Thirty five local independent businesses – from Japanese restaurants to ice-cream parlours, to olive oil retailers to psychologists – have so far taken up the News’ offer of a month’s free digital advertising, with the paper giving away over £14,000 of advertising to date.
The scheme was launched at the start of the coronavirus crisis, with owners Chris Mullany and Kevin Quinn deciding they wanted to try to help other local small businesses, with trade falling close to zero over the lockdown period.
And with new inquiries coming in every day from desperate local business owners, they have committed to continuing to give away free digital adverts for as long as the crisis continues.
“We’re a small business ourself, so we feel your pain – and we want to try to help ensure that the lifeblood of south London survives and thrives beyond this difficult situation”, said Chris.
“Each business gets 75,000 page views over a month, with these free adverts taking the place of revenue-generating national advertising on our digital network. And it is 100% free of charge – our designers are even creating the adverts for each business and then we upload and run them.
“Every time we go on our sites and see all those free adverts, we get a kick from feeling we might in some small way be helping them see this through – we really hope so.”
If you run an independent local business, you can find out more about the scheme HERE
