Announcing the new national campaign for independent high streets and businesses.
There aren’t currently any planned dates to run the Magic Tenner nationally but for funded organisations, you can hold Magic Tenner on your own dates – get in touch to find out more.
Lots of fabulous £10 offers from your local independent shops and businesses, which have a much bigger impact on your town than you might think.
Our new campaign is built to show how spending £10 in a local independent can mean up to £50 going back into the local economy (based on this study from The New Economics Foundation). It really is like magic!
Following on from the hugely successful Fiver Fest, the Magic Tenner Campaign is designed to give you the opportunity to engage with your customers, to work together with your fellow local traders and make a big deal of how important you all are to making your town and high street vibrant, unique and wonderful. It’s a fight back for the little guys, and we are proud to support you.
Generating £50 from £10 seems a bit far-fetched, but it’s because most local indie businesses choose to spend their money in lots of other local businesses, so the money goes round and around your town’s economy. We’ve had some Totally Locally businesses who have over 200 local suppliers, so you see spending with them means a huge impact for your town, region or area, compared to when you spend online, with big corporates or supermarkets where most of the money goes to shareholders and central offices. (We do take into account local wages, but it is still a huge difference).
Here’s a little explanation and also real-life examples showing this effect in action in and around Hebden Bridge.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Sign up on behalf of your town or high street at the bottom of this page.
We’ll send you all the print ready files & digital stuff for your social media, plus press release etc to get your town going.
You sort out your printing (please try and use your local printer- that’s the whole point of this – then ask them to join in).
Either distribute the files to the businesses in your town so everyone prints their own posters etc, or organise a printing centrally with a kitty or calling in a favour!
- Each business creates some special £10 Offers
- Fill in the posters with those offers
Work out how many local suppliers you use – then fill in the posters with that number – this can include everything from product suppliers to accountants, electricians and even where you buy your sandwich at lunch time. Every time you spend locally you are supporting your local economy. Most people are surprised just how many they have!
Use as many parts of the kit as you like (this includes bunting, posters, big display posters price labels and more). Make a big splash.
Fill in the press & media release with your name and town name and send it to your local press and media.
Use the gifs we’ve made for social media along with promoting your offer, making sure you use #magictenner & tag @totallylocally and also tell people how many local businesses you support.
Share the offers of other shops in your town. The busier the town gets, the better it is for everyone.
We’ll be talking to national press and media, so watch out, we may be highlighting your town!
Here’s a map of the towns that took part in March 2025:
Feedback from previous Magic Tenners
Topsham
“We had about 26 shops taking part across the town. There were some who couldn’t do offers but were promoting the shops that did. Our butchers said the event was almost too successful for them, the sold an extra 900 of their own shop made sausages in the first week!”
Tadcaster
“The main positive was how it brought the town, both businesses and consumers, together.”
Mytholmroyd
“The campaign created a real buzz around town, pushing shopping local but also all businesses taking part came together. “
Ledbury
“We had a lot of customers asking about the campaign. They had seen the bunting and posters in other shops. So it was a great way to start conversations about the importance of shopping local!”
Sandwich
“Customers noticed businesses in the town are supporting each other. They are feeling impressed and having a positive reputation for local businesses.”
Hebden Bridge
“Magic tenner worked well for me to send people to other businesses with great offers … it’s a good way to support others, lots of nice joined up thinking with other businesses.”
Bewdley
“It’s been an incredible few days since The Magic Tenner Bewdley started, and on behalf of all of the local business owners taking part, we want to say a HUGE! THANK YOU! There’s been so many new faces, along with long-time loyal customers, that have come to have a look around all of the town, snap up some great offers and to shop local.”
Sandwich
“Two weeks of community.
Two weeks of independent traders coming together.
Two weeks of sharing what our great town has to offer.
Two weeks of great deals.
Thanks to Totallylocally & Daniel Friend.”
Anon
“During Magic Tenner, I realised that my business purchases from and supports many more other small independent retailers and service providers than I thought.”
Exeter
“The Magic Tenner campaign was a great way to get businesses to work together and realise the economic benefit of this.”
