Shop-local campaign extended as pandemic relief project

The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade is retrofitting its #ShopLocalColorado holiday campaign into an ongoing campaign to spotlight and support the state’s small businesses.

The original campaign was established to encourage holiday shopping at local small businesses, especially in light of the effects of COVID-19. Local communities retain 70% of revenue when shopping occurs locally, compared with 40% when shopping nonlocally, the state Office of Economic Development and International Trade said in a press release.

The ongoing #ShopLocalColorado campaign will equip smallbusiness owners and economicdevelopment leaders with socialmedia content and tools to encourage the shop-local messaging across the state. Each month, the campaign will refresh content and work in collaboration with holidays and national opportunities to spotlight small businesses. February’s campaign will focus on small, Black-owned businesses in observation of Black History Month.

“The pandemic’s economic interruption has really highlighted the importance of supporting and shopping our local small businesses,” OEDIT executive director Betsy Markey said in a written statement. “As a former small business owner, I know how important local participation is to business success and sustainability.”

The ongoing campaign serves as a toolkit resource on oedit.colorado.gov. The toolkit will offer social-media copy, graphics and links to information for audiences across the state. With more than 611,000 small businesses representing more than 99% of Colorado businesses, small business is a driving force in the state’s economy. Encouraging Coloradans to shop their local small businesses is a way to invest money back into local economies and in the communities throughout Colorado.