Written by Happy National Small Business Week! Here at mHelpDesk, we’re proud to support small businesses and help them run more efficient and successful businesses.
In honor of National Small Business Week this week and the month of May being Small Business Month, we’ve rounded up our top four tips for promoting and celebrating your field service business to your local community, customers and employees.
1. Get Social
Social media is buzzing for Small Business Week and Small Business Month. Celebrate your business and the contributions of entrepreneurs and small businesses across the country by joining the conversation. It’s a great chance to promote your business and gain some visibility.
In your social media posts, you’ll want to use these popular hashtags: #SmallBusinessWeek, #SBW2019 and #SmallBusinessMonth. Need some ideas on what to promote? Share your story, like how you got started or how you got to where you are now. You can also educate your customers on the role small businesses play in the economy by sharing the latest stats, like how small businesses employ more than one-third of the nation’s labor force or 59 million workers.
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) is also hosting its annual National Small Business Week (NSBW) Twitter Chat on Friday, May 10 at 12 PM EST and is inviting small businesses to join and share their tips on starting and growing a small business. Consider taking part and joining entrepreneurs and industry experts across the country. If you’re new to Twitter chats, here’s a great write-up from Socialert on how they work and how they can help build your network while creating brand awareness at the same time.
2. Increase Your Local Ties
Not involved with your local Chamber of Commerce yet? Now is the perfect time to evaluate whether you’d like to join. Like the Small Business Administration (SBA), your local Chamber of Commerce, which is dedicated to helping promote your local business community, will likely be holding events for Small Business Week and Small Business Month. Similarly if you live near an SBA office, you may consider attending one of their events to meet and connect with other local small business owners.
Another idea is to partner with other small businesses in your area by helping to promote each other or running a Small Business Week promotion together. There’s a special bond and camaraderie among small business owners and you might be surprised at how many businesses you reach out to will want to collaborate. While it’s not absolutely crucial, it also might be helpful to work with businesses that complement your services or businesses that have similar audiences to maximize your reach and engagement. Either way remember to play up your local business angle in your promotions.
Finally if you’d like to improve your local marketing strategies and ensure you show up in search for people local to your area, consider improving your presence on the biggest and most important local business directory sites. This week or month is as good as any to get started or to evaluate your current approach to maximum traffic to your website.
3. Treat Your Customers
Small Business Week is a great time to reach out to your customers and thank them for their contribution to your business and success. You can treat them to some company swag or a small gift. Even a nice message on a handwritten card or a photo or video from your team that you email or share on social media would go a long way. Be sure to call out that it’s Small Business Week and that you appreciate their loyalty. For most people, this will be a nice reminder of their support for a small business in their local community, which can also help keep you top of mind for future jobs or when their family and friends ask for referrals.
You could also consider running Small Business Week promotions for your loyal customers, new customers to get them in the door, or both. This could be in the form of discounts on your service or a contest or giveaway. Whatever you decide to do, make sure to promote it on all your channels (i.e. website, email, social) to increase awareness and maximize participation. If you run a giveaway, one strategy could be to reward more entries the more people share it on social media. This will spread the word while promoting your business. You could also think about extending your promotions to the entire month in honor of Small Business Month.
4. Thank Your Team
It’s widely said that employees are the backbone of any company, but the saying rings even more true for field service companies, especially those with 20 or fewer employees. Field service business owners know that the office staff, technicians and managers they have and how they work together can make or break their business. Therefore Small Business Week is a great time to acknowledge your team’s work and efforts.
Some ideas include a team lunch or dinner, a nice gift or team-building activity or offsite (we love this list from Hubspot). You could also consider closing up shop early so your employees can get a headstart on their evening or weekend. Your team will appreciate the gesture and it will likely boost morale. Finally sending out a survey to your team would be a great way to gauge employee satisfaction and understand what areas you might need to focus on.
Will you and your team be celebrating or promoting Small Business Week? We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a message below.
Don’t forget, we provide tips and advice for field service businesses and small businesses every week here on our blog.
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Last modified: May 13, 2019
