By paNOW Staff

Still open

Website and marketing campaign launched to enhance local business

Apr 4, 2020 | 3:37 PM

From online sales to curbside deliveries, businesses are doing what they can to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sporty T’s, a clothing retail store in Prince Albert’s Gateway Mall, closed its storefront when the government forced non-essential businesses to do so last week.

“We need to be self-isolating and yet we’re trying to keep our business running so we can come out on the other side of this as a viable business,” said manager Sandra Humphreys.

It has meant finding new ways to advertise what business they can do during the pandemic.

Humphrey’s added Sporty T’s to a new website called ‘thingsthatareopen.com’. The online platform was launched by an Edmonton-based digital agency, Lift Interactive Inc. and the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group (JPBG). In addition to the website, a marketing campaign is underway to help promote businesses and organizations across Western Canada who have adjusted the way they normally operate to remain open-for-business during this time.

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“It’s fantastic. I think it’s important for our community to know that we’re still here. Even though our doors are closed, we are still here and still available. So, I can’t begin to say thanks enough to the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group and Lift Interactive for having this service,” Humphreys said.

Sporty T’s in the Gateway Mall was one of the first local businesses to add their profile to thingsthatareopen.com. (Sporty T’s/Facebook)

Sporty T’s in the Gateway Mall was one of the first local businesses to add their profile to thingsthatareopen.com. (Sporty T’s/Facebook)

Businesses can register, free-of-charge, on the thingsthatareopen.com directory. It includes business names, location, hours of operation if applicable and the new and creative ways businesses are serving their customers while respecting government guidelines and mandates regarding social distancing and sanitation.

“As a digital agency, we know that businesses – large and small – are struggling to communicate their changing responses to this crisis,” said Micah Slavens, principal of Lift Interactive Inc. “Marketing budgets are tighter than ever. Our idea was to create a strong, unified message and a central source of information that would benefit the whole community and highlight the ways our clients and other businesses are pushing through this adversity.

Lift will roll out a marketing campaign driving traffic to the website while the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group will provide media support and echo the campaign on digital and social media channels. Sponsored funding, at various levels, will help fund the ongoing promotion and management of the campaign for the duration of the business closures and social distancing restrictions.

“This is a tough time for businesses, but we’re also finding that as a community, we’re coming together to show that we are adaptive and resilient,” said JPBG president Rod Schween.

Sporty T’s is set to celebrate 30 years in business next month. Humphreys said they have no choice but to be adaptive and resilient if they want to make it there.

“We have our web store running and we’re doing deliveries in town free of charge. Transwest Air is offering limited services so we can still take deliveries out to the airport and look after our northern families and customers which make up a big part of our business,” she said.

“We are in this together. We will get through this together.”

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panews@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @princealbertnow