• Survey of Rural Challenges
  • Small Town Speaker Becky McCray
  • Shop Local video
  • SaveYour.Town

Small Biz Survival

The small town and rural business resource

A row of small town shops
  • Front Page
  • Latest stories
  • About
  • Guided Tour
  • Subscribe
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • RSS

Holiday Marketing 8: Tell your founding story

By Becky McCray

Shopping bag labeled "Shift your shopping"We’re all using the same marketing theme this year: Shift Your Shopping. When we work together to spread the word, we’ll multiply how many customers we reach.

This week, let’s do a throwback. Tell your founding story. 

How did your business come into being? How were you founded? Who was involved in your early history?

Go dig out an old photo, the older the better. Tell an early story from your business in just a few sentences.

End by saying, “Together, we’re making a better community. When you shift just a little more of your shopping to local stores, you help us all. #ShiftYourShopping.” You can do this on Facebook or Instagram, or in print ads you’re planning to run.

Check your fellow local businesses online. Look for their founding stories and cheer them on with likes, shares and comments.

Shift Your Shopping is our group theme for holiday marketing this year. You have my permission to forward these articles to your local retailers, merchants association, chamber of commerce, downtown development group or any one else you think would benefit from them. All you need to do is list the author as Becky McCray of SmallBizSurvival.com and then let me know who you are sharing with.

 

Shift Your Shopping 2015 series:

  1. Picking your Holiday 2015 marketing theme
  2. Set your cover photos
  3. Spotlight a local business
  4. Spotlight on community
  5. Share the causes you care about
  6. Support your service providers
  7. Small Business Saturday
  8. Tell your founding story

 

  • About the Author
  • Latest by this Author
Becky McCray

Becky started Small Biz Survival in 2006 to share rural business and community building stories and ideas with other small town business people. She and her husband have a small cattle ranch and are lifelong entrepreneurs. Becky is an international speaker on small business and rural topics.

www.beckymccray.com
  • Twenty Years of Small Biz Survival
  • Local Products Make the Best Swag
  • The End of Year Checklist for Small Businesses

November 30, 2015 Filed Under: entrepreneurship, marketing, ShiftYourShopping emails, shop local

Wondering what is and is not allowed in the comments?
Or how to get a nifty photo beside your name?
Check our commenting policy.
Use your real name, not a business name.


Don't see the comment form?
Comments are automatically closed on older posts, but you can send me your comment via this contact form and I'll add it manually for you. Thanks!

Trackbacks

  1. Holiday Marketing 10: Introduce your people says:
    December 14, 2015 at 6:03 am

    […] Tell your founding story […]

    Loading...

Howdy!

Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.

We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.

Meet our authors on the About page.

Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.

If you would like permission to re-use an article you've read here, please make a Reprint Request.

Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.

Partners

We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses. Logo with "Shop Indie Local" Move Your Money, bank local, invest local Multicolor logo with text that says "Global Entrepreneurship Week" Save Your Town logotype

Best of Small Biz Survival

A few people shopping in an attractive retail store in refurbished downtown building.

TREND 2025: Retail’s Big Split: what small town retailers can do now

99% of the best things you can do for your town don’t require anyone’s permission

Three kids in a canoe

Get started as an outdoor outfitter without breaking the bank

A shopkeeper and a customer share a laugh in a small store packed full of interesting home wares.

How to get customers in the door of small town and rural retail stores

Rural Tourism Trend: electric vehicle chargers can drive visitors

Wide view of a prairie landscape with a walk-through gate in a fence

Tourism: Make the most of scant remains and “not much to see” sites with a look-through sign

More of the best of Small Biz Survival

Copyright © 2026 Becky McCray
Front Page · Log in
%d