Top 5 Shop Local Campaign Ideas

 

Every economic developer wants their community to be vibrant and their small businesses to thrive. But why is it easier in some locations than others? The main reason is culture. That elusive little word is often the difference between the local business environment succeeding and failing. 

In places that are born and bred off the back of local products like Portland, ME, a shop local culture is ubiquitous in the fabric of every food or retail shop you walk into. But that foundation was laid from somewhere - decades of emphasis on local sourcing and production. Generations now inherently understand its importance to the way of living in the area. If your community does not have as fortunate a starting point, the best way to create a public understanding of why it is good to shop local, and to set a perpetual flywheel of support in motion for it, is to kindly assault the public with programs that adjust the psychological tenor in favor of a shop local culture. 

It's in this spirit that we would like you to consider these Top 5 Shop Local Campaign Ideas to rev up your community. 

5. Cash Mobs

A Cash Mob is typically a single day event that highlights a local business where people from the community go and spend as much as they are comfortable in an effort to support the local business and provide a healthy injection of revenue. Different communities throw cash mobs for different reasons. It could be for a business that is struggling, or it could be thrown for a local favorite that citizens want to provide extra appreciation. Either way Cash Mobs are a tried and true way of providing a low maintenance event that people can participate at their leisure, and serve as a device in which to educate the public on the benefits of spending locally. Because it sounds weird and interesting usually the "parrot" effect is strong because it will bring people to ask questions about what it is and others in the community who already know will do the work of educating those asking. 

4. Buy Local Hashtag Campaign

As social media has exploded in recent years hashtag campaigns have grown in popularity too. Hashtag campaigns are awareness campaigns that encourage the public to spend locally. For example, a social media slogan like #buylocaltoronto can be used for a few months to try to get the community to purchase local items and share the hashtag. While we like that the hashtags are easy to place in marketing materials and can have some staying power, unless there are big marketing resources behind them their effectiveness can tend to be a little flat. We feel it's best to tie in prizes like local product and t-shirt giveaways, bumper stickers, and other rally-able materials that can draw in and complement the social sharing component. 

3. Shared Retail

Shared Retail is not a new concept, but it is one that is growing in popularity thanks to the surge of indoor retail markets across the U.S. You may be familiar with the likes of the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, or the international Time Out Markets in Lisbon (which my wife and I loved when we visited in 2019). There is even one that launched in Hartford, Connecticut in 2019 just 20 minutes from our company's headquarters called Parkville Market touted as the state's "first indoor food hall". While these examples are of a more "heavy lift" variety, Shared Retail doesn't need to be an expensive venture. 

Back in 2013 I was part of a team that took over a vacant storefront in the downtown area for three consecutive weekends and worked with about a dozen vendors to split the rent. It provided a market where no market previously existed, activated a vacant storefront and community dead zone, and got people shopping locally. It's the perfect low hurdle investment that helps local entrepreneurs discover a market for their goods and services with very little overhead. The structure is also very flexible. It can be temporary or permanent, and can range from a couple vendors sharing the cost burden to dozens. Adapt the situation to what building spaces are available and who is interested, and develop a go-to local shopping oasis for the public!  

2. Pop Up Festivals

One of the best ways you can showcase local products is to put on a festival that highlights them. Back in 2011 and 2012 I was part of a team that launched an event we termed the Pop Up Pizza Festival. The idea of the event was to showcase what our developing downtown would be like if it were to be "popped up" for a single day. The excitement was incredible, and it drew two of the largest festival crowds in the city's history (15k and 20k respectively). Each event featured over 100 vendors including everything from clothing boutiques to restaurants and everything in between. The event not only helped produce record sales days for some vendors (many of which were brick-and-mortars), but also long-term economic impacts as festival goers had a chance to meet the businesses and organizations and try their products for the first time. 

1. Community Gift Card

Our favorite shop local campaign is, you guessed it!... A Community Gift Card. There are different kinds floating around now, but if you work with Giverrang you can have a Visa or Mastercard gift card program locked down to exactly the merchants you want in your program. The best part? The program is a 365-day shop local program. It is not a "short fuse" event, and doesn't occupy intense resources for periods of time as can be the case with festivals and brokering shared retail spaces. A Community Gift Card by Giverrang promotes businesses in the program on a free program landing page, boosts the SEO of the local merchants and coordinating economic development organization(s), and does not take much in terms of staff resources or money to launch and maintain. The more Community Gift Cards an organization helps sell, the more money it guarantees will go directly to local businesses in the area and nowhere else. Considering the historically poor ability to measure many other kinds of shop local campaigns, the Community Gift Card is a breath of fresh air for innovative economic developers looking for something tangible that goes right into the coffers of their local businesses and can have lasting positive impacts. 

Thanks for reading! If you found our list helpful, please let us know and share with your contacts.