Bewdley
“Magic Tenner helped to bring new faces who will probably return and it drew people to come and visit for a reason.”
Comrie
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, on behalf of all the Comrie business owners, to all you fabulous folk who have made Comrie first Magic Tenner Event such a success.
And a big thank you to all the business owners who have joined in, made the event happen and humoured me about having your photos taken!
Keep your eyes peeled for details about some fabulous, festive happenings.
Buy nice things from your local businesses and keep Comrie thriving.”
CLICK TO FIND OUT A LITTLE ABOUT THE MAGIC TENNER CONCEPT >>
The Whole Totally Locally Concept runs on a couple of simple core concepts – one of which is spending with one independent business helps others too as they spend with other local suppliers and businesses. This helps your high street thrive and makes the place you live that little bit better.
This isn’t a boycott, we all have busy lives and need to use supermarkets and order online from national chains, we’re just asking for a tiny change in your shopping habits that will make you think about where your money goes.
Best of all you get the added bonus of connecting with your community, and supporting all those other local businesses that are all interconnected (the average independent business has 26 local suppliers, so each time you spend locally you support those other businesses too). Nice!
If you like Magic Tenner and think ‘My High Street could benefit from some of this Totally Locally action’ why not look at joining the wider Totally Locally Campaign?
It’s a marketing & branding kit with loads of ‘How To Do a…’ type articles, a peer to peer group where people from all over the world chat and offer advice. It tells you how to get people working together and how to include everyone, whilst p••••ing off no one (not easy with small businesses!).
It’s in over 160 towns worldwide already, so it must do something right! Just grab a brew, click here and browse!>>
To find out what offers are on in your town or high street, check out your local press, or social media. Look for #magictenner or #totallylocally or #totallylocallyyourtownname
PLEASE NOTE: THE MAGIC TENNER IS FOR INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES ONLY
THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTE DIRECTLY INTO THE LOCAL ECONOMY OF THEIR TOWN. IT DOESN’T INCLUDE BIG CHAIN STORES, SUPERMARKETS, MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES, FRANCHISES OR MLMS. TOTALLY LOCALLY WAS CREATED TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD – TO GIVE A HAND TO SMALL INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES (physical or other).
If you are a Business Group, Association, BID etc that has members and wish to run Magic Tenner in your town, that’s OK, but any independent business in your town can take part, not just your members. Our campaign is inclusive and shouldn’t be used to illicit membership in an any group. Our campaign works best when as many are involved in it as possible for a greater combined voice! If your town benefits, everyone does.
The Magic Tenner Kit
This will include the following goodies (some with your town name & social handles on):
- Posters to show how many local suppliers and businesses you work & spend with
- A template to show your £10 offer that you’ll have during the fortnight to help locals spend that tenner!
- Poster to show all the offers available in your town
- £10 price labels
- Selfie frame
- Bunting design
- Images for social media
A few photos from some of the towns that have taken part in Magic Tenner
(it has run in individual towns many times in the past).
JOIN IN, DON’T DO YOUR OWN THING
Like everything we do, National Magic Tenner is all about collaboration and showing a united front. It’s run simultaneously across towns all over the UK and works because together, we have a much stronger voice! It is why it has such an impact. It’s also run at very specific times of the year, which was done with much consultation of businesses. These are the quiet times for businesses so Magic Tenner is to help out at those times.
Due to this (and our trademark), we don’t allow Magic Tenner or the use of the name to be attached to other campaigns without our permission.
Busy times of the year such as Christmas are a bad time to do discounting or special offers, as it’s the one time where locals choose to spend locally anyway! Having it during these times it will just be lost under the weight of the general Christmas message. There are other ways of helping out local businesses during these times but Magic Tenner isn’t the best way of doing this.
Note: Totally Locally and Magic Tenner are trademarked & copyrighted so no changing bits or copying it and pretending it’s your idea. Life doesn’t work like that. Sorry.
The Magic Tenner Kit request form will magically appear here when we announce the next dates.
