New York-based financial services company American Express launched the Small Business Saturday campaign as a way to help local businesses recover from the crisis by increasing their sales.
The goal of this marketing strategy for banks was to help small business owners find a space to sell their products during Black Friday.
Black Friday is a time of great shopping at major retailers like Wal-Mart and Macy's, and Cyber Monday is a time of great discounts at major shopping sites like Amazon.
Small Business Saturday falls immediately after Black Friday and guatemala whatsapp number database encourages shoppers to visit small businesses in their city instead of going to big box stores.
Amex provides an interactive map that labels local businesses that accept American Express as a payment option, as well as other promotional materials. Customers and small businesses spend a lot of their time and resources promoting this event, helping to increase its visibility and effectiveness each year .
Financial marketing strategy
For the campaign, the social network Facebook was chosen as the nerve centre from where small businesses could download all the promotional material to place at the point of sale, from posters to QR codes.
In addition to Facebook, other platforms such as Foursquare, YouTube and Twitter were used. The hashtag #SmallBusinessSaturdays was used on this network. American Express invited entrepreneurs to sign up to receive $100 Facebook advertising credit .
What were the results?
Small Business Saturday has been a huge success thanks to American Express. In 2011, the campaign achieved its most ambitious goal by getting the Senate to declare Small Business Saturday an official day. This marketing strategy was able to spread across the country to encourage spending in small businesses .
In 2012, consumers spent an estimated $5.5 billion at small businesses, according to Fortune. In 2015, that number nearly tripled to $16.2 billion. In 2016, approximately 1.3 million small businesses participated in Small Business Saturday, along with 95 million consumers.
American Express offers a number of business credit cards geared specifically toward small business owners. It supports this community in a number of ways, such as the American Express Open Forum.