Marketing Case Study:
Downtown Beaufort Merchants
Marketing for Beaufort South Carolina’s Downtown Merchant Association and community First Friday events
Shining the Spotlight on Beaufort, SC’s Downtown Art and Shopping District
The mission of the Downtown Beaufort Merchants Association (DBMA) is to promote the downtown area as a blend of shopping, art, dining, and lodging through organized promotions. DBMA initially reached out to Tucker Marketing Group to help bring more awareness to their monthly community event, First Friday; but after a thorough assessment, we discovered the need for much more.
Improving Visibility in the Community
One of the first strategic goals would be to improve Downtown Beaufort Merchants Association’s visibility in the community by showing positive growth in the downtown district where previous efforts from other organizations had fallen short.
Our team started by utilizing the biggest asset available, the DBMA member base. This included a number of well-known, popular downtown businesses willing to open their doors (and wallets) to generate a continuous buzz downtown through cooperative marketing. We also created membership brochures and collateral to help strengthen the internal communication between the merchants and the DBMA board.
Pivoting during Covid
When Covid first threatened to shut down the world, our team worked with our clients like DBMA to step up communication with the public and downtown customers regarding the closure of all stores and restaurants in Beaufort.
During Covid, we worked with the DBMA to create and promote Virtual First Fridays offering an at-home version of the popular monthly street party, First Friday. This special online version featured streaming videos of merchants, contests, and giveaways.
As the Covid quarantine was lifted and downtown merchants began to reopen, our team worked with the DBMA board and the City of Beaufort to boost public sentiment and promote awareness.
Website and Marketing
We created a new professional Downtown Beaufort Merchant Association website as a marketing showcase for downtown businesses and First Friday. It included an interactive map and a separate web page for each merchant. This proved to be a big advantage for many merchants as their DBMA page received top Google rankings, well above their own store’s websites.
Other aspects of this marketing project included public relations, ongoing social media advertising, and graphic design. Tucker Marketing Group’s impact resulted in a 3 year campaign for First Friday, and the event is still running today.
