Digital Main Street

Digital Main Street (DMS) is a program focused on assisting main street small businesses with their adoption of technologies. There are three parts of DMS that may be of interest:

ShopHERE - Creates Shopify online stores or integrates e-commerce functionality to your existing website. Available for independent small businesses and artists at no cost. Small businesses with less than 10 employees (or 25 for restaurants) are eligible for this program.

Digital Service Squads - Digital Service Squads (DSS) are teams of trained specialists who meet with small businesses, at no cost to help them improve their online presence, including developing a Google My Business profile, enhancing their social media presence and providing support for basic website and e-commerce set-up. Complete the form to set up a meeting with a St. Catharines DSS member.

Webinar Sessions – The St. Catharines DSS will be hosting digital marketing webinars on January 20th, 27th and February 3rd 2021. Register now to gain insight on transforming your business digitally.

• January 20th at 10 a.m. 
  Digitally Transforming your Business - How to be a part of the evolving world of marketing
  Hosted by Andrea Connelly-Miele
• January 27th at 10 a.m.
  eCommerce: Why it’s important and which platform is right for you
  Hosted by Sarah Scott
• February 3rd at 10 a.m. 
  Success with Paid Ads on Social & Google
  Hosted by Britney Conlon

Find out more about the Province-wide DMS initiatives at: https://digitalmainstreet.ca/

Meet the Squad

Andrea Miele

“I believe that small businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit in St. Catharines are what make our main streets vibrant and walkable. Now more than ever, we need to make our main streets 'digitally walkable' and that means helping these businesses reach their full online potential. I'm looking forward to working with our main street business community and helping them to achieve these goals!”

Andrea has experience with social media management, email marketing, Google analytics, SEO, as well as event management and planning.

Contact

amiele@stcatharines.ca
289.219.0873

Britney Conlon

"I am so excited to continue this type of one-on-one work with small business in
St. Catharines. Looking forward to helping more businesses get online and help them continue to grow. Online / digital accessibility is more important than ever before!

Britney graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce in Digital Marketing from Fanshawe College and has been supporting small and large businesses throughout the Niagara Region in roles such as Marketing Specialist, Social Media & Event Coordinator and Advertising Coordinator. Britney has experience with social media – organic and paid; copywriting; SEO; Google My Business; event planning; email marketing; Google Analytics; Google AdWords and monthly reporting.

Contact

bconlon@stcatharines.ca
905.327.1499

Sarah Scott

"I'm looking to support small businesses and help them grow by sharing my expertise and experience with digital marketing tools."

Sarah is a recent Brock University graduate from the Business Communication (Honours) program with 3+ years experience at a local small business with a focus on ecommerce and social media management with specialization in women’s apparel and accessories.

Contact

sscott@stcatharines.ca
905.323.5657

About Digital Main Street

Digital Main Street (DMS) is a program focused on assisting main street small businesses (MSB) with their adoption of technologies. Through a partnership with FedDev Ontario and the Province of Ontario, grant opportunities are available to enable this digital transformation process. The Digital Transformation Grant (DTG) program will provide funding for training, advisory support, and contributions to main street small businesses looking to increase their capacity through digital transformation.

DMS Programs

Digital Transformation Grants

Learn digital skills and apply for a $2,500 grant for your business.

Applications have now closed.

Digital Main Street is a digital “how to” guide and program to help you grow your business. The program is now supported as part of a partnership between the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario.

The objectives of the Digital Main Street – Digital Transformation Grant program are to:

• Provide main street business owners a comprehensive plan to guide their digital transformation.
• Provide main street businesses with the digital literacy skills they need to execute their digital transformation either through a do-it-yourself approach and/or being a smart consumer when purchasing these services.

ShopHERE powered by Google

Have an online e-commerce website built for you for free.

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of having an online presence to sell goods and services. To address this need, Digital Main Street is collaborating with Google, Shopify, Mastercard and Microsoft to build and optimize online stores for small independent businesses and artists in just a matter of days.

As part of the program, businesses and artists will receive:

• Choice of an online store customized with their information, branding, logo, etc.
• Hands-on assistance setting up and launching their online store.
• Training to support their online store, including topics such as digital marketing, shipping and inventory management.
• Access to free tools to help support the launch of their online stores.

Sign Up

Future Proof

Detailed deep dive to support business transformation.

Future Proof assists businesses with identifying new markets, pivoting business model, and developing and implementing a deep digital transformation plan.

The program is meant as a detailed deep dive to support businesses that require support in either transforming their business model or developing and implementing an advanced digital transformation plan.

Building on valuable COVID-19 support measures from the federal government, and layering niche, added-value on to existing main street business programs and services, this new program will help ‘future proof’ our small business’ and drive recovery. It will ensure main street firms are well equipped to maintain clients, jobs and revenue in any economic storm, and continue to operate and grow in any climate.

Learn More

Successes

All Figure

All Figure is using a Digital Transformation Grant to implement a search engine marketing and social media strategy to help drive more traffic to its website and bricks-and-mortar store.

{Pocket}CHANGE

{Pocket}CHANGE used a $2,500 Digital Transformation Grant from Digital Main Street to give her website more than just a facelift. The grant helped her improve her website’s customer experience making her website easier to navigate and easier to find, which has resulted in more online and in-person sales.