The 2016 Holiday GIF Guide

We’re huge fans of using GIFs in email. And it seems you guys are, too: Last year’s GIF guide was one of our most popular posts of 2015. (Seriously – we received dozens of comments and tweets about how much you guys loved ‘em!)

We didn’t want to keep you hanging this year. Our design team whipped up these exclusive creations (and threw in some old favorites) for you to use in your next holiday campaign. They’re even optimized for email and designed to play well with most email clients.

Download Your GIFs

Email Dividers

You can use these to break up sections in your email.

Email Headers

Give a great first impression with these holiday email headers.

Just For Fun

Add a little festive flair to your emails with these fun GIFs.

Here’s your step-by-step guide to adding them to your emails:

Step 1: Find the animated GIF that you want to use in your email. (Choose one of the above or create your own!)
Step 2: Save the GIF to your computer by either right clicking the image and selecting “Save Image,” or by dragging the image to your desktop.
Step 3: Upload the image into your email template.
Step 4: Test both HTML and text versions of your email. Make sure that the GIF appears correctly in your test before you send. (We use Litmus.)

… And voila! Your festive GIF will be ready to go.

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The 2016 Holiday GIF Guide is here!
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You might also like: Your Field Guide to Animated GIFs in Email

But wait! There’s more…

Looking to send a little more holiday cheer? If you’re an AWeber customer, check out the new seasonal drag-and-drop templates in your account. (Not a customer? Treat yourself to a free 30-day trial on us.)

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

❤️, The AWeber Team

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Over the Irish Moon: Meet the Winner of the Everything Holiday Sweepstakes

Congratulations to the winner of the 2016 Everything Holiday Sweepstakes! Marie Rochele Devenny, the owner of Irish Moon, LLC, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was randomly selected from nearly 300 entries. Marie will receive a free year of Pro email marketing. 

Irish Moon is an online shop specializing in gifts, apparel, and other specialties imported from Ireland and Scotland, or created by artisans of Irish or Scottish descent. Marie had discovered how fulfilling it was to spend her weekends working at a local Irish import store, in contrast to her banking career. “People would leave with such a smile on their faces. I loved working there,” Marie said.

The sudden deaths of two close friends spurred her to take action. “I had the corner office, the title, everything you want at age 35,” Marie continued. “But if I died the next week, what would I have to show for it?” She was ready for her part-time labor of love to bloom into her full-time passion, and in 2013 she launched Irish Moon. 

“I started very small, taking products to Irish fairs and festivals and selling online. This part of Pennsylvania is like Little Ireland, with so many people of Irish and Scottish descent. People joke about the Irish drinking, but it’s really about people laughing and having a good time, enjoying one another. That’s what drew me to this connection to my heritage,” Marie said.

Irish Moon still operates primarily online and at heritage festivals in the area. Marie gets help from part-time workers, friends, and family. “My mom is my artistic director!” she said. The hard work has paid off. “My customers’ response has been great. They like the unique, one-of-a-kind items I have, which are different from what they can find at other Irish and Scottish shops. I have a lot of repeat customers.”

Marie Rochele Devenny sells Irish Moon’s merchandise online and at Irish festivals in her area

One area where Marie is excited to expand is her marketing. “When you’re working with a small budget, marketing is a huge challenge. You ask yourself, ‘I have only this much money to spend — What should I spend it on?'” she said, describing a quandary familiar to countless small business owners.

To stay connected with customers, Irish Moon posts regularly on Facebook, and Marie includes a handwritten thank you note in every order she fulfills — a personal touch that only a small business can do, and one that has gone far in prompting customers to make referrals. But launching email campaigns has always seemed a little out of reach, until now. 

“It’s just me doing everything, and sometimes I’m not sure what I should be doing,” she said. “That’s why I like VerticalResponse. All the help is right there for me to access. I love free advice — free good advice.” Marie, who was familiar with Deluxe from the checks and banking products she had used in her finance career, entered the sweepstakes when a VR Buzz newsletter prompted her to visit Everything Holiday. She found the 24 days of tips, tools, and festive freebies that make up Everything Holiday to be excellent resources. “Even things I might not need to use right now, it’s nice to know they’re available to me when I do need them. And the things you don’t even think about, like what subject lines to use, are so helpful. You can create a whole campaign from one little trigger.”

