Digital Main Street is pleased to announce that GetintheLoop has been selected to offer its mobile marketing solutions to the hundreds of businesses of Kensington Market BIA, Riverside BIA, Lakeshore Village BIA, the Eglinton Way BIA, the Broadview Danforth BIA and the Beach Village BIA through the Community Collaboration Program this winter. The program has the goal of onboarding 240 main street businesses businesses (40 per BIA) to the GetintheLoop platform and 50 have already come online. Funding for this pilot is made available through the Digital Main Street Future Proof program.
GetintheLoop’s technology connects local shoppers to local businesses by providing real time mobile offers and promotions. Users receive push notifications and emails highlighting specials, incentives and loyalty programs that are available from nearby small businesses. Participating businesses can feature both in store and online offers; promoting curbside pick-up, delivery, buy now use later, and other timely offers based on the current market conditions. Digital Main Street is supported through FedDev Ontario funding and in partnership with ventureLAB.
“The Government of Canada is pleased to support the Digital Main Street and see innovative technology pilot studies, like this one with GetintheLoop, broadening digital access to main street businesses. We are proud to work with Digital Main Street partners including Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA), Communitech, Invest Ottawa and the Regional Innovation Centres to help our innovation ecosystem grow stronger.” – The Honourable Mélanie Joly, Minister of Economic Development and Official Languages and Minister responsible for FedDev Ontario
“We believe that local businesses form the foundation of a vibrant community. GetintheLoop is a simple and effective location-based mobile marketing platform that helps bricks and mortar businesses reach local residents via their smartphones, email, and the web with relevant and timely content and offers. Shopping local is more important than ever, and our technology helps communities stay connected while promoting local businesses during this critical time.” – Chris Pinkerton, President, GetintheLoop
“With further lockdown measures now in place, customers of main street businesses are stuck at home while we weather this storm. We need more tools to get local businesses in front of their clientele throughout this pandemic and are excited to partner with GetintheLoop to help deliver on that mission.” – John Kiru, Executive Director of the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas
As main street businesses in Toronto face ongoing closures, they are looking for new ways to engage with their customers and to attract new ones. The Community Collaboration Program seeks to pilot projects that will help main street businesses discover innovative ways to expand their reach. The pilot runs until March 2021. We encourage interested businesses to contact their BIA to learn more.
About Digital Main Street
Digital Main Street is a program that helps main street businesses achieve digital transformation. The program is built around an online learning platform, structured training programs, and our Digital Service Squad, a team of street-level team members who help main street businesses grow and manage their operations through technology.
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association on Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. Digital Main Street is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Microsoft, Facebook, Intuit QuickBooks, Square and Yellow Pages. A $42.5–investment from FedDev Ontario and an additional $7.45 million from the Government of Ontario brought together TABIA, Communitech, Invest Ottawa and the Ontario Business Improvement Area Association to expand the Digital Main Street Platform in order to support more businesses to go digital as a response to the impacts of COVID-19.
About the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA)
The Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) is a not-for-profit umbrella organization working with the 83 Business Improvement Areas within the City of Toronto, who in turn represent more than 40,000 business and property owners.
About FedDev Ontario
For more than 10 years, FedDev Ontario has worked to advance and diversify the southern Ontario economy through funding opportunities and business services that support innovation and growth in Canada’s most populous region. Learn more about the impacts the Agency is having in southern Ontario by exploring our pivotal projects.
About GetintheLoop
GetintheLoop is a local marketing platform that powers a growing network of over 4,500 merchants, shopping centres, BIAs, and chambers of commerce. Making it easy for restaurant, retail, hospitality and service-based businesses to create and publish real-time offers, promotions and experiences while helping consumers explore, discover, and shop local, wherever they are.
About ventureLAB
ventureLAB is a leading technology hub located in Markham in York Region, Canada’s second largest tech cluster. At ventureLAB, we grow globally competitive tech titans that build-to-scale in Canada, in three key areas of focus: hardware, health, and inclusivity. ventureLAB has enabled thousands of tech companies to scale, and our portfolio of companies have created close to 4,000 jobs that have raised over $200 million in investment capital to continue their growth and scale.