Small Business Marketing Tips: Awareness Days and a free awareness day planner

To inspire and help UK small businesses we’ve created a free downloadable Awareness Day 2021 Planner. A free social media marketing tool for small businesses to help plan their social media strategy and create engaging content.

Awareness days can help your startup or small business have an impact, build a community, raise awareness of causes you care about and charities your business donates to.

One of the good things to come out of 2020 was that more of us started to use our platforms for good, raise our voices and speak out on the issues that matter most to us and our communities. And consumers now want and expect businesses to do the same, startups and small brands need to show their personality by speaking out about issues that truly matter to them

Awareness days and events can therefore be an excellent way for sole traders, entrepreneurs, local and small enterprises to show their support for causes close to their hearts, and charities they donate to.

To help small businesses use awareness events in their marketing strategy we’ve created a free downloadable Awareness Day Planner. A free marketing and social media planning resource for any sole traders, local enterprise or SME.

Download, print up and add any other awareness days that fit with your business. Visit the websites of charities you support to find out relevant days.

Awareness events have been around for years, created by organisations including many UK charities as a period of time to raise awareness of an important issue. With the hope that they will mobilise people to take action, promote and commemorate the cause. In the past, it was common to see a small brand jump on the bandwagon, and produce a last-minute ‘panic’ social media post with a couple of references and a hashtag. Even though this is often done with the best intentions, this can come across as lazy, at worst insincere. But now that brands and small enterprises are integrating purpose into their business they can align with awareness events that genuinely fit with their brand values. And that is the golden rule - BE GENUINE.

If done authentically, incorporating awareness events into your brand's marketing and social media strategy can also boost engagement and help a brand to reach their goals.

Here are five simple tips to help you get started with your campaigns:

1. Be genuine: Stick with awareness days that align with good causes close to your heart
2. Be Creative: Pick one to three a year, no more, and give yourself time to create a memorable, authentic campaign.
3. Give back: If you don’t already, pledge a donation to a relevant charity via our Work for Good platform, and use the awareness event to publicise your giving.
4. Craft Stories: Show your brands personality, use the day to make an emotional connection with your followers, tell your story. Tell them why your brand feels it is important to highlight the awareness events. Why it is special to you.
5. Collaborate: Partner with like-minded small businesses that are giving to the same charity, or have the same core values as you. Think about working together on a campaign to reach more people. hare campaigns, reach more people.

We hope you find the Work for Good awareness day planner useful.

To pledge a donation to a charity that aligns with your small business please visit our website www.workforgood.co.uk