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How any business can be part of downtown events by going mobile

By Becky McCray

Haley, Jamie and Karlie hand out ice cream from their mobile ice cream cooler

Rather than sitting at a booth all evening, Haley, Jamie and Karlie from Umpqua Bank walked around and made people happy during the First Thursday event in downtown Colfax, Washington.

 

When you hold events downtown, the businesses that aren’t located downtown sometimes feel left out. There’s one bank not in downtown, that figured out a great way to participate in the First Thursday fun in downtown Colfax, Washington.

They could have done what other groups are doing and set up a booth on the sidewalk and handed out their advertising items and talked to people. They were smart, though, and didn’t do a booth. They went mobile.

The bank has an insulated cooler. They filled it with ice cream bars, popsicles and frozen treats. Then they put it on a wagon and pulled it around the event, handing out cool goodness.

Was it effective advertising for their business? I can’t say, but I can tell you it was effective community building.

Here’s your assignment: figure out how you could be a part of the next downtown event by going mobile. 

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About 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.
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October 29, 2018 Filed Under: Best of, community, entrepreneurship, marketing, rural

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