A month ago I was working on rebranding Victory Designs including a new logo and website. While on the logo and working with different fonts and an image idea that incorporates both design and photography. I had a few ideas. This came to a stop when I started getting messages from small business owners via Instagram asking me if I could post that they are open and that Westport has turned into a ghost town. I had to do something and after thinking for a quick moment I decided to start a list. Of course, that list grew to the other towns a well.
I really didn’t know what I was going to do, how to get information. I decided to write a note and post it on Instagram. I woke up the next morning to my social media accounts blowing up. Everyone was grateful that I was willing to help. Of course, I had some hick-ups like when the internet went out. I thought there was some type of outage someplace, come to find out the modem and router decided not to talk to each other for some reason which lead me to update the list on my phone for a day. I had an idea of how I could let my followers know who was on the list, however, with the internet being down I was not able to send a document from my computer to my phone. I ended up writing handwritten notes saying the list was updated, with the date and time and a thank you to the businesses I added.
I received a note from my contact with Catherine H. saying she loved the idea that I was doing handwritten notes it made her feel as if she wasn’t the only one going through this time. Because of that note I received, I continue to write notes to let everyone know the list was updated.
My next challenge was how do I continue to let everyone know who is open. Again, I had some ideas. One was a daily themed list i.e. who was offering discounted wine, pasta specials, pizza kits, etc or doing like a featured business ad. I wanted the businesses to know they had my support, and I can relate to their situation and decided to go with the feature.
I wanted the template to stand out. I was aiming for one of those light-up open signs. I had a few fonts in mind, but I liked the one I went with because it was the closest I could find to my vision. I used the template space to use for any messages, any type of photos. I also have a high standard for the type of ad I created. I didn’t want the businesses to feel that I put something together. At times it was a challenge with the photos and information they gave me. I did make it work. I was strict with their contact information. I had a few businesses that wanted to be on other templates and I had to tell them no, it goes against the policy of my pages. I when you look at the Finding’s pages, you very seldom see a Fairfield information on the Westport page. That’s when I decided to share the surrounding town’s post as a story. For example, Westport’s story was shared with Fairfield, Weston, Wilton, and Norwalk.
What I liked about doing these type of ads, is it allows me to showcase my creativity. I went with the feature over the list for that very reason. I felt having two lists, would be too many lists and for social media, I wanted to mix it up as much as I could.
At the time the process was a challenge. Information was changing rapidly in the beginning when restaurant owners struggled to decide what to do, how to operate and change the business model they always knew to something new and out of the ordinary. I listened to them as they talked, as they expressed their concern, and did whatever I could to do help them. I had to do some organizing, rearrange somethings as information was changing. Was it challenging? Yes, but once I started I couldn’t stop. From time to time I did have to take a break from updating the lists or doing the ads for a day or two.
The week that COVID-19 hit Westport, I had a bunch of open houses already on the open house list. By Thursday, I ended up contacting the realtors I work with to make sure they were still having their open houses. I had a handful of them cancel before I exported the document. It was a weird week, to go from my usual gathering information for the open house list/weekly link round up to changing roles to finding out who was open and operating vs who was closed.
I thought it was sweet that a handful of realtors I work with sent me messages asking me how I was doing making I was okay during the beginning. They recognize the work I have done for them since 2018 and know how hard I work to help spread the word.
The last month was one I was not expecting nor was prepared for. However, I did make it work. The amount of gratitude for the lists and the ads was something I never imagined. My goal was to help, and I did just that. I am still plugging away designing ads and will continue to do so until things go back to normal.