Marie’s first email campaign will most likely be a welcome message to her customers, a subscriber list that stands at 30 now but is growing every day. “I’ll probably include a discount code as an incentive for my readers to open the email and make a purchase. Then I’ll start promoting things for the holidays.” And she’ll be able to do much more than that — the Pro plan includes a professionally designed email template, delivery rate review, and Advanced Reporting.

Marie’s long-term goals for Irish Moon will also sound familiar to many small business owners. “I want to grow my business, introduce more products to people who may not know about them, and build a solid base so when I ultimately open a storefront, I have customers already coming in.” Email marketing is a concrete step in that direction, and one she’s excited to jump into. 

“I like to try everything and see what works for Irish Moon. It’s just me, so I don’t want to set a ridiculous, strict path — ‘I need to be at a certain place in five or 10 years.’ That’s not how life works. The path will open itself up.”

We’ll be checking in with Marie over the next few months to see how she’s putting her free year of Pro email marketing to work for Irish Moon, LLC. Congratulations again, Marie! 

Don’t Have a VerticalResponse Account Yet? It’s easy to use and free to get started. Sign up and send up to 4,000 emails per month for free. Start for Free

© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

The post Over the Irish Moon: Meet the Winner of the Everything Holiday Sweepstakes appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

Looking Back: 2015 Holiday Email Volume

If you think you get a lot of email each day, it’s because you do. Research shows that in 2016, an estimated 215 billion emails are sent daily, an increase of 5 percent over the previous year. On any given day, the average email user receives approximately 123 emails in his or her inbox. 

At VerticalResponse, these are exciting numbers. We love email, of course — no surprise there. It’s easy, everyone uses it (including your customers), and it continues to thrive as a method of communication. As popular as social media and even texting are, nothing beats a carefully constructed email for getting your message out. 

In fact, VerticalResponse users contribute quite a bit to those emails flying around the cybersphere each day. We crunched some of our own numbers to see what our users have been doing, and how that activity changes around the holiday season. Here’s what we found:

VerticalResponse users sent over 650 million emails in 2015…

Our users generated more than 3 percent of total global email traffic last year! That includes more than 220 thousand separate email campaigns, with nearly 40 million opened emails. That’s an open rate that averages out to more than 6 percent.

…and nearly 750 million in the first nine months of 2016

In the first three quarters of 2016, VerticalResponse users have sent a whopping 744 million emails — that’s nearly 100 million more than all of last year, before taking October, November, or December into account. The number of email campaigns in that same timeframe was over 192,000, with an average open rate of nearly 7 percent.

The fourth quarter sees the heaviest use

In 2015, the fourth quarter dwarfed the others in number of emails sent: Almost 245 million compared to 177 million in the next highest quarter, the third. That’s an increase of 66 million (37.6 percent) over the third quarter, and a whopping 160 million (189 percent) over the first quarter, which saw the lowest number of emails sent. The number of email campaigns in the fourth quarter was also at its highest for 2015, with 66 thousand campaigns sent. That’s a lot of holiday emails! Open rates in the fourth quarter were more than 6 percent, which is the second highest rate of the year. 

Holidays and days of the week affect traffic

Certain email traffic patterns emerge from our 2015 data. In October 2015, VerticalResponse users’ email sends peaked on Thursday and Friday. In November, the highest-trafficked day was Monday, primarily because VerticalResponse usage skyrocketed on Nov. 30 — Cyber Monday itself. In December, Tuesdays and Thursdays saw the busiest email traffic, with, unsurprisingly, the two weeks before Christmas showing the highest numbers on those days. Throughout the entire fourth quarter, VerticalResponse customers sent the fewest emails on Saturday and Sunday.

