There is no better way to welcome a new business to your community than by encouraging potential customers to patronize it. And one way to do that is by staging a “cash mob.”  You can’t do it for yourself, I’m afraid — but it’s a great gift to help organize one for another business, or all the shop and restaurants in your area.

What is a cash mob? It’s not crowd sourcing, which is a way to help finance a business through many investors.  A cash mob is a one-time event that helps bring a little money, but more importantly a lot of attention, to a business. It is ideal way to promote a new store, but it can be used to draw attention to an existing business that needs a boost.

Dane Buy Local, which is our shop local organization here in Madison, WI, recently staged a cash mob to celebrate its new web site (take a look). The idea behind a cash mob was to demonstrate support for a local business by showing up and purchasing from them: cupcakes, in this instance, from Cupcakes-aGo-Go. A three hour window was set for the cash mob, and the folks from Dane Buy Local were undoubtedly on hand to talk about the group during that time.

There is an organization that can help you organize and promote a cash mob, if you think this idea would work for you.  Cashmob.com even has a locator map on their web site showing cash mob events around the country. This site suggests a cash mob that covers a shopping area rather than an individual business: participants are asked to bring $20 and to spend it in locally-owned establishments during a certain time period.

To quote the Cashmob.com, “Cash mobs provide small businesses with both support and a much-needed infusion of cash. By encouraging the community to frequent small businesses over larger chain stores, cash mobs create a memorable reminder of how important local businesses are to both the economy and the community.”

At an event in Madison last fall, participants met at a locally-owned credit union, made two stops at shops to spend their $20, and then had the option of joining others for a pizza dinner at an area restaurant.

Social media is essential in promoting this type of effort, which is only successful (and fun) if a significant number of people participate. I encourage you to take a look at the tips offered on the Cashmob.com site for planning your event. For some examples of cash mobs around the US and elsewhere in the world — including Facebook pages set up to promote these events — check out the similarly named site called Cash-mob.com.

In order to maximize the effect of a cash mob, make sure that you get as much media coverage as possible. It’s not the cupcake purchase, or the $20 spent, that makes a cash mob a success — it’s the attention the event draws to the importance of supporting locally owned businesses.

Happy Retailing,

Carol “Orange” Schroeder