Metro Creative Graphics offers ideas for stories about women’s small business month

Sep 13, 2018

October is Women's Small Business Month in North America. This presents an opportunity to spotlight women-owned businesses in your area while raising awareness about the invaluable contributions such companies make to our communities.

Consider these women-owned business facts for the U.S. and Canada:

·         The number of women-owned businesses continues to rise in both the U.S. and Canada

·         36 percent of all U.S. businesses are owned by women

·         Women-owned businesses employ more than 8.4 million people in the U.S, and more than a half million in Canada

·         Women-owned businesses thrive in every sector of the economy, but especially in service sectors such as childcare, educational services, beauty, health and food services, and retail

Keep these stats in mind when composing your Women's Small Business Month promotions.

Identify and Decide

Your first step in creating pages or a section for Women's Small Business Month is identifying the women-owned businesses in your region. Then decide how you want to present these businesses to your readers.

Will you:

·         Create a native advertising section, dedicating full- and half-page spaces to each business to introduce their goods and services, along with their personal business success story?

·         Offer a primer for women thinking about starting their own businesses, and pepper the pages with ads from women-owned businesses?

·         Develop a “women helping women” page or section featuring women-owned businesses focused on serving a largely female client base?

·         Take a human-interest angle, relaying the personal stories of female business owners, supported by advertising?

·         Compose straightforward pages of ads with a Women's Small Business Month heading?

·         Host a meet-and-greet evening for women business owners, and offer awards and recognition for various categories voted by peers? The evening could be co-sponsored by your publication and a community-minded large employer in your region. You can gain ad revenue to publicize the evening, and after the event, with a printed niche section and a companion online component.

·         Create a coupon page to offer new customers a chance to do business with women-owned businesses? Your page can suggest readers clip the coupons to shop the women-owned businesses during Women's Small Business Month.

Women's Small Business Month Project

To get you started with your promotions, we've created a Project in Metro Creative Connection. It's filled with images, photos, headings, backgrounds and spec ads for your Women's Small Business Month promotions. Access this Project by clicking here or select the Project tab once you log into the MCC Creative Library, then choose "Metro Projects" where you will see Women's Small Business Month.

Some sources consulted in the making of this sales tip:
https://blog.dol.gov/2017/07/05/get-facts-women-business-owners
http://www.wbenc.org/blog-posts/2016/6/1/top-10-women-owned-business-facts
https://census.gov/library/visualizations/2017/comm/women_owned_businesses.html
https://mashable.com/2012/08/14/facts-women-business/#zH1Cm_vM98q6
http://owit-ottawa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Facts-and-figures-on-women-entrepreneurs.pdf