Time of day matters

While the most popular days of the week varied based on calendar events happening in any given month, traffic according to time of day was more consistent regardless of the month. In the last quarter of 2015, the most popular time VerticalResponse users sent email was between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. EST. The next most popular window was the three hours between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. EST. Clearly, email marketing is most popular during the morning. But don’t discount afternoons too quickly: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. EST was the third most trafficked window of the holiday months. Needless to say, sending emails during the night isn’t the most popular business practice. Email numbers drop to their lowest between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. EST — but they don’t disappear completely. Some night owls or early risers are up during those hours, email marketing to their customers.

What this means for 2016 

This year’s fourth quarter will no doubt see even more email traffic than last year’s holiday season did, especially considering 2016 has already outperformed the entirety of 2015 in terms of email use. Retailers, restaurants, and other small businesses are making the most of their customers’ interest in holiday specials and year-end events, and they’re launching email campaigns accordingly. For a small business owner, determining which day and which time to send your emails may seem confusing. But take comfort in the fact that despite the astronomically high number of emails sent every single day, they still work: email marketing brings a 4,300 percent ROI on average, and email marketing is 40 percent more effective than social media. As our VerticalResponse users have discovered, small business owners cannot go wrong by using email. Happy sending this holiday season!

 

Don’t Have a VerticalResponse Account Yet? It’s easy to use and free to get started. Sign up and send up to 4,000 emails per month for free. Start for Free

© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

The post Looking Back: 2015 Holiday Email Volume appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

How to Make Your Emails Stand Out This Holiday Season

With all of the hard work you put into creating the merriest holiday email campaigns, you want nothing more than to see them succeed. (If only Santa’s workshop included a team that could help you write, design and send holiday emails…)

But with all of the other holiday promotions flooding your subscribers’ inboxes, it can become discouraging to see lack of engagement due to low open rates.

So how can you make sure your emails stand out from the rest?

We took a look at what makes some emails more effective then others, and added them to this checklist below. To ensure you have a merry and successful holiday season, here are some best practices to keep in mind.

Offer exclusive holiday promotions

To keep up with the competition, you’ll want to make sure you’re sending holiday emails with content your subscribers want this time of year, like great deals on your products. After all, people expect to spend money this time of year – but they also hope to save some along the way.

Don’t have a physical product to offer? This is the perfect time to provide discounts on intangible gifts like online courses, ebooks, checklists, templates and more.

Last December, crafter and small business coach Lain Ehmann held multiple holiday promotions for her subscribers. This included a “12 Deals of Christmas Gift Guide,” as well as a discount on her online crafting event that kicked off in January.

By doing so, Lain was able to create gifts out of both educational content and physical products.

Be specific in your subject line

According to a report pulled by our team of data analysts, the top 100 words that generated the highest email open rates specifically related to the content within the email.

If a professional photographer included the word “photographs” in their subject line, for example, that would have a higher open rate than a subject line that included more generic terms.

While being descriptive and specific can up your open rates, you’ll also need a unique angle to make your emails stand out from the rest.

For example, if you plan on featuring a 50 percent discount on an online course, make sure you mention the course in your subject line. Only including “50% off!” might not convince your audience that your email is worth opening, especially if they find an offer on something else they want.

By sharing more specific details around the promotion, however, you give your readers more of a reason to open your email.

Check out this Thanksgiving-themed subject line from kitchenware retailer Sur La Table:

“Thanksgiving Stuff-a-Tote Event – Free Tote + 20% Off Everything Inside”

By referencing “Thanksgiving” and the discount, Sur La Table describes the content of the email as well as the benefits of the deal:

To give your emails this extra edge, use words in your subject line that clearly convey the main benefit of your email.

Create a sense of urgency by referencing dates and times

The more you can emphasize the urgency or importance of buying now, the more you can influence subscribers to take action.

So how can you get your audience to feel this way?

By referencing dates, times, or season.

