What is SupportTheBerkshires.com?

It is an initiative to support Berkshire County and Southern Vermont businesses during these hard times. We want to create an awareness of how incredibly important it is for all of us to support local retail shops, restaurants, service companies, non-profits, etc.  

What is the goal of this initiative?

The main goal is to educate people on how important it is to support our own businesses. Studies have shown that buying local keeps money within the community, four times as much as buying from a chain store. Local businesses and service providers pay local taxes, they hire local people and they are our neighbors. We are just trying to make sure that everyone is aware of how important it is during these trying times to consider buying local first.  

How will you do that?

We are creating a FREE website that houses an interactive directory for users to find stores, restaurants, services and more by city/town or region of the county. These profiles will provide information on hours of operation, services available, links to their websites and social media pages, and much more.

We have a number of businesses and organizations in Berkshire County that have signed on to underwrite this initiative. The site will be a FREE opportunity for businesses, agencies and service organizations to publicize their services.

The site will be up from November 1, 2020, until October 31, 2021.  

How will you market this?

We have partnered with a number of chambers of commerce and business associations that will help us get the word out on their websites and through email promotions . We will also:

• - Promote this site heavily on our own iBerkshires.com website that gets up to 1.3 million page views per month,
• - Place billboard ads throughout the county.
• - Use Facebook and Google marketing campaigns
• - Provide posters to local businesses to put in their shop windows promoting the initiative.
• - Record podcast interviews
• - Post articles on what local businesses are doing to survive and thrive during these challenging times.

Why is this different from current chamber sites and national sites?

There are a number of reasons why this effort is different from other initiatives/websites.

1. This is a non-member site and FREE to any business in Berkshire County and Southern Vermont for one year. At that point we will assess if a site like this needs to continue.
2. It is strictly a LOCAL site and will not have any type of rating system or comments section. It is a one-stop shop for information using a database format that will be continually updated as needed.
3. This is not just an online initiative. There is a strong offline marketing effort in conjunction with the online effort.  

Why should we create a FREE business profile on SupportTheBerkshires.com?

1. It’s a FREE opportunity to promote your business and services in a database driven format that will allow potential customers from commercial to consumers looking for your products or services.
2. Help people to get to know you and your business. SupportTheBerkshires.com allows you to upload photos, business hours, special Covid-19 updates and much more.
3. Connect with your customers. List all of your most important web links like your web page, promotions, review sites etc.
4. It’s a one-stop local Search Engine.

If you are a business who is interested in providing information about the products and services that you provide, just go to www.SupportTheBerkshires.com and sign your company up for FREE!

Why should we participate as a partner, sponsor or business profile?

COVID-19 has already hurt a number of local businesses and has the potential to drastically impact the local business community in the next six-12 months. We all need to come together to provide any and all assistance to businesses in our community! We hope you join our initiative and help Pay-It-Forward.

Contact us at 413-663-3384 for more information on how you can be a part of the SupportTheBerkshires initiative.