Fall is a time for changing leaves, but also a time for your business to change and grow. Just as the trees have new food (sweet, juicy apples!) your small business can benefit from new ways to attract, engage and sell to your target audience! There are plenty of opportunities in the fall to increase revenue in your business with these fall advertising ideas. A great place to start is with fall advertising ideas, which will help you think outside the box and explore fresh avenues that are good for your bottom line. Use this blog to drum up a marketing strategy for the busy season.

Participate in Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Small Business Saturday

Small business owners can participate in Black Friday or Cyber Monday to get more sales during the autumn season.

Many small businesses shy away from the annual shopping extravaganza that is Black Friday, but it’s a great opportunity to get in front of customers who are looking for deals.

The National Retail Federation expects Americans to spend $70 billion during the Thanksgiving weekend including Thanksgiving Day. That’s an increase of nearly 3 percent over last year’s spending. Two ways to do this are:

• Offer discounts on certain products. Everyone loves a good deal. Create a special offer during Black Friday Weekend, discounting your products. Customers will appreciate the deals and they’ll be more likely to purchase from your store over other stores that don’t offer discounts.
• Bundle up. Additionally, if you have leftover inventory or products that aren’t selling, you can bundle them up so you can sell it for a higher price as part of your fall marketing campaign.

Don’t forget to use your existing audience like your email list to notify customers of your upcoming special offers.

Donate to a local charity with sales on a certain product

Donate to a local charity with sales on a certain product. This is a great way to attract new customers and show that you care about your community. It’s also a great way to boost brand awareness and increase customer loyalty. You could offer to donate 10% of the proceeds on all purchases of the product(s) you choose.

Another way to donate is by hosting a “Buy one, give one” event. This is when you sell one product, but also donate another product of equal or greater value to a local charity.

Partner with another business for a joint venture or collaboration.

Partnering with other businesses can be a great way to reach more people and expand your customer base. But if you do it right, it can also help increase profits: You get in front of new customers and they get in front of yours.

You could create a joint venture like a course or workshop where you share resources or even split the profits from an idea that wouldn’t have been possible without both parties’ involvement. Or you can pool resources that you have sitting in your Dropbox or Google Drive and create a bundle.

If you plan on doing a collaboration, don’t forget the legal aspects. You’ll need a collaboration agreement that details:

• Who’s contributing what
• How payments are being split
• How long the collaboration will last
• How intellectual property regarding the collaboration will be handled
• How each party’s individual intellectual property will be treated
• How to terminate the agreement

But a collaboration can be as simple as exchanging coupons to reach a wider audience and have little time.

Hire an influencer to talk about your brand

If you’re looking for an effective way to get exposure, consider hiring an influencer to talk about your brand to their social media followers.

Influencer marketing is all the rage these days. But the influencer needs to have your target audience or else you’re wasting your money. Just like a joint venture, you’ll be able to reach new customers and increase awareness of your company by using someone else’s audience.

And don’t enter into influencer marketing without an agreement. Your influencer agreement needs to address:

• When they’ll be posting
• Usage rights
• Exclusivity
• Payment (how and when)
• Whitelisting
• FTC disclosures
• Indemnity

Personally, I’ve found that YouTube influencers have a much more engaged audience that trusts them and are willing to buy. But the opportunity for your product to go viral is more likely on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram.

Get offline, and sponsor a local event

The fall season is the perfect time to get offline, and sponsor a local activity to help with sales and awareness. Get involved by sponsoring a booth at the event or providing free samples of products. You can reach out to local businesses and organizations in your area, or volunteer your services to help out. In addition to being great for your brand, you’ll also be helping the community!

The following are just some ideas of events you can get involved with:

• Local festivals
• Business expos
• Concerts/bands/performances

You’ll have an opportunity to meet potential customers face-to-face and build brand loyalty among those who already know about you.