In the report mentioned above, our data analysts also found that the top 100 pairs of words with the highest open rates were related to time (e.g., Week 1, December newsletter). So by referencing the idea that either the holidays are quickly approaching or a specific sale is ending, you can motivate your subscribers to take action.

Crafting retailer, Michaels, recently sent out an email promoting an early Black Friday sale, which included the following subject line:

“1-Day Online – 70% Off Pre-Black Friday Deals”

By including the deadline for the sale, buyers knew they only had a short amount of time to get the discount – which then motivated them to take advantage of it.

Get festive with your email design

To pump up the holiday energy in your message, consider using a holiday email template or including design elements that convey a festive vibe.

Check out this merry message from the clothing company Talbots:

By bringing in holiday-themed colors and images (can’t get enough of those rainbow string lights!), Talbots is able to add a festive flair that accompanies the content.

The best part of all? They do so in a way that doesn’t feel like a complete departure from their brand – both the header and footer in the email maintain the standard Talbots look and feel.

To replicate this for your own emails, consider using color schemes (e.g., red, green, white, gray), templates, and images (e.g., snow, holiday lights and decor) that convey a seasonal spirit.

Be consistent

During the holidays, there are a variety of types of consumers: early shoppers, last-minute shoppers, Black Friday shoppers and so on. As a result, you want to make sure you have an email promotion for everyone.

This will also help keep your brand top of mind, which is more important than ever during such a competitive time of year.

How can you maintain that consistency? Let’s dive into our next tip…

Create a holiday email calendar

Keeping track of all the holidays (e.g., Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, Hanukkah, the New Year) can quickly become overwhelming. Creating an email editorial calendar can really help organize the mayhem.

If you already have a calendar, make sure it’s up to date with your holiday campaigns. You’ll be sending a lot of emails this time of year, so planning everything out in advance will help you meet your deadlines and create content your subscribers will love.

A calendar can also help you accommodate for the rest of your team’s time, which comes in handy if they’re helping with tasks like design, writing or scheduling the message.

(If you need a little help with planning your editorial calendar, check out this blog post!)

Start spreading holiday cheer

While you may already have a holiday email campaign in motion, it’s never too late to make tweaks along the way. The more you can make your emails stand out from the rest this time of year, the merrier the season will be for you and your business.

Have ideas on how to make your emails pop in the inbox? I’d love to hear about it below in the comments!

Can’t get enough info on holiday email campaigns? Neither can we. Download the 2016 Holiday Email Marketing Report today!

The post How to Make Your Emails Stand Out This Holiday Season appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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Holiday Marketing Without the Heavy Markup: 11 tips for seasonal marketing on a budget

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Hopefully! The National Retail Federation anticipates a 3.6 percent increase in holiday sales this year, but even the most successful small business owners can be anxious about how year-end receipts will shake out.

If you’re one of those nervous business owners, the idea of holiday marketing may seem like so much added pressure. But breathe a sigh of relief; holiday marketing doesn’t have to be an expensive endeavor. 

In honor of the seven days of Kwanzaa, the eight days of Hanukkah, and the 12 days of Christmas, we proudly present our 11 tips for holiday marketing on a budget. (We picked 11 so no holidays feel slighted and to still give you as many tips as possible.)

1. Send emails!

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing tools there is, bringing in an average of $44 for every $1 spent. Sending holiday-themed emails to your lists, then, is a no-brainer. Here are some types of messages you may want to send during the holidays:

• Sale or promotion advertisements
• Event invitations
• Seasonal newsletters
• Holiday greetings or New Year wishes
• Thank you messages

Not sure how to get started with regular email marketing? We can help.

2. Use social media.

You already have social media pages, right? (If not, it’s time to start.) It doesn’t cost your business much besides a small time investment to keep them active and updated. Use them to advertise all the deals, promotions, or events happening at your business this holiday season. Or run a countdown to a special event, using Facebook and Twitter to steadily beat the drum and whip up online excitement.

