Well, I might be stretching it a bit, but you never know...

note: the following press release was issued by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs in relation to a contract recently awarded to Glerin through a competitive bid process. Both Downtown Westfield Corporation and Main Street Vineland received grants to work with Glerin.

Main Street New Jersey Awards District Branding and Digital Design Service Grant (Westfield)

TRENTON, NJ –The Main Street New Jersey program administered by the state Department of Community Affairs (DCA) today announced that Downtown Westfield Corporation has been awarded a District Branding and Digital Design service grant. The grant will allow Westfield Downtown Corporation to create a new brand for its district, as well as a specially designed website developed by Glerin Business Resources, Inc. of Halifax, VA.　

Through the Main Street New Jersey program, the DCA partners with 19 local Main Street nonprofit organizations throughout the State to reinvigorate traditional downtowns and neighborhood business districts. They all share a common goal of improving their commercial districts to help make them better places in which to live, shop, work, and do business. Over the past several years, Main Street New Jersey has included more services related directly to small business and business district branding to help traditional commercial districts market themselves more effectively.

About 10 years ago my husband and I were at the Farmers Market in Roanoke, Virginia, when I noticed a cardboard sign proclaiming "Halifax County Produce." I remarked to him that it was a good possibility that the produce wasn't even from the county, but since Halifax County didn't have a brand or seal for farmers' use, customers would have no way of knowing.

That day was in the back of my mind for years as I continually saw similar situations.

There are lots of Shop Local sites around, but the online store we recently launched for Virginia's Growth Alliance is a bit different.

This groundbreaking project, funded by Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, provides a free platform for businesses in Virginia's Growth Alliance economic development region to sell physical and digital products online, bringing support to local businesses on a world-wide scale.

• Buyers can purchase from several vendors in one transaction.
• PayPal distributes proceeds directly to each vendor.
• Vendors have full control of all of their products, including pricing and shipping.
• Vendors can create discount codes for use exclusively in buying their products.
• VGA is providing all setup, training, and presence on the website free of charge to vendors.
• A directory of currently 1200+ businesses is included, as not only retail sales are "shopping.”

A 5-Step Recipe for Creating Successful Marketing Campaigns

There are so many marketing tools and platforms available today, we find that clients are often overwhelmed and don't know what to use and when to use it - much less how to actually create a marketing campaign or plan.

We like to keep things simple, so we created our Sandwich Marketing™ concept to help you break it down into steps.