can across other communities and industries. Talk to other small business owners in the Shop Small Neighborhood Circles Community to find out what they are doing and try to replicate that success in your city.

•   Survey the other small business owners in your group after a big event. Ask your members what marketing efforts worked and how much traffic they saw during the event. Following Shop Small Saturday this year, Lisa sent out a survey to all 36 members of Sauk Valley Shop Small. The numbers are still rolling in, but well over half saw a huge increase in sales and foot traffic over last year!

So be sure to help support your community by shopping local this holiday season!

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