Ratings help your customers decide. They help customers decide which product to buy, but more importantly, they help customers decide whether to buy at all. Online rating sites have shaken up almost every business category. You can adapt that idea in your business whether you sell products in a downtown store, services online, or something…
I talked to a small town Chamber of Commerce director. She told me how much she hated their current website. She was eager to get a new one, but replacing it would involve a committee, and bids, and approvals, and a long and expensive process. You don’t have to be a Chamber of Commerce to…
As small-business owners know, a business needs customers coming in the door to survive. But a common fallacy is that customers will flock to your store just because you open the doors. Building a customer base is a huge challenge, but it is reality. Even with a great product, you need to let customers know…
Photos are a critical promotion tool for your small business, and visuals remain a top trend in tourism. If you’ve been scattering your online photos from Facebook to TwitPic to Instagram, now is a good time to look at what has changed with Flickr. With 1TB of storage space for your photos, Flickr now gives…
If you are a small-business owner, your marketing effort typically takes one of two paths: You do what you always have done or you try a variety of things but question what, if anything, is making a difference. Understanding what makes an effective marketing plan is not easy. And then the development and implementation of…
Here’s an idea from Milwaukee that any small town or rural region could copy: Downtown Dining Week. Downtown restaurants are offering a special rate, lunch for $10, and dinner for $20 or $30. That keeps it simple. My town of about 5,000 people has a downtown sandwich shop, a lunch counter at the drug store, and…
Two special weeks honoring small business are coming up: Small Business Week and Independents Week. Both are basically U.S. celebrations. Either one could be a good tie-in for your small town business. (If you know of special small business celebrations in other countries, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.) June 17-21, 2013, will be…
This one is especially for the downtown businesses. Standing in downtown Waterville, Maine, surrounding by big crowds for the Memorial Day parade, Marc Pitman tweeted in frustration: The marketer in me is going nuts. Hundreds of people here downtown. WHY AREN’T BUSINESSES OPEN!? Selling coffee, anything for foot traffic! — Marc A. Pitman (@marcapitman) May…
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.
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.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers