Otley Launches Their Biggest Sale Yet!
The team here at Otley BID have come up with the idea of bringing a unique and consistent Sale message to Otley, under the banner of “The Big Otley Sale”.
We are aware that businesses will have their own Sales on the New Year, but this message will help us communicate it to a wider audience, ultimately bringing people to shop in Otley who may not have necessarily thought of doing so in the past.
We are hoping that all businesses can get involved to ensure that the event is a success for everyone.
These FREE posters have been distributed pre-Xmas, and you should have already received an email from us with details of the event. The offers will also be available and promoted on the new local shopping website ShopAppy.com, so if you’d like to be involved in their FREE trial, now is the time to contact them (see the below article). The communications agency, All About the Story will be promoting the event to local and national media (see article below ‘Help Us Promote Otley Tourism’), and Visit Otley will be including it on their website and social media.
We would urge you to give this prominent space in your windows and doors, and also promote it far and wide on your own websites and social media platforms. The Otley Chamber of Trade will be emailing out the poster to everyone on their database to enable you to do this.
Let’s make this the BIGGEST and most successful Otley Sale anyone has ever seen!
Shop Online with your Favourite Otley Independents
Otley is a great town for independent shops, cafes and bars. ShopAppy.com is giving all these businesses a shared shop window so local customers can more easily find them, see what is on offer and buy from them online or in person.
This is a fantastic initiative to increase sales for our local independents, and also give people who find it difficult to shop in Otley throughout the working week, to still support these shops by purchasing online and collecting their goods from the dedicated collection point, Otley Tavern. A huge thank you to Peter Jackson for agreeing to support the retailers and shopappy.com in this way.
It is interesting to note, that WorldPay recently released research stated that customers simply found it difficult to find and access local shops online. ShopAppy.com is providing a solution by giving customers all their local shops and businesses in one place.
In the first 3 weeks of the site going live we have had 1882 unique visitors on ShopAppy.com and over 700 visitors in Otley looking at on average 7-8 pages. Over £1100 has been spent online, but most importantly we are sure, based on the high level of browsing, that this is translating into more people coming into Otley. The more businesses join the site, the better, the easier and the more convenient it will be for customers to support local businesses.
There are now 20 businesses on ShopAppy.com in Otley and more are set to join. It is great to have so much support and the site remains free until the end of February 2017. After that costs will be £5 a week and no commissions are made on any sales on the site.
As mentioned earlier, throughout January ShopAppy.com will also be supporting our Big Otley Sale so any independents who would like further exposure and extra online sales, please contact Jackie Mulligan at Jackie@shopappy.com or call her on 07920 045108.
Help Us Promote Otley Tourism
#VisitOtley
Lyndsey Thomas and James Ellis are the Directors of Marketing and Communications Agency; All About the Story based in Menston. They are tourism specialists and have been tasked by Otley Town Council, Otley BID, Otley Town Partnership and the Chamber of Trade to help promote tourism and visitor engagement in our town. James and Lyndsey want to get Otley businesses involved in the public relations and communications output and need your help to develop Otley’s stories and share your news so they can take it to the local, regional and in some cases, national media. Hopefully resulting in increased media coverage promoting Otley as a great place to spend the day and ultimately driving more visitors to the town.
How can you help? Please add them to any of your marketing lists and updates, and send them any stories you think are worth publishing. Please send all story ideas and news to theteam@allaboutthestory.co.uk.
Lyndsey and James will contact you via email on a regular basis and they promise to pop in and meet you personally at some point. Some of you will have met them already, as they are regularly in town.
Leeds City Enterprise Partnership
Last month we explained how we had recently met with the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to look at how we can attract more innovative businesses into town.
We have since agreed that they are to run an Otley Business Workshop which will be held at the Otley Courthouse on Thursday 2nd March between 8.30-1pm.
The confirmed topics are as follows, and some topics will be run by Otley based businesses who have already been contacted:
- Accountancy and tax
- Funding
- Marketing
- Social Media
- Skills
- Websites
- Starting up
- Growing your business
- Ecommerce
- Business planning
- Statutory Regulation
When the businesses arrive in the morning we will ask them what experts they would like to speak to, and we will book them in 20 minute slots.
We hope that this event will be a valuable workshop not only for the businesses involved but also a fantastic FREE learning tool for any business who wishes to attend.
Please save the date in your diary – Thursday 2nd March!
Otley Business Awards
As you are aware the Otley Business Awards enters it’s 3rd year in March 2017 and Otley BID are again pleased to be one of the main sponsors of the event.
We hope that everyone will take a few moments to nominate their favourite businesses, whether they be retailers or in the service sector, eg. printer, stationer, marketing, waste management, etc. You can nominate by visiting www.otleychamber.co.uk from 1st to 31st January.
Otley’s Christmas Trees
We were delighted to again fund the 215 Christmas trees that adorned our businesses throughout the town. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the businesses involved for helping light up Otley and making it such a festive and inviting place to visit.