3. Make a video.

The benefits of video marketing are immense: a 76 percent return on investment, increased search engine visibility, and elevated customer trust, just to name a few. If you have the time and a mobile phone, there’s no reason not to start making videos right away. Shoot a short video or series of videos highlighting your products, services, or knowledgeable staff. Then upload to YouTube and/or Vimeo (or your own website, if it has the capability), and promote the videos on social media and in your emails. Don’t worry if your camera skills aren’t worthy of a Madison Avenue ad agency — it’s all about getting into the holiday spirit, having fun, and showcasing that small business touch that your customers love.

4. Host an open house.

If you have a restaurant or retail store, use email and social media to invite customers to an open house at your business. Serve light refreshments and showcase your holiday gift ideas or seasonal menus. Open houses are small-scale holiday parties that will put your customers and their friends in the seasonal mood and remind them that you stand ready to serve.

5. Offer a unique experience or gift.

Give away a small gift, only available from your business, to every customer who spends over a certain amount. Or raffle off an experience that customers can’t find elsewhere — a special spa treatment, a romantic dinner for two, or another treat that customers wouldn’t normally buy for themselves.

6. Offer free gift-wrapping services.

Gift-wrapping services can be a lifesaver for harried customers. Generate goodwill and foot traffic with this time- and sanity-saving extra.

7. Promote gift cards and gift certificates.

Not only are gift cards and gift certificates cash up front for your business, but when the recipients return to use them, they will most likely spend more than the amount they were gifted. In other words, it’s a win-win situation for your business.

8. Partner with other businesses.

It often pays to partner with another local business and cross-promote each other’s goods and services. For instance, if you run a catering business, and you have a good relationship with a local cleaning business, you can advertise that both businesses stand ready to serve before and after your customers’ holiday parties. Make the most of this tactic by using each business’s email and social media to cross-promote the other.

9. Reward loyal customers.

If it seems like nearly every business has a loyalty program these days, that’s because they do. Offering an incentive to repeat customers is a tried and true method of enticing return visits. If you don’t have a rewards program already, now may be the time to launch one. The Small Business Association has some tips to get you started.

10. Write a blog.

The blog on your business’s website is your place to write about anything and everything that might be of use to your customers. But it’s good for your business too: It gives you authority in your industry, it helps your business show up in more search results, and it increases leads, to name only a few benefits. During the holidays, use your blog to feature hot products, seasonal services, time-saving tips for your customers, and more. Then promote these posts on social media and in your newsletters.  

11. Visit Everything Holiday.

Everything Holiday, our one-stop holiday resource center has dozens of tips, tools, guides, how-to’s, and festive giveaways to ignite your holiday marketing while staying on budget. Need to decorate your social media pages with holiday graphics? Check. Need to plan out your email campaigns? Check. Need holiday calendars? Check. Start seasonalizing your marketing today.

Get Our Newsletter For more marketing tips, guides, and inspiration, sign up for the VerticalResponse bi-weekly newsletter. Subscribe

© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

The post Holiday Marketing Without the Heavy Markup: 11 tips for seasonal marketing on a budget appeared first on Vertical Response Blog.

Creating an Online Course 101: The Secrets to Getting Started

If you specialize in mentoring and coaching others, the geographical limitations of doing so in person can be frustrating. You want to help people, but it becomes impossible to reach a mass audience beyond your native town or city.

Last month, we shared how one AWeber customer uses email along with her Facebook community and paid ads to establish and nurture client relationships all over the country.

But the possibilities don’t end there.

This week, we’re featuring the story of Rachael Pontillo, AWeber customer and creator of Holistically Haute. 

She created an online course to connect with communities all over the world, and she shared her advice on how you can create a course of your own.

As we begin, let’s take it one step at a time.

Setting goals for your course

After beginning to teach skincare lessons and demonstrations in person, Rachael found the number of people she could reach was limiting.

That’s when she decided to try creating an online course, Create Your Skincare. It’s a six-week online course that teaches people how to create and customize all-natural skincare products for themselves and others.

Although she was initially intimidated by the idea of creating an online course, Rachael emphasized the importance of having courage and setting clear goals for the project:

By setting this positive tone, it made it easier for Rachael to stay focused and encouraged throughout the creation process.

