Gloucester, VA - Free Tools For Local Businesses No 2

This is a copy of the document before you start to use it.  It's the main template.  There are 6 spots for 6 businesses to network together and create a cooperative advertising piece.  This can be used as either a black and white version for ultra cheap printing costs or color photos can be used keeping the major costs for printing down.

Each business in the network picks a spot and fills in the colored box with their photo and then underneath the photo, put in your business information.  We used an 11 point font for the text underneath the picture and it worked out well.

  For something more colorful, we have created this next version for you.

This is the same as above only with more visual impact and a lot more expensive to print.  Would be great for window signs and plastic holder sign boards though, Also good as a free download off your  web site for others to learn more about local businesses you are involved in a co-op with.  Again, the blue section is where you post your business photo and the white box underneath is where you put your business information in.  Another sample we created to show you how it would look.

Now this first set of free tools for businesses is for Main Street businesses, many more will be following very soon for all businesses of Gloucester.  This one will prove to be the most difficult but also the most rewarding when completed.  Businesses will have to create a very strong network and work together on this project.  Any single break in the network and the project will fail.  Just an advanced warning, so choose your network carefully.

Each business will pick one boxed area and complete the area.  It then moves on to the next business to pick a boxed area and so on.  It really does not matter who has what position.  Don't fight over it.  Any position can be argued for the best spot.  Once the project is completed, the last business to complete the last box must then distribute the final project to everyone else in the network.  

Now that each of you have a final project, you can print out as many copies as you deem appropriate or as the network leader decides what should be appropriate, and give them out at your store.  You can also post it on line as a download or as an additional web page on your site.  You can send us a final project and we will both post the work and we can even host the download for you giving everyone in the network the download link.

What you are going to need.  Open Office office suite is needed to work on the project as the template file is an Open Office odg doc.  We tried to build this on the cloud but have yet to find a good host program on the cloud that gives us the design capabilities we wanted.  Great news.  Open Office is free and we like it better than Microsoft Office.  http://www.openoffice.org/  This is the link to the free download of Open Office.  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NJpRCvjyV8bzdvS1Y0T2JQMkk/edit?usp=sharing  This link is for the first template.  The one with the white background.  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5NJpRCvjyV8ZEpONHpkeDJsbVE/edit?usp=sharing  This link is for the more colorful template.  We recommend using both but printing the cheaper of the two for free distribution and the color one for posting inside your business.

Gloucester Main Street Templates 1 and 2 by Already Listed On Poster is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at Can Not remove attribution.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.GloucesterCounty-VA.com.

This is the license for the templates.  You can not remove our information from the bottom.  We are providing these tools at an expense to us, so it's only fair to require that you leave our information on the final products.  Besides, it will help spread the word for the free tools to other businesses.  The provided license helps protect each party in the network as well.  It's not no cost, but it is a very effective low cost tool to begin with.  

This video will give you an idea of the real power of the Open Office tools.

By the way, if any businesses outside of Gloucester, Virginia wants to use these tools, you are free to do so as long as you stay within the license conditions. 

Stay tuned for a lot more tools.  We have no shortage of ideas.  

For all the latest news, please click on the Home button towards the top of this site.

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Some of Gloucester's most incredible history is found on this site in detail.

Gloucester, VA Links and News – A GVLN Website.

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Gloucester, VA - Free Tools For Local Businesses Number 1

Instead of the Shop Local campaign, as far as Gloucester Main Street businesses are concerned, here is an idea for local businesses to come together on and create.  Everyone is free to copy the example above and expand on it in any way that works for you.

The above here is another example of what can be created through a cooperative.  Numerous restaurants can get together and create a one page promo piece that shows community pride, promotes tourism and promotes each restaurant.  We are starting to work on a number of pieces that you will be able to download and add your own information to it and will create multiple promotions, working as a community information service as well as promoting your own business.  Some will be time sensitive while others will be all year round.  You can use anything you think will work for you.

  As these are developed, we will teach you how to use them for maximum advantage and at a very low cost.  Much lower than other forms of advertising.  The pieces will all be designed for anyone to use.  The new tools will be licensed under a creative commons license so that no issues should occur.  How inexpensive will some of these new pieces be?  Whatever your time is worth while others are strictly a printing cost per page.

  We kept thinking about how bad we thought the Shop Local campaign was for local merchants and as we cried out about poor leadership under the Shop Local campaign, we saw the need for leadership to happen somewhere.  So we are going to take that position and help you at no cost to you.  You decide if you want to participate.  We also do not care if you are a small business or a big box business.  If you think the tools we give you will help you, then participate.  If not, no hard feelings.

  We will be posting the new tools for download on a regular basis, so you will have to keep coming back to see the new offers and decide if you want to use them.  We will try and use the same heading for new tools with updated numbering.  This is number 1.  We will also discuss newspaper ads and show the advantages to cooperatives and how to get into a cooperative possibly for free.  

  Networked together we can make a serious impact for both local businesses and for the community as a whole.

For all the latest news, please click on the Home button towards the top of this site.

Have a news story? Submit it above.

Some of Gloucester's most incredible history is found on this site in detail.

Gloucester, VA Links and News – A GVLN Website.

We cover what no one else will.

  

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