FIVER FEST ‘HOW TO DO IT’ GUIDE
A guide for Shop & Business Owners
The Totally Locally £5 Message has captured the imagination of so many people.
They get it. It makes it easier for them to shop locally.
They don’t feel overwhelmed and don’t feel that they have to boycott their supermarket or the big shops.
So they do it. Then they start to think more about their town.
Fiver Fest adds massively to that message.
It makes it easy for people to say “I’m going to spend my £5 to support my High Street”. And it shows that you as a business appreciate their custom – because you have put on a great offer for them.
It has had such an impact in almost every place it has been run. And people like to find new things. And they feel less intimidated if they know they can go and just spend £5 instead of worrying that everything will be really expensive in your shop.
Fiver Fest works even better if it’s tied into a food tasting / demonstration etc in your shop or, a treasure trail / map of all the offers. Lots of towns have found this really boosts the uptake of Fiver Fest.
AN OPPORTUNITY…
This is not about just selling £5 things. It’s an opportunity for you to get people through the door who haven’t ever stepped foot in your shop, or who haven’t been for ages. What you do when they get there is up to you.
Don’t worry if you don’t sell a lot of your special offer. It’s not about that (your offer may not be right for everyone, or they may already have one).
Just notice how many more people come into your shop, how many are talking about the campaign and how much press coverage you get.
YOUR OFFER(S)
Offers should be something with a £5 spend to tie in with the £5 message (don’t use discounts like £5 or 5% off), something discounted from a usual price of at least £7/8, but the bigger the discount the better! Businesses not on the high street such as services, fitness etc can offer introductory services to get new clients on board. Make the offer for something brill, not just old stock you are trying to shift.
You are giving people an excuse for them to explore your town and find out about all the great shops that are there. So make it a brilliant offer! The better it is, the more you will sell, but the more people will think about your shop in the future as somewhere to get good quality, interesting stuff. Some shops even change their offer as they go along, or have a few different ones from the start.
Think of it as an investment into advertising your business. It’s that simple.
GET ARTY!
Some create fab Fiver Fest window displays, bunting, banners, A-boards and other artwork, that’s great! Don’t forget to tag us on social media or use #fiverfest so we can see and share it!
TAKE A PHOTO
A nice group photo of your Totally Locally team holding your Fiver Fest posters will be great to post online or use for local media (see our included template press release). Individual businesses can promote their own offers by taking a nice smiley photo holding up their offer posters or just pictures of their offer posters and products. Some of these can get very creative! The more eye-catching the better and don’t forget to include #fiverfest when they are posted 🙂
NATIONAL FIVER FEST NOW RUNS OVER 2 WEEKS
We feel that the fortnight works the best, as it gives people more time to engage (and Fiver Fest Fortnight sounds nice) so whenever we can, it will run for 2 weeks. This gives it lots of time to build during the fortnight and word to spread!
You can get access to the files for your town, edited by us ready for you to print, by submitting the form here (please submit this again even if you have taken part previously).
We ask you to promote offers from shops around you too, print them out and put them on all the shops’ counters.
This means you are all promoting each other, and people find out about places they may never even knew existed – and one of them could be you!
PEOPLE WILL TRAVEL TO YOUR TOWN if there’s lots of offers from loads of different shops.
So by highlighting other businesses in your town you are persuading people to come and join in. It’s about creating a sense of exploring your high street. The big picture makes a bigger impact.
MAPS
A Fiver Fest Map, possibly done by a local artist, is a brilliant thing to pull the whole thing together, as a list of all the offers in any format. Here’s Teddington’s & Stockton-on-Tees’. See here for some more examples.
IF YOU ARE AN INDIVIDUAL SHOP
If you are an individual business, and your town isn’t doing Fiver Fest but you want to join in – we have some generic posters that you can add your business name to.
On the Application Page there is a link during each Fiver Fest for posters that individual businesses can download and use.
When posting online make sure you use the #fiverfest hashtag so others see your offer(s)!
BUNTING
Do you like bunting? Of course you do, everyone does! There is also a printable design for bunting available to use for Fiver Fest – you can download this from here.
BORING STUFF
Strictly only independent businesses can take part (no large chains, franchises, national charities etc), the general rule is that if someone says they have to check with head-office first, Fiver Fest is probably not for them!
Please don’t edit or amend these posters to remove or tinker with the logos on them. The only editing you should be doing electronically is to add details of offers into the spaced provided, thanks muchley!
Totally Locally and Fiver Fest are trademarked so it would be very naughty to copy what we’re doing here and pretend it’s your idea.