Repurpose a digital product with a fall theme

This is a great time to repurpose an existing digital product. If you have a course, a podcast or an ebook, you can use that as the basis for your fall campaign. To do this, you need to think of how your current content can be turned into something that will be useful in the fall season.

For example, if you have a course on how to make homemade jams and jellies, you could add in some recipes for pumpkin butter, apple pie filling and cranberry relish. These are all great fall food fall recipes that would work well with your existing material.

If you’re a service provider who works with businesses, you can create something around Black Friday. If your forte is email, create Black Friday/Cyber Monday email templates.

You can even go back to old marketing emails or blog posts to see if there’s something you can pull and put a fall spin on it.

Launch an affiliate program and have affiliates promote and market for you

This is one of the most popular ways to get more exposure for your business.

Reward your affiliates with a percentage of revenue for each sale they make. This can be done through a variety of methods, including cash, discounts or free products/services.

You can also incentivize your affiliates by upping the commission during the holiday season. Why not put the money into another small business instead of pumping it into ads for a corporation?

But when using affiliates, don’t forget to have them agree to your affiliate agreement. Affiliate agreements should include:

• Commission amounts
• When commissions are paid
• What items are associated with your affiliate program
• They are an independent contractor, not an employee
• Termination
• Content guidelines

Add videos to social media accounts

Video is king now. Is it a requirement? No. But the algorithms will push out your content if you use video.

Use video as an explainer tool. If someone asks a question about your company or product, answer them with a short video instead of just text. You can make social media posts

Create informative videos for customers who are struggling with something specific. Educate your customers, and bust objections at the same time by answering common questions you receive.

Make product demos for every single product you sell — not just for big-ticket items like cars or appliances but also for small-ticket items like makeup or clothing items at retail stores. People love seeing products being used before they buy them; imagine how much more likely they’ll be to buy something if they see someone else using it.

I also like to use video when answering questions from customers who email about more information. This gives it a personal touch and will get the customer closer to the buy button.

Create a giveaway with an attractive prize

If you’re looking for ways to get customers involved in your business, consider creating a giveaway with an attractive prize. The prize should be relevant and enticing to your target audience, but you don’t want them so phenomenal that they’re out of reach for most people.

For example, if you’re trying to increase sales of your product or service, offering a free vacation may not be the best choice. Instead, offer something more affordable that most people can afford, such as a gift card or other item from your store.

Additionally, you can use software like UpViral, and anyone who enters the giveaway can share your giveaway with their audience and they’ll receive another entry for sharing.

Your giveaway needs to have offer rules including:

• Giveaway dates
• The prize
• When the winner will be chosen
• How to enter the giveaway
• Contact details
• Minimum age to enter

Create a blog post around the topic of fall with affiliate links

Another fall advertising idea you can utilize is creating a blog post about the season. Add affiliate links within the content so that when people click on them, they’re taken directly to the company, and you’ll earn a commission. where they can buy whatever it is you’re promoting at no cost to you. This works well if you write blogs about fashion, food, parenting, etc.

Don’t forget to add your affiliate disclosure when you write a blog post, letting readers know that you’ll get a commission if they click your link. You can get one for free inside The Legal Edit, where I give away 3 legal templates for your website.

Takeaway: The fall season is the perfect time of year to beef up your online advertising efforts, and these tips will make it easy to attract new customers.

My hope for this post is that it will help jump-start your own brainstorming for upcoming holidays, and in the process spark even more ideas. There are plenty of other ways to advertise in the fall online and offline, but these are particularly well suited to small businesses on a budget during the fall season!

The upside to the holiday season? More sales! The downside? People taking advantage of your promotions, an increase in refunds, and chargebacks. Find out more about selling online legally inside Sleigh Your Sales, a legal guide on how to legally prepare for the holiday season.

All of the agreements I mentioned are inside of The CEO Legal Loft Membership. Inside of this membership, you get access to all resources on The CEO Legal Loft, plus exclusive agreements like affiliate agreements, VIP day agreement, and more.