A free, local service offering businesses advice and support for online marketing is experiencing a flood of calls this summer as many stores and restaurants go after digital customers.
Ben Frisch runs the Digital Service Squad servicing South Georgian Bay and has had 40 businesses register for the service in July this year compared to 15 during the same month last year.
“There’s definitely been an increase in support requests, and it’s shifted … there’s a lot more urgency involved,” said Frisch.
His work involves a digital audit of a businesses’ current digital marketing and online presence.
“We look at their website, their social media, and how they’re performing in searches, and we put that against a list of best practices,” he said. “We give a pretty extensive report with a list of best practices and how they compare and we provide a summary of recommendations.”
The Digital Service Squad is available at no cost to most businesses in the South Georgian Bay area. Frisch was hired on a one year contract in May 2019, but his contract was extended through funding from the County of Simcoe and Town of Collingwood after COVID hit.
“The town and the county really saw a lot of benefit in the program and the supports we’re offering to business owners as part of a recovery plan,” said Frisch. “When the economic shutdown first hit, it was eerily quiet … Slowly, things started to build up and people realized e-commerce is something they needed to investigate.”
He said he’s helped business owners with varying levels of existing digital marketing and online presence. Some already had an online store and several social media channels, others were starting from scratch.
Luke Anderson, co-owner of Gibson and Co. (cafe and bar), took advantage of the Digital Service Squad recently.
Gibson and Co. already had a strong social media presence, but they used the support of Frisch to launch an e-commerce site where they started selling food and alcohol online for delivery.
Anderson said he and his business partner had plans to open a location in Honey Harbour, and pivoted the plans to focus on e-commerce.
They have since opened a cafe in Honey Harbour and have been able to employ all their Collingwood staff between the two locations. They also shifted to retail sales, offering delivery of wine not otherwise available at the LCBO.
“It was helpful to have the outsider perspective [from the Digital Service Squad],” said Anderson. “There were things they saw as important that we didn’t see … it made us think outside of the traditional box of posting on Instagram.”
Anderson had support, specifically, in making his e-commerce website pop up in more searches.
He is also submitting an application for a $2,500 grant toward digital marketing, another program available through the Digital Main Street program. The Digital Transformation Grant program was also extended due to COVID thanks to some funding from the federal government. It is available to many businesses in Ontario, and it’s something Frisch has been promoting to all the businesses who call the Digital Service Squad for help.
“For me, it’s great to see something we can actually use to better our business,” said Anderson. “It’s a clear direction on how it’s going to help small businesses.”
One more province-wide initiative Frisch said is helping local businesses is the ShopHere program, which involves Digital Main Street staff setting up free Shopify e-commerce stores for any business in Ontario - including home-based businesses.
“They have a whole team of people building Shopify websites for free for anyone in Ontario … they’ve just been cranking them out. It’s pretty cool,” said Frisch. “I love being able to tell people this is a free service.”
He and Anderson encourage Collingwood and area businesses to reach out to the Digital Service Squad and to take advantage of the Digital Main Street programs.
“This was something I might have rolled my eyes at before,” said Anderson. “But I found it worthwhile once I’d gone through the process.”
Frisch said due to the increased demand for the programs, reaching out and applying for the grant earlier is better.
“There’s only so much money to give out,” he said. “I think, right now, it’s incredibly important that they don’t wait.”
For more on the local Digital Main Street services, visit the South Georgian Bay Small Business Enterprise Centre website here, or the province’s Digital Main Street website here.
