Wesson Chamber of Commerce has launched a unique promotion to help local merchants, eateries and other local consumer-oriented enterprises rebuild businesses that have been slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The promotion, which the Chamber calls the "Shop Local -- Shop Downtown Wesson Project" -- features special registration boxes at participating businesses where customers and patrons sign up on entry forms and place them for a future drawing to win a gift card they can use for purchases. The Chamber is providing funds to the participating businesses to cover the gift card purchases of the winners.
The Chamber asked businesses to employ their particular promotion skills that have proven effective in their unique marketing activities to create their own drawing boxes and set them up in prominent display spaces. Those with the best drawing box promotional display received award incentives that recognized their creativity.
"Our goal in this project is to stimulate business and to encourage shopping local," the Chamber's Marilyn Britt said. "The COVID-19 pandemic forced the Chamber to cancel the annual Founders Day celebration, which is a focal point for local businesses to both enjoy a one-day sales boost and cultivate ongoing customers. The idea of the drawbox promotion is to help local businesses in a similar way.
Twenty-four businesses are participating the promotion: 51 Diner, Salon 51, Steel Outdoors/Alpha Machine and Welding, Deb's All Tangled Up, Wolf Hollow Golf Course, The Carpenter Shop, Serendipity Salon and Therapy, Mill Town Salon and Day Spa, Wesson Ace Hardware, Runyun Automotive, Park Place Ice Cream, Dump's Restaurant, Skeet's, Copiah Nutrition, Shop-N-Wash, Ashley's 51, Another Time. . . .Another Place, Mill Town Mall, Nan Drane's Massage Therapy, East End, Wilma Turnbo Produce, Discount Liquor Store, Royal Touch Massage (Bittany Thaddison at Mill Town Salon) and Dollar General.
The Chamber is publicizing the promotion on its Facebook page and sending out materials that spotlight the participating businesses and encourage customers to visit and patronize them.
The date of the drawings for gift card winners has not been determined, but the Chamber is planning a centralized event that will bring a crowd to town, Britt said.
Special to Wesson News