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…
We walk and drive by small businesses every day. We go in their doors, make purchases and continue on our way without another thought. We depend on small businesses. They fill our need for products and services, and we expect them to be open on a regular basis to meet our needs (and sometimes we…
This first appeared in our weekly email newsletter, A Positive View of Rural. Even though I love local business, I’m about ready to ban “shop local.” Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, I’m something of a shop local champion. So why am I ready to get rid of “shop local”? Because I’m afraid it has…
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…
Guest post by Michele Payn-Knoper Sensationalism sells. Civility lacks sex appeal. Besides, do those ‘city folk’ even care about rural businesses? So why even make an effort to build bridges when contentious issues arise? Simple. It’s called interdependence. Let’s look at bridging the gap from an agricultural viewpoint. People require food. Businesses depend on people for…
In January, I spoke in Norfolk County, Ontario. It’s a rural county with several small towns and lots of farms, and a beautiful coastline. They sent me probably the best speaker-preparation packet I’ve ever received. Looking at the Official Map and Local Food Guide, the local recipe booklet, the Ontario’s Garden brochure and much more,…
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