Takeaway: Before you dive into creating a course for the first time, make sure you have a clear understanding of your goals and what you hope you and your audience will walk away with. 

Establishing your framework and researching topics

To get an idea for the type of course she wanted to create, Rachael spent time researching other courses and took notes on what she liked and didn’t like. She also reached out to the course creators to learn more about their process.

For Rachael, the goal of this phase was to create a simple framework to provide structure for her course.

Once she had a general model in place, it was time to develop content for the course. As she considered what her course would be about, she wanted to make sure it was something that would resonate with her audience.

To do so, decided to survey her audience:

As she heard their feedback, it became clear as to what type of educational content they would enjoy – and from there, the idea for her skincare creation course took form.

Takeaway: Sign up for three to five online courses and take note of what aspects you’d like to repeat in your own course and what you’d like to avoid. If you have an existing audience, consider surveying them to learn their preferred way to consume content and/or what they would like to learn in an online course. Then, create a model for your course based on your takeaways and feedback.  

Putting the pieces together and creating your course

After Rachael identified that she wanted to teach others how to create natural skincare products, it was time to create the content.

To do so, she began with her end goal (creating the product) and outlined the steps that were required to make that happen: 

Once she had her angle, Rachael used storyboards, venn diagrams and sketches to create outlines for individual course modules. Then, she turned those into slides.

By creating these outlines, she was also able to identify areas where there were content gaps that required other assets, like videos and PDF downloads.

After she decided on an outline, it was time to create the content.

Although Rachael used an online teaching platform to develop the course, she also recommended automated emails as another simple way to get started.

Takeaway: The more preparation you do to develop your course, the easier it will be to tackle. After you decide on a topic, take time to outline the specific content pieces. To create the content, autoresponder emails are a simple place to start. You can also explore third party platforms like Teachable, Thinkific or Rainmaker.

Promoting the course to your communities

Rachael drives traffic to her course in a number of ways. The first is through email.

On her website, visitors can subscribe to her email list and receive frequent updates of her latest posts:

 

While the majority of her emails are packed with helpful and interesting info for the skincare aficionado, she occasionally promotes her skincare course as well:

With this “last call” email, Rachael creates a sense of urgency and communicates the benefits of the course.

In addition to email, Rachael uses Facebook advertising, webinars and incentives to build communities and relationships with prospects, display her skills and increase interest in her course:

By spreading the word about her content and course through different channels, it made it possible for Rachael to widen her reach.

Takeaway: Leverage a wide variety of channels (e.g., email, Facebook, Twitter) to reach existing and new communities as you begin promoting your course. Consider offering free incentives and other types of content to convince people of the value of your business before asking them to sign up for your course.

Ready to create your online course?

Today’s the day to get started! As you follow the steps above, just remember to stick with it – in the end, you’ll be creating something that will help others. And that’s pretty darn amazing!

For more detailed instructions on how to set up an online course, I encourage you to use this checklist.

The post Creating an Online Course 101: The Secrets to Getting Started appeared first on Email Marketing Tips.

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Get Found on Small Business Saturday and Beyond

American Express launched Small Business Saturday (SBS) in 2010 to recognize the positive impact that small businesses have on their communities. What better way to call attention to them than by reminding customers to “shop small” and “dine small” the Saturday after Thanksgiving? Black Friday and Cyber Monday already have people in a money-spending mood that weekend. SBS simply shifts the attention from the big box retailers and online giants to the local businesses that are integral to every community.

The new tradition quickly took hold and has become one of the holiday season’s most popular shopping days. In 2015, more than 95 million customers spent a combined $16.2 billion on Small Business Saturday. With SBS fast approaching on Nov. 26, it’s never too early (or too late) to plan what your business will do to encourage customers to shop small and dine small with you. 

We’ve already written about how to use social coupons to your business’s advantage on SBS, as well as how to deploy SBS email campaigns. But how do you make sure that customers find your business when they search in their local area? And how do you make sure that when they do find you, the reviews they see are positive ones?

