Promoting your existing town or city centre businesses and making sure you support them as best you can is a really important, but sometimes lost, part of a tackling #highstreet vacancy project.
In our work with #TheVacantShopsAcademy we often find that empty ‘shops’ dominate the narrative, media coverage and resident perceptions, and the great brand & indie #retail, #hospitality and services businesses and organisations your place does have get forgotten.
It’s another of the reasons we believe so strongly in a positive, proactive ‘place partnership’ because, while it’s bringing agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, council(s), chamber and BID where there is one together to help reduce vacancy numbers and improve the mix of uses, it can co-ordinate a ‘promote’ effort too.
That might mean:
+ Print, broadcast and social media campaigns;
+ Training to develop skills;
+ Joint initiatives such as restaurant week, activity around events in the calendar or similar;
+ Business support to build resilience.
All this is based on the idea that the very last thing you need while working hard to recruit new occupiers for empty units is to see some of those you have closing (if you can help it – and it’s important to realise there are sometimes factors beyond your influence).
Is your place doing the very best it can to ‘promote’ and support what you have. It’d be great to hear…