Here are our tips for making online listings and reviews work for your business — on Small Business Saturday and all year long.

1. Claim your online listings.

Step one in ensuring you can be found online is to claim all the online listings for your business. Many sites automatically generate bare-bones listings for businesses, but their information is often minimal and/or inaccurate. Take possession of your online listings and fill them out completely. Read more on where to claim your online listings and what to include in them.

2. If you update one listing, update them all.

Just as crucial as maintaining online listings is ensuring they all work together — featuring the same accurate information. Listings sites can include everything from your logo and photos of your business to information on hours, specialities and events. While all of this is amazing advertising, it can backfire if you don’t keep track of it. Keep a spreadsheet of all the sites that have a listing for your business. Then, when you update one site, you can quickly go down your list and update all the others too. If your business opens at 9 a.m., but Yelp says you open at 10 a.m., and Google says you open at 9:30 a.m., a confused customer is apt to go somewhere else to find what he or she is looking for.

3. Post Small Business Saturday events and specials on listings sites. 

Many of the most popular listing sites offer a way to post special events and other limited-time happenings at your business. Update these sites with details of your SBS event or promotion, so when customers find your listing, they’ll also see what your plans are for the big day. Of course, this guideline applies for any special event or happening you want to promote during the year, not just on one Saturday in November. 

 

4. Get reviews by reminding customers you’re on review sites.

It’s a huge no-no to offer payment or services in exchange for good reviews (that will get you banned from listings sites), and it’s frowned upon to ask customers to review you if they liked your service. But it’s never a bad idea to simply remind your customers that you have online listings, hopefully spurring them to give you a review. Here’s how to remind them:

• Post Yelp, Facebook, Foursquare, and other listings sites’ stickers and signs at your place of business and near your registers where customers can see them.
• Add Yelp, Google+, Facebook and other sites’ badges to your website and your emails.
• Add “Look for us on Facebook!” or similar language to your printed receipts and order confirmation emails.
• Include the URL to your top listings on business cards, pamphlets and any printed material that customers can access.

5. Reward check-ins.

Asking for reviews? Bad. Asking for check-ins? Good! Offer a special Small Business Saturday promotion, gift, or discount to people who check in on Yelp, Facebook, or other sites when they visit your business on Small Business Saturday. Their connections will see that they’ve checked in, and instantly you’ve raised awareness and visibility for your business.

6. Celebrate other small businesses.

Small Business Saturday is about all the small businesses that contribute to a community. Offer goodwill and good publicity to other small businesses in your area by retweeting and reposting their Small Business Saturday social media activity. Not only does this increase visibility for other small businesses in your area, but in many cases it results in their doing the same for you, introducing your business to their customer base.

7. Have a game plan for bad reviews.

Even the best businesses get online complaints or bad reviews once in a while. As startling and hurtful as they are, accept that they are simply a reality of being online. As such, they require a cool-headed and measured approach. Here’s what we recommend:

• Cool off first. Responding immediately often means a slapdash response, and you may say something you wouldn’t have with a cooler head. Wait a few hours or a day, and then address the reviewer in a calm, professional tone. Of course, don’t let a review fester indefinitely — try to respond within 24 hours if at all possible.
• Apologize. Resist the urge to point fingers or pass blame, even if you’re correct. “We’re sorry your experience wasn’t up to our usual standards” is a good way to start a response. Address the items you can control. Ask the reviewer to contact you privately if you can be of more assistance. In many cases, just the fact that your business took the time to read, think about, and respond to a negative review will help your business look better to other users.
• Move offline. Don’t let yourself be drawn into an escalating war of words for all to see online. If a situation can’t be addressed in one public response to a negative review, encourage the reviewer to contact you directly to reach a solution.

With these seven tips for maximizing the third-party sites that funnel customers to your business, getting ready for Small Business Saturday is a snap. Make it a great day!   

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© 2016, John Habib. All rights reserved.

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